Charcutepalooza: Corned Beef and Sauerkraut

This month's challenge took a long time to do. Not because it was particularly difficult, but because way too many things such as work got in the way of doing things such as cooking and eating. But this weekend was free and rainy, so I stayed inside and made stuff.

First were these gnocchi, which were puck-like in appearance and texture. After mashing the potatoes, I added flour...more, and more, and more flour. The dough was runny and hard to handle, which made me a little overzealous with the flour. I think the problem might be the potatoes--not enough starch--and the excessive flour made the doughy taste almost too overwhelming. It didn't help that the gnocchi were big, a consequence of being fed up trying to roll the dough and spooning them and rolling them onto flour instead. Clearly, not a success, but the sauce on the other hand was fantastic: butter, sage, chantrelle mushrooms (frozen from last fall), and truffles (again, preserved from last fall). Served with a bit of pecorino and it was perfect.

I also tended to my sauerkraut. As you can tell by the label, the jar was made last week using one full head of medium cabbage. I didn't really see active fermentation, but judging from the build up of salt in the bottom of the jar, the liquid obviously overflowed due to the fermentation. I had to skim a bit of the scum off, which thankfully stayed in one big clump. While transferring it to a bottle, I tried a bit of it and found it too salty. I must remember to rinse it first before I eat it. Hopefully I do not die of poisoning.

Finally, the corned beef. A friend recently threw a St Patrick's Day party (yeah, too early. But more reason to drink excessively) and made corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes all boiled in cider. I was originally going to take the easy route and just make brined pork chops, but I liked the corned beef so much that I decided to make it. The brine itself wasn't hard: salt, sugar, spices, water, mix. Add the beef and let stand for five days. Above is a peek into the bag, since the bag is unruly and I have no pans big enough to accommodate the liquid and meat. It should be ready to cook tomorrow...hopefully it's good.

Charcutepalooza: The Bacon, Pt. 2

After a week of sitting in good amazing marinate, it's time for this bacon to get ready to be eaten! And just in time: the apartment is starting to smell like ham, which isn't a bad smell unless the smell starts to seep into your clothes and you start to get comments from strangers about your unique scent. Which is a good indication: if you start to smell like a pig, then you must be ready!

After sitting in its juice for a week, the pork has taken on the nice aroma and color of the herbs and spices rubbed into it. The mostarda sadly is hardly apparent. After a week of marinating, the sharp mustard smell is not there at all. Next time, I will have to increase the mostarda from two tablespoon to...heck, maybe the whole container. Also, after a couple of days of marinating a dark juice settled at the bottom of the pan , soaking the bottom half of the bacon. I freaked out--I thought the bacon started to go bad and the juice is its life oozing out of it. But after consulting Ruhl's book, I realized that the juice is natural, even desireable. So after a couple of days, I made sure to turn the slab over to let the top part get in on the action.

Washed a ready to go into the overn. The meat is far too thin to really hold a thermometer up during cooking, but I used it anyway and it managed to stay up.

Autoabbronzante.

Cooked, chilled, and sliced the next day. Really nice aroma of thyme, nutmeg, honey, and peppers. I was a little wary of the middle being cooked enough, but by the looks of it it's pretty darn cooked. The pink color is also very hypnotizing.

finally, fried bacon! OK, I burned it a bit, but still very good. Not sweet as expected, but smoky, with palpable hints of thyme and nutmeg. I think this would go well cooked in pasta...or just good traditional 'merican breakfast.

Charcutepalooza: The Bacon, pt. 1

Pink salt for curing finally arrived last Wednesday, so I was excited to start my weekend curing bacon for the first time. But the feeling as Saturday came nearer was more of apprehension rather than excitement. I guess it comes with making something traditionally seen or bought sealed in a packet, the production of which was a mystery to all except some guy named Oscar. I had no business making bacon, especially when I can just buy ready cut strips in the supermarket.

But after going grocery shopping for ingredients, I regained my excitement. Most of theingredients are fairly common, except I had to communicate what I want and know the words for things in Italian. But having to do so was both challenging and enlightening in that it made me realize that I actually kind of know Italian, albeit a little broken.

First, I had to order the meat. I went up to the counter and asked “se vende il stomaco di suino...per fa pancetta?” Did it make any sense? I have no clue. But the butcher said yes, and pointed me to another butcher. (It's Italy, after all.) I repeated the same request to the second butcher. A few seconds of misunderstanding and he said something like “pancetta”, picked up a piece of pork belly (which is also called “pancia”), to which I nodded in approval, and the thing was wrapped up in a jiffy. I guess “pancetta” applies to the cured as well as the raw version, unlike in the US where pancetta mainly refers to the cured and rolled type. Who knew.

Second were the spices. At first, I was going to stick to the list, but realized I didn't have any juniper berries, at which point I just said, screw it. I picked up green peppercorn in brine, which I had to soak for a few minutes to get all the acid out. I picked up thyme, not without a minute of panic: what is “thyme” in Italian? After a few seconds of looking, I decided to make it simple: thyme must be thyme-o, because everyone knows foreign words are merely English words with a forced vowel ending. And lo, I found “timo”.

I also picked up mostarda veneta. It looked like equal parts mustard and raw honey, so I decided to see if it will work. After looking it up online, I learned that mostarda doesn't actually have much to do with what we would consider mustard. Besides using mustard oil for taste, mostarda is mostly a sweet jam made of pears or quince that has an odd kick due to the spiciness of the mustard. I remembered trying something similar in Cremona, except the fruits were left whole instead of pureed into a marmellata. It's a weird combination, but after a good tasting with some crackers and cheese I decided that the mustard will go into the cure.

The preparation itself was a breeze. Since the meat was already trimmed and the skin removed, there was not a whole lot to do with it. (I could have trimmed it so that one side isn't thicker than the other, but I didn't really know what is the point of doing that.) The rest of the spices were mixed then rubbed onto the bacon. Bacon is placed in a dish, wrapped, tagged, then popped into the fridge to chill out and marinate.

Stay tuned next week, as signor Pancia gets a couple more rubdowns, roasted, then chilled for one more day before slicing and frying. I'm excited. Will it take on the sharp kick of the mustard? The sweetness of the honey? Or will it just taste like absolute garbage? We will see!