The deadline for Charcutepalooza’s Grinding Challenge feel right between my law school finals and graduation this month. Some people go nuts and subsist on burgers, fries, and Diet Coke for all of exam-time; my craziness takes the opposite form – I get very routine-driven, work out daily, and graze on nuts, protein bars, and turkey burgers with za’atar-spiced roasted fennel. After all of this I couldn’t quite face a big hunk of pork shoulder. So, I tried chicken sausage!
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Charcutepalooza has been trucking along for four months now, and I’ve had an awesome time with four delicious challenges. OK, maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve had an awesome time with three, and an interesting time with one: I have a great talent for messing up the oh-so-simple duck prosciutto with which we started. I’ve tried twice and have yet to make a successful prosciutto. Enough of my woes, though. I’ve had enough success and gotten excited enough about this whole business that I started asking myself: Why?
Why am I doing this? Why have I gotten so incredibly into it? Why do I find it so unbelievably thrilling to get down and dirty with large chunks of meat that I devote time, money, and precious space in my under-sized Manhattan fridge to this? Why do I lavish precious time and money on expensive, intensive meat projects? Why has from-scratch deli become my hobby obsession instead of, say, knitting? You may have guessed I’m going to settle in for some philosophizing. I’m going to intersperse photos from April’s Smoking Challenge BBQ pulled pork adventures amongst my thoughts to keep you entertained. A bargain: food for thoughts.
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As I mentioned yesterday in my bagels & lox post, this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge – brining – had visions of pastrami dancing in my head within minutes. With rye, mustard, and pickles, obviously. Somehow, I made it happen.
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As I mentioned in my last post, I’m single this Valentine’s Day. I do, however, have a new relationship. With meat, and the curing thereof. Right now, I’m have serious and committed ties (for a week at least) to several pounds of beef rapidly on their way to becoming biltong – a kind of South African beef jerky.
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Some very experienced epicures and cooks, think the old-fashioned way of preparing bacon is troublesome and useless. They say that legs of pork placed upright in pickle, for four or five weeks, are just as nice as those rubbed with so much care. The pickle for pork and hung beef, should be stronger than for legs of mutton. Eight pounds of salt, ten ounces of salt-petre and five pints of molasses is enough for one hundred weight of meat; water enough to cover the meat well—probably, four or five gallons. – Mrs. Child, The American Frugal Housewife
Yes, our topic this week is bacon. Specifically, homemade bacon. Sorry, not a full leg of pork (I don’t have a barrel or room for one in my apartment). Rather, this piece of pork belly:
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