Photo by Donna
Only yesterday did I feel I'd completed all the work on the pig that had begun Saturday, 12/6, as I rewrapped the cooked pig's head preparation (French Laundry style) and took the bacon and hams out of the smoker. Still I would have liked to have done more, made more sausage, done a pate (next week for the holidays, as a pork pie). But I'm glad to have a soppressata which I'm drying in a mini refrigerator set to its warmest setting. It has a nice patina of white mold on it from a product that hadn't been available when I wrote Charcuterie, and have tried now for the first time, starter mold. To create mold is not the point--the point of this good white mold is to prevent the bad, furry mold from growing. So far so good.
A number of people included questions with their comments. I'll try to respond to a few here.
Dan B. and others asked can you dry-cure in the fridge? I haven't tried it but I know that a chef at Zuni Cafe did his dry curing in their walk-in cooler and it was excellent. I would think it would take a little longer and I would worry it would become too dry on the outside preventing the inside from drying. But certainly you can cure pancetta and duck breast this way if you're concerned about leaving raw meat out for weeks at a stretch. My 3# pancetta, above, has been hanging for a few days now with another 10 or so to go, so that it will take on a deep earthy gaminess. If it's properly salted, you shouldn't have a problem leaving meat at room temp. If mold does begin to form, wash it off with vinegar or brine and refrigerate.
Milo: yes, that duck breast prep is correct, it never goes above room temperature and no, there is no health risk if you start with a fresh clean duck breast.
A couple people asked about dry curing in hot humid climates. I haven't experience with that. It's probably easier than in hot dry climates, which for sausages is difficult. I would look to your culinary history before refrigeration to see how people preserved food in your area. And any salt should work, provided it's not iodized. For long term dried sausages, sodium nitrate is a must.
Dave Whitaker asks can you prepare venison as I do the duck. Sure. But use whole muscle only and remove all fat and sinew.
Kate in the NW: by all means replace the sugar in a salmon cure with maple syrup. An excellent idea.
And about curing salmon as I mentioned, Randy asked if foil wasn't an issue. Curing with salt is best done in a non-reactive material. Foil is reactive. But you only need to cure salmon for 24 hours or so, too short for anything to happen to the foil.
And thinking about a maple cured salmon has got me wanting to do it, right now! It's so remarkably easy, and what a great thing to bring to a party or set out at your own--a side salmon that you have cured yourself. It's so easy that the hardest part is buying the best salmon and slicing it thinly (which I think is really important).
Thanks everyone for your king comments about my and Brian's book.
Kansas City rube
How about Vilsack for Secretary of Agriculture?
The former Governonr of Iowa for this position wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I voted for change and when I signed the Food Democracy Now Petition.
milo
Michael, thanks for the follow up.
I still think I'd be more comfortable doing these sorts of things after reading the info about safety in the book.
Catherine
I just dry aged an elk, pretty much as you did the duck...it is wonderful. And I'm working on elk jerky flavored with juniper berries, nutmeg, black peppercorn, salt, and brown sugar. It is such a pleasure to "process" my own game. It looks like a Robert Rodriquez movie around here, but so worth the time and effort.
Danielle
Oh hey, we have our pancetta hanging this week, too! Still following your instructions, and absolutely loving how it always turns out. Our butcher gave us 24 pounds of pork belly this time, so we're making 4 pancettas at once - 2 for us, and the rest for friends who offered to chip in towards ingredients.
You can see our jury-rigged home pancetta hanging set-up in a NYC apartment living room here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/habeasbrulee/3116870488/
Natalie Sztern
MMMmmmmm - maple syrup cured salmon - mmmm...chef martin picard filmed how he once made foie gras maple syrup (via his producer and maple syrup as part of the feed) and I can only imagine the taste being a sort of 'je ne sais quois' on the tongue..
Natalie Sztern
oh and if that is not food porn, then i dunno what is...donna makes everything look so damn tasty...
wm. christman
As far as using the fridge for dry-curing pancetta...it works pretty well for me.
I use your recipe from Charcuterie for all the curing then I hang it from a custom-made maple wood frame I made from scraps in my workshop. I have done three pancetti so far with the first one hanging for 3 weeks. That one was still pretty moist and it was decently flavorful.
However, the last two have been done in a similar manner but the drying time was 6+ weeks. Wow! You get much more shrinkage and drying and the flavors are very nicely concentrated. The meat was dry-ish and fat was nicely dense. So 6 weeks is my minimum now. But in the fridge? Yep, it takes longer but it works well for me.
Btw, Chris Cosentino and his Boccalone charcuterie does refrigerated dry cures so there's some further proof.
Chris Hennes
I've found the those little thermoelectric wine fridges are great for curing small items: in particular, you can cover the glass front panel with a cloth to keep out the light, but push it aside to check on the meat without disturbing it or messing up the humidity. You can see my setup here.
Carol Blymire
Have you eaten the pig's head yet? Dying to know how it tasted!
w.
Chris: That setup of yours looks pretty awesome! Do you know roughly how much those wine fridges of yours cost? I've been wanting to invest in a set up like that and you've just proven my suspicion that a small wine fridge might be the way to go 🙂
carri
Even though we lived in the suburbs of Detroit,my parents used to do this whole pig thing and usually would split it with my grandparents or other family members. Everyone got together and the job was done mostly in a weekend. I liked making the sausage but didn't pay that close of attention to the rest...that is until one year when I was tall enough to reach a big pot on the stove with a lid on it. I must have thought it had some yummy stew or something, cause I opened that lid and stuck my nose right in it and the vision of that pig's face staring up at me bubbling away in the simmering water is one I have yet, some 40 years later, to forget! I do love me a good headcheese now, though...so some scars do heal!
ruhlman
carol, I cut a big thick medallion yesterday, breaded it and cooked it and ate it. What a fantastic use of a pig's head, far more satisfying than traditional head cheese. Headcheese is easier because you can just bung a the whole head into a pot and cook it, but this is a really elegant way of preparing it.
See Carol's nice pix: http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/2008/05/head-to-toe-part-two-pigs-head.html
What I love about it is the variety of textures and flavors, the creaminess of the fat, the gaminess of the tongue, the visually and texturally cool ears and delicious tender meat.
Chris Hennes
@w. - Re: how much the fridges cost.
I got those units on sale at Target for $225 each, and there are a number of similar models on the market in the $200 range. The one thing to be careful of is the height. Once you get a water/salt pan in there to regulate the humidity, you need to be careful how long you make your salame. When I made the Tuscan Salami from Charcuterie I made them just a bit too long, and they were very close to the bottom of the chamber (I got lucky they fit).
Cured Meats
Curing in a regular fridge is fine for thin pieces of meat like a flat pancetta or a duck breats. It becomes problematic with salami as you risk case hardening, as well as thicker chuncks of meats (bresaola).
A regular fridge runs very dry (somewhere around 20% RH).
JB
Michael, many thanks for such an excellent post (and the blog overall).
Do you have any idea if the duck breast cure would work for wild pheasant (or is that too lean)?
corey
Does curing the meat (any type really, but I'm doing duck breast right now) create any strong odors in the house? My wife is pretty adverse to strange smells and doesn't like the idea of me hanging meat out to dry in the kitchen. Right now I have a couple duck breasts in a mini fridge on the lowest setting, but would much prefer to hang them in the kitchen. Plus, I can't imagine the odors (if there are any) would be anything but pleasant (unless something goes awfully wrong). I'm almost a week in, and there's no odors in the fridge but I'm still having trouble convincing her to let my meat dangle freely in the house. And the same goes with the duck breast.
Can't wait to do more and more of this. After the holidays I'm going to town on some pork belly!
ruhlman
jb: only one way to find out! on the otherhand, that's getting a little close to chicken and i don't think i'd want to eat dry cured chicken breast.
corey:no, there should be no odors to speak of.
corey
Awesome, thanks!
Kirk
I've made the pancetta in your book about a dozen times dry curing it in the fridge with marvelous results. I now applied the same recipe to some beautiful jowls for guanciale which are curing now. We'll see in a week how well they turn out. Any other suggestions for differentiating guanciale from pancetta?
Natalie Sztern
Carol Blymire, I embrace the passion you have in the kitchen. How you could shave that pig's ears and not fall in love with it, is not only admirable but it is the steps that you take afterwards that makes me wish I had your guts in the kitchen, truly. I lack the tenacity you seem to have and kudos for all your celebrity because of it. I feel if you could venture into your pastures, then I am going to begin the new year by ignoring my comfort zone and trying new and fresh ideas that come of this blog.
I am still trying to find a fresh duck breast or even two. Vive le Quebec! Soon I'll do the salmon...
Chris Hennes
@Kirk Re: differentiating guanciale from pancetta
What do you mean when you say "differentiating"? The Charcuterie recipe for Guanciale has a LOT of garlic and thyme in it, and is quite distinctive (and it make THE BEST Amatriciana) when compared to Pancetta, in my opinion.
Foodhead
Ain't nothing wrong with dry curing in the fridge!! get yourself a humidity monitor from the hardware store, and some of the spray-able mold culture from butcher-packer (M-EK4)and your good to go. its how we get away with dry curing at our restaurant with out the health department saying anything
Carol Blymire
>>>Carol Blymire, I embrace the passion you have in the kitchen. How you could shave that pig's ears and not fall in love with it, is not only admirable but it is the steps that you take afterwards that makes me wish I had your guts in the kitchen, truly. I lack the tenacity you seem to have and kudos for all your celebrity because of it. I feel if you could venture into your pastures, then I am going to begin the new year by ignoring my comfort zone and trying new and fresh ideas that come of this blog.<<< Thank you, Natalie. And I *did* fall in love with that pig... only I fell in love with how tasty he was. 😉 As you already know, I'm a big, big fan of pushing beyond your comfort zone. Didn't used to be that way, but life was so boring when I wasn't learning (and failing). Good luck to you, and happy new year! _____we now return you to your regular programming _____
Lamar
Thanks for responding to so many of our questions, Mr. Ruhlman. Dry curing is so unheard of in modern american kitchens, it's great to have resources (both human and on paper) to turn to for some guidance.
I'm so used to the rule of "cold, cold, cold" when working with meat products, it's a real thrill to start rediscovering some of the common ways our ancestors preserved their food. To think that two hundred years ago, people would not have given a second thought to so many of these methods, and yet here I am fretting over them...it's an interesting feeling.
Kirk
Is the a guanciale recipe in Charcuterie? Perhaps in the 2nd edition? I've looked through my first edition and didn't see one or find it in the index under 'g' or 'j' for jowls. If it is in a later printing I will add it to my Christmas list straightaway.
Charlotte
Adventures in curing this fall started with the half pig I bought from a local rancher and have included a pancetta (hung in the pantry this year instead of the basement since the basement is too dry), a delicious gravlax that I'm eating right now on toast for breakfast (salt, sugar, garlic, gin, and coriander seed), and a pate put up 2 ways. For the Pate I used Ruhlman's Pate Campagne recipe as a base but fiddled with it -- I wanted more aggressive seasoning -- and then I bastardized it all by crossing it with the Terrine Jacquy recipe from Stephane Reynaud's Pork and Sons>. I packed pate into 15 wide mouth half pint jars (as many as will fit into my pressure canner) and processed them according to the directions for putting up ground meat in the pressure canner booklet. I was really worried that they'd break, and the next morning, when they cooled, I feared they were ruined. But when I checked one, it wasn't so bad. True, there was a layer of fat that had separated, but it was just a thin layer lining the inside top half of the jar. The texture of the pate was pretty good -- and once you smush it around and spread on toast or a cracker, it tastes great. And I've bought jarred terrines in France that look similar, so I don't feel too bad about the fat separation. The best part is that now I have a bunch of shelf-stable pates to give away for Christmas. Since there was more pate than would fit in the jars, I did one in a semi-traditional terrine shape (in an old Pyrex refrigerator dish) and put what was left over into a couple of half pint jars -- all in a traditional water bath in the oven at 300 for about 2 hours. The texture is completely different than the pressure canned ones -- these didn't break at all and are really lovely. So they'll go for my Christmas Eve party and as gifts to a few friends here in town to whom I don't have to ship. All in all, SO much fun! I love experimenting and like Carol, had a moment of horror when I thought I might have ruined all that lovely pork. But I didn't! And now I have something delicious and unusual to share with everyone. Happy happy.
Chris Hennes
@Kirk -
The recipe for Guanciale is on pg. 47 of my copy of Charcuterie. Through the various printings a few changes have been made, and this may be one of them. You can see my results here. It's an excellent recipe, very easy, and very quick to cure (since jowls are pretty small).
Dick Black
Maple cured salmon. Any way you could dig up a recipe Mr. Ruhlman ?
Whenever I travel to Canada, I often purchase a product called "Indian Candy" which essentially is maple cured salmon, almost "jerkylike" in texture. I have only seen it in the duty free stores in CDN airports. It's expensive.I'd love to give it a go at home.
Martin Picard's Maple Foie gras. He arranged to raise geese on maple syrup with his producer. He sent the product out to his buddies in NYC including Daniel Boulud and Eric Ripert. They found the end product astonishingly good. It was on Picard's Show , The Wild Chef.
Natalie Sztern
Did it!! Sitting in my fridge at this very moment is a piece of salmon, completely covered with maple syrup-salt mixture equal parts, fennel, parsley and dill. The mixture is quite wet, like wet sand; which I weighted down only because my surfing talked more about that than michael - so I thought I would.
my piece of salmon took 3 c sugar and 3 c maple syrup and although the salmon is almost completely covered it is not totally immersed
however I did not use tin foil but a glass dish which I covered with parchment paper and then secured it with tin foil.
Marvin
Michael, or anyone else that can answer this question: I followed the Guanciale recipe from Charcuterie and have been hanging my jowl for about a week now.
Is the fat on the jowl also supposed to be stiff? The meat is definitely stiff now, but the fat still has a little more give to it. It's only been a week, but it has stiffened up overall quite a bit. Should I let it hang for longer? How stiff should the fat be in relation to the meat? Should it all be of the same stiffness?
Dot
Ruhlman, my first thought when seeing that picture was
" Ohhh, it's Ruhlman's version of Mistletoe this holiday season"
🙂
DOT
Is this your twisted version of "mistletoe" this holiday season??
🙂
DOT
Is this your twist on the new "mistletoe"??
🙂
simon
I dry pancetta in my wine fridge, set to 45 - 50F and it works great. I just leave it on a rack, and rotate it every couple days for my own neurotic mind's sake. It develops the white crusty mold coating all on it's own. I've made the duck prosc a few times just hanging it in my living room which gets up to about 68F during the day. No problems there either. The fat drips off the meat and onto my wood floor. The wood seems to like it too. This year was the second that I made rillettes (and confit) from turkey and pork belly, back by popular demand. Haven't done any gravlax yet, I'm going to do my first on Monday night so that it will be ready for xmas morning. My first guanciale is on its way. And I'd love to try dry aging beef too. Hoping Santa brings me the kitchenaid meat grinder attachment, not just for burgers, but for sausage.
Mr. Ruhlman, thank you thank you thank you.
Chris Neill
Hope you had fun at dinner tonight. Please forgive my father if he actually brought cauliflower to dinner as I puckishly suggested to him last night; a symbol of my split loyalties to Cleveland and San Francisco. He of course does not get the reference.
Happy holidays!
trinket
I have been inspired. I now have a piece of salmon in the fridge with salt, brown and white sugar, dill and lemon zest. Mine is also weighted. I've never done anything like this. Can't wait to taste the results.
Bob delGrosso
Although I still make pancetta commercially in the rolled form that is shown in the photograph here. I am drying much more (about 75% of the total production of pancetta) as slabs because I find that the yield is much higher and the time-to-market is less than half.
The flavor of the two forms is not the same. Because the rolled form takes more time to dry, it develops a much deeper, muskier aroma than the slab variant. I prefer the former, but enough of my customers seem to prefer the "sweeter" taste and lighter bouquet of the slab version that when I consider that there is next to zero trim loss (the ends of the rolled usually need to be trimmed off due to over-hardening and mold infiltrated) there is little reason not to make it.
I suppose that I could match the flavor profile of the rolled form by slowing down the drying of the slab by ramping up the humidity of the drying room, but then I'd lose the advantage of being able to bring the bacon to market in under 4 weeks (curing time plus air-dry time) instead of 5 to 6 weeks.
I'll anticipate questions about the authenticity of slab pancetta by saying that this form is very traditional and commonplace in Italy. For whatever reasons the rolled form has come to symbolize this type of bacon in the United States, but that's not the case elsewhere.
HankShaw
Michael: I can offer a few tips to this discussion. First, you need not buy starter mold to get it going in your curing fridge -- buy a nicely molded store-bought salami (Columbus, Boccalone, Fra'Mani, etc) and hang it in with your fresh ones. That usually does the trick as the mold "jumps" to the new salumi. If that doesn't work, wash off the mold from the store-bought salami and dip your fresh ones in that water. That works every time!
On the fridge: I recommend buying a cheap used fridge on Craigslist and adding a regulator widely available at brewing shops for about $50. So for about $100 total cost, you can have a full fridge to cure in, at whatever temp you want, and you can keep white wine in the "freezer."
On wild game: This is what I specialize in (I am offering wild game charcuterie as a prize in Menu for Hope, incidentally) and I can say that pheasants are NOT good cured. They are, however, excellent smoked. And fat is not necessarily a bad thing with game. Deer living around farm fields tend to have excellent, sweet fat -- fry some, then smell and taste it as a test. Too many cooks automatically trim all fat from their game, when most distinctive flavor elements in meat are within the fat. You'd be surprised how interesting and delicious full-fatted game sausages can be. One note, however: Do not try to make duck salami using their own fat -- duck fat is practically liquid at room temperature, so it makes a terrible salami fat; I stick to making "prosciutto" from the breasts or mixing the duck meat with pork fat.
Anyway, that's my $0.02. Merry Christmas!
Hank
Bob delGrosso
Marvin
The fat takes much longer than muscle to dry properly because the little bit of water that is there is "locked up" by the fat molecules. Based on what you have written, I expect that it will take at least two weeks for the fat to be firm enough to become as firm as the meat.
Be patient. If your drying room is set up properly, the fat will firm up.
Mantonat
I've also used the Vinotemp wine fridge for aging homemade cheese, so I think I will try it with cured meat soon. The duck prociutto looks like a pretty easy first-time recipe.
I make fresh chevre and aged manchego at home and I am really surprised that more people don't try it. I purchase the starter cultures at a local homebrew shop and goat milk at Whole Foods. It's so easy it practically makes itself. The manchego takes only a little more time and temperature watching, plus the patience to let the cheese age for a few weeks. I plan on letting my next one bath in lambic for a couple of days before aging.
Patrick R
I received a copy of "Charcuterie" for Christmas from a friend so I've also had a duck breast hanging to dry as of Monday.
Corey: My wife had the same issues as you and is not so keen on having meat hanging up around the house. She has good reason though, since we have cats and I don't trust them to stay away from the good stuff.
Anyway, I found a perfect environment in our basement, where it's cool and slightly humid. And no, it definitely doesn't smell bad. You get a whiff of pepper and garlic when you walk by, which is what I seasoned it with. Can't wait to try it. A week seems like such a long time now!
Jerky and bacon are up next.
Eilish
Well, I have tried three recipes from Charcuterie on the wild pig that my husband got a few weeks ago and I have been thrilled with every one. The holiday kielbasa and sausage with poblano chile recipes turned out great and won rave reviews as an appetizer. We ate our glazed holiday ham and, though it was a little salty (my fault--left it in brine for too long) the flavor was also very good. The brining and hot-smoking did a good job tenderizing the hams, which was a concern with the wild pig. Thanks Michael! Also, you're welcome, I think the whole family is going to order your book now!
A side note unrelated to Charcuterie--wild pork makes the absolute best tamale filling ever!
milo
Michael, is your book Charcuterie still in the first edition or has it been updated?
Just curious since I bought it as a gift and it was still the first edition.
Rebecca T. of HonestMeat
Michael- thank you for the advice on our homemade guanciale. We are storing it in freezer bags in the freezer because we have 10 pig heads worth! Would you cut off the white mold before cooking with it, or just cook and eat it all?
Chris Shores
I Currently have pancetta hanging to dry. My temperature is okay at 55F but my humidity is only about 35%. It has been hanging for about 4 days and it is noticeably dry. Should I finish drying in the refrigerator?
Thanks for your help!
Ford Perry
I am curing both bacon and pancetta in the fridge now. Both are 2 1/2 inches thick (they are beautiful!) and have been in the fridge for over a week. They just don't look ready, though. The middle is still very white. I'm nervous and don't want to overcure or undercure as it was very expensive. The pancetta hasn't released any liquids, the bacon has because I used maple syrup. Do they need more salt? Or more time? What is the best way to judge when it is ready? Thanks!