A Fermented Sausage Challenge, Finocchiona

Growing up I would say I knew of 3 sausages: Hot Dogs (of the Oscar Mayer type), Polish Sausage/Kielbasa (again of the Eckrich/Oscar Mayer type) and Salami. A bit later came Bratwurst. I will admit I knew of Bologna, but never really got into it. That is still the case. Many years later I have really gotten into encased meats, and even the un-cased ones. I received my KitchenAid grinder attachment for Christmas in 2002 and began making my own. Then it was mostly different versions of brats. In 2005 I picked up Charcuterie and made several of the recipes over then next few months. Some were successes (breakfast, brat) and others not so much (peperone, chorizo). Since then I would say that I have down the fresh sausage techniques and could even judge a sausage just on the recipe alone. What I have failed to master thus far has been the fermented sausages. So when I saw the new challenge for Charcutepalooza, I decided to tackle a fermented sausage once again.

Brined, Rubbed & Smoked Pork Rack

It might be funny to announce that about eight or nine years ago I gave up on eating pork (I should note that this excluded bacon and ham). It was the chops, shoulder steaks and other boring, white, dry and tasteless stuff. It wasn't any political move, a statement or anything of that nature. I had simply had enough of the crap. It was never juicy, tasty or good when unadorned. My mother was a busy woman and had never put much effort into going beyond the basic stuff that her mother had done: salt, pepper and a bottled sauce (A1 my favorite, BBQ, etc). But in 2003 I gained my first education on what CAN be done with pork. I saw marinades, brines and aggressive seasoning bring an aspect to the other, more boring white meat, that I had not experienced. The following year I spent most of a year in Western France and got to experience even more ways of treating this fabulous meat to give me an even larger repertoire of tastiness.

Corning Beef for Pastrami

Once again a post has come about by the graces of a little free-time, a great source for local and natural meats and some nudging from that large group of fellow Charcutepalooza participants. And by a happy coincidence I was able to use a fresh beef brisket I had ordered from Slagel Farms for the third challenge of the Year of Meat. March’s challenge was to corn some beef. The verb to corn simply means to preserve with salt. It comes from the fact that the best salt to do this with in the past was a course grained salt that at some point actually looked a bit like corn.

Basic Dry Cure, Asian Bacon

The Basic Dry Cure was one of the first recipes out of Charcuterie that I attacked once I placed my first order for curing salts and such from Butcher & Packer in Detroit, back in 2006. Since then I have made "bacon" many times. Lately I started doing variations of flavoring along with the basic dry cure. The largest variety I tried was back in the jowl post. So when the challenge was posted last month I decided that I would try to improve upon some of those ideas. We talked about which one showed the most potential for deliciousness and have it still be fairly easy for some of our readers to be able to replicate themselves at home. So we decided to have another go at an Asian Bacon.

Charcutepalooza: The Year of Meat, a needed nudge.

Having been in a motorcycle accident that has caused regular discomfort to my leg, spending additional time standing about in a kitchen outside of work hasn't sounded fun, lately. Add to that a new job that has me working evenings--the part of the day I had dedicated to my blog-work--and it seems clear why our posts have been few and far between. But for some reason, when a couple eager-beaver bloggers get together and create an outlet for the sharing of ideas, concerns, sources and experiences all based on Charcuterie, I can't walk away (pun intended). That outlet has become Charcutepalooza. Organized by Mrs. Wheelbarrow (Cathy) and The Yummy Mummy (Kim), it has grown from an idea to get fellow bloggers to try their hand at homemade charcuterie to a group of bloggers nearing 300 total (the list of them is here) all wanting to try it out and share their experiences on their various blogs. The daily banter can be found on Twitter using the hash tag #charcutepalooza