28 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Bacon, Bacon Making, Bacon Projects, Making Charcuterie, Pâtés and Terrines, Pork, Smoked Meats
Typically when dealing with meat heroes such as St. Fergus Henderson, St. Paul Bertolli, and others of their ilk, I stay pretty close to the road that they pave. However, once I have done something enough to be able to do it from memory, I feel comfortable making bigger choices of my own. Continue reading »
25 Monday Mar 2013
Posted in Bacon Making, Bacon Projects, Butcher Cuts, Cured Meats, Making Charcuterie, Pork, Smoked Meats
Sometimes the things I throw on the smoker are fancy and sometimes they are silly, but in the case of bacon trotter gear, the output is of maximum utility and minimum beauty. It combines two staples in my kitchen, bacon and trotter gear, into a single delicious deli container full of the actual foodstuff that makes everything better, gelatinous pork stock, amplified by the flavor that everyone claims makes everything better, bacon.
21 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Condiments and Pickles
There are times where you make something you like, in this case cured eggs, and it makes you wonder how else it can be done. Almost immediately after finishing the egg yolks cured with salt, I read about miso-curing egg yolks. A few months later when I was deep in making smoked meringues, I had a few yolks sitting around, so I made the miso-cured yolks.
18 Monday Mar 2013
Posted in Beef, Cured Meats, Making Charcuterie, Offal, Smoked Meats, Whole Animal
St. Patrick’s Day is a pretty serious holiday for my family and not in the “green beer and pass out before it is dark” kind of serious either. Every year, I tell myself that we will just grab some corned beef from the store and do it cliche and every year, I decide not to go that route. Continue reading »
14 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Condiments and Pickles
I may have some hair-brained ideas that I, perhaps too frequently, post here, but when it comes to what I like to eat when I go out, it seems that the dishes seeming the simplest hit me in the stomach heart the hardest. Whether it is the tongue pincho at Vera or the birria at Zaragoza, my favorites are not typically tweezer food. I loved Grace and like Next/Alinea a good deal, but when I visited Elizabeth, here in Chicago, in November, I was a skeptic. Iliana at Elizabeth has won me over, hook, line and sinker. Continue reading »
12 Tuesday Mar 2013
Posted in Cured Meats, Dried Meats, Making Charcuterie, Pork, Smoked Meats
There are a ton of limitations to making charcuterie in a non-commercial kitchen. There are even more when you live in an apartment in an urban area, so when you look at projects that you want to try, but have no space to do so, you have to get a little creative. I have wanted to try making speck for some time but the thought of buying and storing another hog’s leg (who in their right mind, would do that?!?) was something that I was not quite ready to undertake. I did have a jowl. While not lean like a leg, it was just the right size and it was beautiful. Continue reading »
07 Thursday Mar 2013
I am a hoarder. I admit it. In fact, I admitted it to a communal dining table on Saturday evening. Granted, the table was filled with a few friends, others known online and a few less than that, but, in my mind, the first step to solving a problem is to admit that you have one. Admitting that I hoard animal fat was the start I needed to solving the problem. Continue reading »
04 Monday Mar 2013
After a twitter rhyme regarding ham jam, I knew that I was going to try, but didn’t know when. Just before bringing last week’s country ham home, I realized that I needed to clear fridge and freezer space to make it happen. I had just a bit of some beautifully fatty country ham from Cypress left in my fridge and I had an idea of how to piece a batch of ham jam together Continue reading »
