Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Charcuterie. A new food experiment.

I subscribe to this awesome blog, Lovely Wee Days which is run by three women detailing lovely recipes, their favourite things and general food adventures.  Some of my more recent fav recipes come from this site.  In their latest food adventure, Becs, one of the contributors goes on the 'Pig in a day' course.  This course is held outside of Christchurch and involves learning about changing a pig into all kinds of charcuterie (my word du jour).  They have a go at making salami and sausages, taste home made prosciutto (takes a year to make so not going to happen in a day long course) and have a delicious lunch using the host's products.

The Mad Millie people are bringing out home sausage making kits at the end of the year, and I'm really looking forward to those.  But for now, I'm going to make pancetta and bacon using the kits on their website.  I figure with homemade pancetta, along with homemade cheese and pasta, a very special meal is coming up.  Will detail the findings of my experiment!

My husband has Friday morning off work.  I'm hoping the preserving cure arrives by then - how cool to learn how to make bacon and pancetta together!
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5 comments:

  1. GiffyJune 22, 2011 at 5:32 PM

    Omnomnomnom!!

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  2. AnonymousJune 23, 2011 at 7:12 PM

    I look forward to reading about your results - my bacon is on day 3 of 4 so there's not long to go til a taste test! Becs@LWD

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  3. Make-do MumJune 23, 2011 at 8:00 PM

    Only four days to make bacon - fantastic!! I'm interested to see how long it takes to make Pancetta as I really love it and so it will be an awesome treat!

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  4. AnonymousJune 28, 2011 at 8:07 PM

    Air cured bacon will generally take up to 4 weeks to cure, brined version around 1-4 days. One of the easier ways to get started is to air cure duck breast (duck prosciutto). I've had good success with beef prosciutto, using sirloin/cure/spices/sugar and a light final smoke - total time was 5 weeks.
    Cheers
    Paul
    broughts403@gmail.com

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  5. Make-do MumJune 29, 2011 at 10:38 AM

    Thanks Paul. Duck Prosciutto sounds amazing! There is clearly heaps to learn about curing meats, so I'm off for a bit of internet research! The cures still haven't arrived - between earthquakes and ash clouds courier parcels from Christchurch are not getting out very quickly!

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