Charcutepalooza challenge #11 promised to be difficult. We were warned. Right there in the book, in black and white: this is not an easy sausage. This sausage is prone to fail. And, well, it wasn’t and it did. This was our first epic charcuterie fail, and that’s not too shabby of a track record. To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to do with 3 lb. of salami anyways.

So, what went wrong?

In all of the warnings about temperature and humidity extolled in the book, there were no warnings against links touching each other while hanging. In our clever little space-saving hanging setup (which turns out wasn’t so clever), the links ended up touching at the tops (and sometimes on the sides). Every spot one link touched another molded. Yellow mold, slightly fuzzy mold, and black mold. Needless to say, black mold = bad mold (as does fuzzy), so we pitched the whole kit & caboodle.

Try again?

Oh yes, we will be conquering this sausage. We have charcute pride at stake here.

This month’s challenge was to make Duck Confit from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

Procurement

This month’s protein was somewhat hard to procure. Apparently, 5 lb. of duck legs just isn’t something Publix, Whole Foods, or even my butcher is really into carrying. Plenty of pre-confited legs were offered, as were the occasional whole duck and/or whole breast.

I hit the Internet in a frantic search. C’mon, people! Day 1 I looked at D’artagnan, and their prices seemed almost reasonable… Lo and behold, though their meat prices seem reasonable, shipping will double the list price and I’m not really into paying $60 for duck legs, especially when I know someone, somewhere has to carry just what I need.

Enter Marky’s Caviar.

Luckily, I happen to have an ace up my sleeve where “fancy” food is concerned. An ace I had almost forgotten about after finding it a few months ago. An ace I thought would be too expensive. Boy, was I happily wrong. Marky’s is awesome. I’ve been driving past it for the past few years, and at first didn’t realize it was open. The building sits behind a heavy metal rolling security fence, and most of the windows are papered or painted over. Then I saw a delivery truck. Yeah right, I thought. That’s got to be some sort of Russian mob front. No way we have a caviar store in Miami. And if we do, caviar is a bigillion dollars an ounce, so never mind there. As luck would have it, I just so happened to be sitting in the cafe across the street one afternoon enjoying my favorite Pan Con Bistec when I saw a happy family leaving with bags in tow. I immediately had to go check it out. boy am I glad I did. Marky’s is a frickin wonderland of all things good, all things tasty, fatty, gourmet, made by or for the cold peoples from Europe, or hard to find. And wonder of all wonders, their prices aren’t bad at all. Definitely on par with my favorite butcher/import market.

After traipsing around for half an hour or so, delighting in all the jams, jellies, charcuterie products, cheeses, fois, fish eggs, teas, spices, vinegars, oils, and other exotic fare, we settled on our duck. We managed to walk out with the perfect amount of duck, extra fat, and a baguette/cheese/salumi/roe dinner for under $100. Go us.

Assembly

Not terribly difficult. The duck slowly worked its confit magic while I worked nearby, drinking in the heady aroma of duck fat. Other than taking time (2 days to thaw, 2 days to marinate and 7 hours to cook), this was a breeze. Marinate, rinse, slap in your brand new shiny enameled pot, cover with fat, and roast on the lowest your oven can go for 6+ hours. Mmmmm.. Patience.

The Debut

My debut recipe for this month’s Charcuetpalooza challenge was duck tacos with a side of duck fat fried chickpeas and poblanos. I couldn’t think of anything that would balance the ducky fattiness better than green apple, and what better way to get both to our mouths at once than a taco? Tacos are awesome! Next time, I’m totally making a hash with duck fat fried potatoes. If you haven’t had duck fat fried potatoes before, they’re one of the top 10 best things on Earth.

A note about removing the duck from the fat: I’m completely sure I did this wrong. I had put the pot of confit in the fridge to set up and it didn’t dawn on me that cold fat is hard. Like, really hard. Bend your fork if you try to ice-chipper-the-duck-out-of-the-pot-with-it hard. So, I ended up gently heating the pot of confit on the stove and fishing the duck out of the warm fat. Be careful if you use this retrieval method. I then got the bright idea to switch the confit to smaller containers so I wouldn’t have to go through the same drama again, and ended up getting fat all over my kitchen. And on the dogs. So, tread carefully and it might not hurt to have a helper and/or funnel for pouring. It turns out, fat strewn about the kitchen isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world. The dogs were excited. Me, not so much.

The Verdict

Yum. Confit duck rocks! And I have lots of leftover fat with which to cook potatoes and all sorts of other yumminess.

This month’s challenge was to make the Pork Terrine with Pork Tenderloin Inlay from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

This month, let me just say, I was uninspired. Between lengthy travel for both my Darling Husband (DH) and I, this month’s goal was just to co-habitate in the same place at the same time. After that, it was to dial back the craziness of the past few weeks and take a breather. So, this month snook up on us. I usually have my debut dish planned within days of the challenge release, and plans on exactly how it is going to go shortly thereafter. This month I left the shopping to the very last minute, and the preparation until 2 days before “go time”.

It didn’t help that this is was a reinvigorating the classics rather than a preservation challenge, which are becoming my favorites.

Procurement

Easy. I had leftover fat from the last challenge. My butcher knows the now-monthly needing pork shoulder drill, and he always has some on hand. The ham I picked up elsewhere, and the pork loin is a staple ingredient in South Florida, so it was no trouble at all to find.

Assembly

Easy. Super easy. Like took under an hour easy. My DH is a pork grinding pro at this point, and managed to rock out the ground portion in no time. The pureeing took a little doing, since my poor food processor was packed to the gills, but I added a splash of cold water and things came together nicely.

My final assembly was again on the ghetto side. I completely forgot to check whether I had leftover little meatloaf pans from last month’s terrine, so I ended up using the only loaf pan I have — a silicone model. Hey, it might not look like high French haute cuisine, but whatever works, right? Maybe someday I will invest in an actual terrine, but for now, ghetto rigged is the way to go.

The Debut

We served the debut with a side of Garlicky Lentils. This side made the perfect accompaniment; in fact, the bites taken with the lentils were much better and more flavorful than the bites taken alone.

The Verdict

On its own, this terrine is a bit bland. The forcemeat texture is on the less than pleasant side, too. It’s not horrible–and the tenderloin is great–but it’s not our favorite. Aspic (or congealed pork juice) kind of freaks me out to tell the truth. It’s good, but not my favorite thing to picture while I am eating and that was all I could think about.

This month’s challenge was to make a mousseline. I chose a heavily modified version of the Maryland Crab, Scallop and Saffron Terrine from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. While I’m sure the original version is pretty and all, I wanted something that would look just like a scallop when sliced, with enough interest to make you wonder what exactly it is.

Procurement

Fairly easy this month. I went to Whole Foods and everything was in stock.

Mousseline-ing

Also really easy. The whole process only took about an hour, hour and a half, excluding the overnight chill.

The Debut

This month, I went a little overboard with my debut dish. I had a potluck to attend, the theme of which was “avant garde” food. After fretting about what constitutes the definition of “avant garde” as the concept relates to food, I settled on making something I was craving: enter noodles with broth. Luckily the inaugural issue of Lucky Peach hit my mailbox right about then. The focus of issue 1? Ramen. David Chang’s recipe for Momofuku Ramen Broth 2.0 looked like just the thing to fit the bill, and the perfect vehicle for something Charcute-y. And what’s more avant garde than an ingredient whose texture and properties has been turned on its head?

The Verdict

I’m happy to report that my dish was a smash success, and I will be making the broth many many times in years to come. I plan to serve the leftover mousseline perched atop a nice bowl of coconut green curry with rice.

Ramen with Kickass Broth, Fresh Bacon and Mousseline “Scallop”

I had big plans for this prosciutto. Big sweeping plans involving wine, cheese, a baguette and possibly grapes. Definitely wine. Maybe even a pizza. French-influenced continental goodness al fresco.

Until late last year when I stumbled upon a package at my butcher’s, I had no idea such a thing as duck prosciutto existed. Since first spying a package, I’ve been cooking up ways I’d like to use it–and oh, the picnics I’ve had in my head! Hours-long scenes of pastoral nature enjoyment (sans bugs), heat and sunburn. You can only imagine my excitement when Charcutepalooza challenge numero uno was for the delectable-sounding stuff.

I actually made this loveliness concurrently with Charcutepalooza challenge #2 for Home! Made! Bacon! and in the ridiculous amount of excitement that the bacon brought, I almost completely forgot about having this post tucked away for later. It also helped that I was called out of town for work through most of the curing process, though from what I’ve heard, it drove my dogs insane. The little one was near inconsolable–he knew meat was somewhere, dammit, he was just too short to find it. I can only imagine his indignant dachshund huffiness when no tasty goodness was forthcoming when he demanded it.

In lieu of having anything even remotely resembling a cave, garage, or temperature-controlled environment, I hung the breasts in my hallway on some storage shelving to cure. I was worried about bacteria or mold, but since the breasts had a good coating of salt to begin with, I really needn’t have. They were just fine hanging out for a week or so in the hallway all by their lonesome (with attending whining pooches).

I served this first/second foray into the wonders of charcuterie as an appetizer to a fantabulous collaborative meal between my DH, myself and a friend alongside fresh pita points, goat cheese, and a spread of bacon and tomato jams. Needless to say, the duck didn’t last long at all. I think I heard growling, too. For more on the dinner, see the post.

No leftovers to serve on a big picnic blanket… guess I’ll just have a great excuse to make this again. And I’ll have to buy said picnic blanket… 🙂

Curing the duck was also easier than I had feared. I was wary because of the not in the fridge-ed-ness of this curing method, but it turned out just fine. Pack breasts in salt, chill in the fridge for awhile, de-salt, wrap in cheesecloth, tie horrendously, hang in hallway for a week or so or until 30% lighter, slice thin & stand back. Couldn’t be easier. Really. See for yourself.

This recipe/preparation can be found in Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Briay Polcyn

Makes a great appetizer spread with toasted pita points,
Bacon Jam like the one posted here
Tomato Jam
and a nice creamy goat cheese

Wait, what? Didn’t I just make sausage a couple of weeks ago? I did, but that was starter sausage. This month’s Charcutepalooza challenge was to make sausage level 2, or stuffed sausage. We opted for the hot Italian sausage on page 122 of Ruhlman’s book, Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.

The process for stuffed sausage started the same as for patty sausage: cut the meat in chunks, season, CHILL, stuff into the grinder feed tube and grind, grind, grind (CHILL). Stuffed sausage employs an extra little attachment for the Kitchenaid (the sausage stuffer tube), and some sort of casing to hold the sausage. We opted for natural hog intestine casing from Eastman Outdoors.

The casings came packed in salt, and didn’t smell as unpleasant as I had been warned. I expected huge stinkiness (and apparently I had a matching look on my face upon opening the package), but the smell wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t nothing, but I’m pretty darn smell sensitive and it didn’t make my stomach turn. Almost, but not quite, and I was ready for it too.

The casings need to be split up into individual lengths (carefully. They came tied in a knot) and soaked for half an hour to overnight to rehydrate. Then, run water through once to open them up and get to stuffing.

I went a little too timid with the spicing for our sausage, because I wasn’t quite sure Hungarian hot paprika is in relationship to sausage. I’ve managed to render at least one dish just about unpalatable with the stuff, and as such, I had too light a hand and things never really got spicy enough. Good, but not quite that kick in the back of the throat we enjoy from a nice spicy sausage.

The texture was decent in our sausage, if a bit on the grainy side in the middle in some spots, and our links are full of air pockets and uneven, but this was all in all a good experience. Our butcher’s fresh Italian sausage is still much better, but ours is at least better than name brand store bought sausage can hope to be. And, it features real pig, a few herbs & spices, and nothing else. I have a feeling we’ll be branching out into quite the little sausage-making operation over the coming months (kielbasa!!!!!)

For our next round of sausage, we will be breaking the meat up into small batches to grind and storing them in the freezer until just about frozen before grinding. My DH (Darling Husband, aka the grind master) and I have a sneaking suspicion that grinding will go much faster and stuffing will be much easier if we get our meat even colder, especially when the auger in the grinder gets hot from use and the meat wants to smear all over the place.

We have eaten about half of our Italian sausage since its creation, and we just haven’t been able to get past one of our summer staples, Italian sausage dogs with a fresh ear of corn, some form of low fat chip or pretzels. This is our go-to I can’t be bothered-to-think-of-anything-else summer dish, and we love it. Maybe we will get around to doing something more exciting with our sausage with the next half.

This Sunday Pork Ragout recipe from Food52 looks awesome.