Muse and Musing

[madbaker]

I basically stopped making charcuterie in the last 1.5 years of my exchequer tenure, because I had no bandwidth for art projects. I did produce a few things, but mostly because I had to fulfill orders. Not because I was enthused or inspired to do so. As you might expect, that was drudgery rather than fun.

Once the weight of the exchequerate was lifted, I thought about making All! The! Things! but... I didn't. The spark hasn't fully returned. Also, the downstairs storage freezer is pretty full - and we're not going to events for a while, which additionally reduces the need to produce lots of cured meats.

Still, after looking at the supplies I decided to make another batch of lonza. This is a reliable go-to, whether eating at home (it makes a great pizza topping) or an easy nosh for an event. The recipe I've always used involves a heavy brine, and to keep the end product from being too salty I have then had to soak the cured meat for half an hour as a salt flush. This seems... inefficient. I looked around and found a dry-cure recipe that looks promising.

However. As I tiptoe back into charcuterie, I realize I had blanked out the annoyance of lack-of-immediate-gratification. The pork loin will be in the dry cure for a month. Then I hang it for three months. Then I vacuum-seal for a month to equalize the salt and flavors (and help with case hardening). Five months until I know whether it's any good!

Are we there yet?

Comments

[tshuma]

Isn't this partly how you do All! The! Things! in charcuterie? Because each one takes a while, so you can do one and then do the next and the startup time is a pain but eventually you're looking at a finished product coming out every couple of weeks.....

[madbaker]

Absolutely! But since I don't sell product I then have to eat it or store it.

[threadwalker]

alas... waiting is a burden. I think what it means is you need to schedule monthly meat play dates so that you can have a rolling unveiling of your efforts starting (apparently) about 5 months after you start.

[madbaker]

You're right; that's the best way. However, most projects don't actually take that long - a standard batch of cured sausages might only take four to six weeks.