Pig in a Pen

Since this is our twelfth and final Charcutepalooza challenge, it seems only fitting to end with the song that served as the eponym for this little adventure, Pig in a Pen. Hold on to your hat, though, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder play this at light speed!

The challenge is to celebrate The Year in Meat by incorporating a minimum of four items from the list provided into one fabulous, festive and fantastic fete.  Tis the season, indeed, and Thanksgiving is my feast of choice. Out of the six categories listed, I have seven items in five categories so I guess it’s time to get cooking.

I’ve mentioned before how amazed I am that throughout my adventures in charcuterie everything seems connected and how this thread runs through my life and my roots and comes back around. It’s a very “chicken and egg” feeling. Even though “The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing” is the cornerstone of this dinner, I still wanted it to be traditional. I wanted the dishes that bring back memories of family no longer present. I wanted to share the same dishes that our families miles away were sharing. At the same time, new traditions are being made and we have new friends to share it with and this dinner is all about that, too.

Cornbread dressing is brought to a whole new level when andouille sausage is added to it. Since I wanted to incorporate one new charcuterie item in this dinner, the obvious choice was andouille. Pronounced ahn-DOO-ee, this is a staple in Cajun and Creole cooking and it’s almost impossible to find an edible version anywhere except south Louisiana (and even there, finding good andouille takes some effort). It’s traditionally made with pieces of fairly lean pork rather than ground pork like most sausage and is heavily smoked. It should have a little heat to it but it isn’t a hot sausage and it should have NO FILLERS or binders at all!!

Andouille Sausage

makes two 18-inch sausages

3 lbs pork shoulder or butt

1 1/2 tsp cayenne (this makes it a little spicy so if you have a “delicate” palette, you might want to decrease it a little- you can always add more later)

2 T black pepper

1 T paprika

2 T Kosher salt

2 tsp dried thyme

3 T garlic, minced

1 tsp Instacure #1

beef middles, about 4 feet

Trim pork of large amounts of fat, any silverskin or other connective tissue and cut into 1- inch cubes. Mix seasonings together then add to cubed pork. Refrigerate overnight or up to two days. Grind one third of the mixture using the coarse die of a chilled meat grinder. Dice the remaining two thirds of the meat into 1/4-inch pieces. Mix the ground and diced meat together, cook a small portion and adjust seasoning as needed.

Soak beef middles for two hours or overnight and rinse well. Stuff the meat into the casings in 12-18 inch links. Tie off each end securely and prick all over with a needle or a sausage pricker. Hang or place on a rack and allow to dry in the refrigerator overnight. Smoke for two hours at 125°F then increase temperature and smoke at 170-175°F until the internal temperature of the sausage reaches 160°F, about another 2-3 hours. Hang or place on a rack and allow to dry in the refrigerator overnight before using or freezing for later use.

Note: These times are approximate and do not take into account a broken valve on your smoker that renders it useless followed by much cussin’ and creative engineering in the cold drizzle to make your gas grill do what your GOSM (great-outdoors-smoky-mountain propane smoker) does almost effortlessly.

Temperature control was my biggest problem but I had my two newest toys on hand and was able to overcome and adapt. Here’s Toy #1 that I got so I could cold-smoke: A-MAZE-N-SMOKER. I have no connection to either company  but they saved my (pork) butt, for sure. My second toy came about because I totally torched my dual probe thermometer last summer. This ThermoWorks thermometer costs more but gives me more flexibility because the probes are sold separately.

After stuffin’ but before smokin’!

After smokin' but before eatin'

Spinach Madeline is a holiday tradition in my old stomping grounds and if you’d like to know more about its history, take a look here. I’ve tinkered with it over the years and tasso is the latest addition. It is traditionally made with spinach but I had more people coming to dinner than I had spinach and decided to include the cauliflower. It was so good I think that will be a permanent change, too!

Cauliflower and Spinach Madeline

3 lbs fresh spinach, cooked, squeezed dry and chopped

1 small head of cauliflower, cut in bite-sized pieces and steamed until tender but still crunchy

3 oz butter

4 T flour

1 sm-med onion, finely diced

2 tsp garlic, minced

8 oz pepper jack cheese, grated

8 oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated (I used a garlic/paprika jack)

1 T Creole seasoning

1 T celery salt

2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 2/3 C milk, heated

8 oz tasso, roughly chopped in 1/2 inch pieces

1 C dried bread crumbs

Place the tasso and bread crumbs in the bowl of a food processor and process until uniformly sized and crumbly. Set aside. Sauté the onion in the butter until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook until it doesn’t smell raw anymore. Add the flour and cook, stirring continuously for 2-3 minutes. While stirring, slowly add the hot milk and cook until smooth and thick. Remove from heat and add half of the cheeses and the remaining seasoning. Add spinach and adjust seasoning, if necessary.

Preheat oven to 350°. Place cauliflower in the bottom of a large, greased baking dish. Top with spinach mixture, the remaining cheeses then the tasso bread crumbs. Bake until browned and bubbly, about 30-40 minutes.

Carving the turkey with the dressing and cauliflower-spinach Madeline ready to go.

The original plan for the turkey was to debone it and stuff it with the dressing so I asked for a relatively small one, about 13 pounds. Unfortunately, the turkey didn’t get the memo and the smallest one was 18 pounds so I figured I’d fall back on my standard brined, roasted bird. It’s moist and delicious and, after the andouille smoking difficulties, I was ready for fewer complications. I went with the standard brine from Charcuterie and added 6 crushed garlic cloves, 6 crumbled bay leaves and two tablespoons of four-peppercorn blend.

The sweet potatoes got the simple but delicious treatment also. I fried a few slices of bacon and used the bacon grease, salt, pepper and garlic to roast the sweet potatoes at 400°. Crumble the bacon and set aside. After 15 minutes, stir the potatoes around and add a generous splash of maple syrup. Return to the oven until tender, stir in crumbled bacon and enjoy!

In the beginning there was bacon. Yes, those are two gallon zip bags!

In the end there were bacon-ized sweet potatoes

I seems that I started my story in the middle so, here’s a peek  the beginning of our feast before it was decimated :

The wild duck rilletes that I started in June along with the dried hot (L) and sweet (R) pork sausages from challenge #11

Rob & Craig's lingonberry thyme cookies were the star of the show! We fought over the leftovers the next day!

Like they say,” All good things must come to an end.

Happy apple pie!

It has been such an honor to participate in The Year in Meat and it has been one of the most amazing learning experiences that I have ever had. Closing this chapter is a little sad but there are still so many miles to travel down this road that this chapter will never truly close. We are talking about building a real, outdoor smoker and a curing chamber is definitely in our future. I still haven’t cold-smoked and Mom and I will be making a seafood terrine during her visit next month. So, goodbyes are not in order here. See you on down the road!

Rabbit Season!

Duck Season!

Looney tunes is always in season! Technically it’s Duck Season Part Deaux since I started this duck adventure in June and promised to follow up with the details of my micro-prosciutto. Now here I am with less than a day to go in The Year in Meat and I’m just getting around to finishing Challenge #1. Like I have so many times before, I’ve procrastinated because I was mired in indecision but, like so many times before, I found that once I tackled the project, it wasn’t as daunting as I’d imagined. That is especially true this time since the prosciutto was finished and patiently waiting in the freezer for me to just DO something with it besides this:

A glass of rosé was perfect with the duck!

An Olympic sailor that I had the privilege of learning from had some good advice to follow when you’re in a situation that you want to get out of: “Do something and do it with conviction!” It applies to lots of things; not just sailing and it is advice that has stood me in good stead. This time, it applied to about three ounces of duck breast prosciutto. I started with 5.5 ounces for the pair of breasts (and those were the big ones!). After packing them in salt then hanging them to dry for a couple of days, that’s what I had left. Amazingly enough, I got some pretty good mileage out of my little pile of little slices of little breasts!

They look smaller in real life

For some reason, all of my ideas for using this prosciutto involved wrapping it around something but since these slices are, at best, only about 1/4 in wide by 2 1/2 inches long, I was going to have a hard time finding something to wrap this around. I thought about different pasta dishes, pizzas and soups but I didn’t want anything too fussy and I wanted to make sure the ducky-ness shone through. My local farmers markets came to my rescue. I found a beautiful bunch of arugula and a nice piece of Ascutney Mountain cheese from Cobb Hill Cheeses. The Ascutney Mountain is a natural rind cheese that was developed from a Swiss Appenzeller recipe. It’s aged for 7-8 months, has a nutty flavor. It is just delicious and I thought it would pair well with the richness of the duck and the spicy arugula, which I love.

A friend gave me this flatbread recipe a while back and it’s so good that it’s hard not to tear into it as soon as it comes off the griddle. It’s like a cross between a pita and a pizza crust and if you’ve never dabbled in bread making, this is a good place to start because it’s so easy.

Griddled Flatbread

9 ounces bread flour

3/4 tsp table salt

1 1/2 tsp olive oil

1 3/4 tsp yeast

2/3 C warm water

Place all dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor and pulse to combine. With machine running, add olive oil and all but about 2 tablespoons of the water. Allow to run until the dough comes together, adding water a little at a time if it seems dry or won’t come together to form a ball. Process for 2-3 minutes to form a firm, shiny, elastic dough. Place dough in a large bowl and let rise, covered, in a warm spot until doubled in size, about an hour. Punch down and divide dough in two pieces. Cover with the overturned bowl and allow to rest  for 10 minutes.

Heat a griddle over medium heat until it’s hot. You could also use a heavy skillet but keep the uncooked one covered while the first one is cooking. While the griddle is heating, roll out each piece of dough on a lightly floured surface to make an 8-inch circle. Place on ungreased griddle and cook until light golden brown. Flip and cook until light golden brown. Keep flipping until it is a nice medium brown on both sides, about 5-6 minutes total cooking time.

I was originally going to use these to make a pita pizza but decided to stuff them instead. To turn these into crunchy, cheesy sandwiches, allow to cool then, using a serrated knife, start cutting around the edges and split into two rounds.

Flatbread Sandwiches

2 big handfuls of arugula

about 4 oz good quality, good melting cheese like Fontina, grated

thinly sliced duck prosciutto

Note: Any combination of greens, cheese and meat can be used but I’ve found that flavorful greens and assertive cheeses work best.

Preheat the oven to 400°. Place half of the arugula, cheese and prosciutto on one flatbread round. Add a light sprinkle of salt and a generous grind of black pepper then top with the remaining bread half. Repeat with the second flatbread.

Back: spinach, sharp cheddar and pepperoni Front: arugula, fontina and duck prosciutto

Place on a baking sheet and bake until the arugula has wilted and the cheese has melted, about 10 minutes. They could also be returned to the griddle instead of baking but it is a little tricky to flip them without spilling their guts.

Hot bread and cheesy goodness makes a great lunch, appetizer or snack!

I love soup so I always have several different ones in the freezer for quick lunches. This time I made my favorite bean soup with duck in mind. I used some of that luscious duck fat to saute the onions, carrots and celery and duck stock made up about half of the necessary liquid, then, towards the end of its cooking time, I added a handful of diced duck prosciutto. A drizzle of really fruity Greek olive oil and some julienned duck prosciutto finished it nicely!

Mmmmmmm! and I said that with conviction!

Attaboy

At this point in The Year in Meat, Challenge #11, we all deserve an “Attaboy” and here is Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile and Stuart Duncan to give us an amazing one from their project, The Goat Rodeo Sessions. There’s no way to go wrong with these guys! Unbelievable!

Never one to adhere to the KISS principle, I decided to make pepperoni, coppa and bresaola for our curing challenge. It sounded like a good combination: one was ground and fermented, one used large chunks stuffed in a casing, one was a whole cut and they all needed attention at different times. After buying all of the meat and ordering some beef middles and starter culture, it became obvious that, once again, I was a little too ambitious so the pepperoni will have to be be a project for the future.

First, let me get my griping over. I’m usually pretty thorough about doing my research but I dropped the ball and relied solely on Charcuterie because these techniques seemed pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, this is the only time that Ruhlman & Polcyn have let me down and I’m as much to blame as they are because I didn’t double-check the facts.

Pork butt trimmed as instructed.

After spending a couple of hours trimming a pork butt (not to mention the cost of the meat and the price the pig paid) as instructed for coppa and getting it started curing, I discovered that it wasn’t coppa at all. I found several descriptions of what authentic coppa is and the most informative was on Jason Molinari’s Cured Meats blog. He clearly illustrates where the muscle is and how to harvest it from a whole shoulder. Since I couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together, I decided to continue with the Charcuterie method and hope for the best. I figured it would still taste good but I have no idea what to call it! What’s up with that?!?

OK, time to move on to the next problem. The small refrigerator I planned on using as a curing chamber wouldn’t get warmer than 47° so I resorted to using the closet in the extra bedroom. Unfortunately, our beautiful fall weather turned hot and humid a few days after I hung the bresaola and “coppa” to dry. My husband donated a hygrometer from one of his guitar cases and I stuck a thermometer in the room so I could obsessively monitor both temp and humidity. This was probably the only house in middle Tennessee that had the A/C set at 70° in early November! Thankfully, the house stayed pretty cool but the humidity was a problem so I stayed on mold patrol for the duration. There was a little white mold but no green or black fur so I just wiped everything down with a little brine just to be on the safe side and all seemed to be fine.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’m not a big adherent to the KISS principle so why do one flavor of pseudo-coppa when you can do two? The seasonings for the sweet coppa sounded delicious but I can’t pass up a chance to spice things up so I divided the meat in half and did both.

Before (spicy on L, sweet on R)

After (with bresaola on L, spicy M, sweet on R))

Here is my second gripe with this recipe: I barely had enough seasoning for half of the meat so if I hadn’t divided it in two, I would have had to make a second batch of seasoning and that’s just annoying!

Now for the fun part; time to put it all together to make some cohesive yumminess! I had a nice wedge of Kenny’s St. Jerome and a rosemary Asiago that I was saving for the unveiling but I wanted some new and different condiments to make the celebration complete. Since both of my cured meats were Italian, it only made sense to try some mostarda and my new favorite condiment, Tomato Jam from foodinjars.com. This stuff is addictive and oh, oh, oh so delicious! Everyone’s first response is that it sounds kinda odd but after they taste it, they just want to know where they can get more. Mostarda is an Italian condiment made from candied fruit in a mustard flavored syrup. I thought that it, also, sounded kinda odd but very intriguing. I decided on the pumpkin mostarda from La Cucina Italiana. It fit with the season, with the ingredients I had on hand plus it was easy to make and pretty. Last, but not least, is Figgy Lemon Chutney from Grow and Resist via Tigress that I have wanted to make for months but I had to wait until I got my annual shipment of Meyer lemons from my Dad.

Pretty Pumpkin Mostarda

So, to put it all together…

The big picture

From bottom L: pumpkin mostarda, St. Jerome with figgy lemon chutney, pickled watermelon rind, sweet "coppa", rosemary asiago with tomato jam and spicy "coppa".

Bresaola with a nice squeeze of Meyer lemon juice and the mostarda

Well, I was right and it is delicious but when someone asks what it is, I have to explain what coppa is then explain that what I made isn’t that but it was supposed to be. The best answer so far is to just give them a bite and let them enjoy it.

Chicken Cordon Blues

Here’s a little something for your carnivorous listening pleasure: Chicken Cordon Blues by Steve Goodman. In case you don’t recognize his name, he wrote “City of New Orleans”.

Well, we’re in the last quarter of The Year Of Meat and Charcutepalooza has made darn sure that there are no Chicken Cordon Blues at this house! I haven’t even bothered putting Charcuterie back on the shelf in months and that’s a good thing. Our challenge this month is stretching. As in using every morsel of a chicken and stretching it out to feed eight or so of your best friends and family. Now it’s time to delve into some classic French technique and decide if I am going to attempt the roulade, the galantine or the ballottine.

The first step was to try to understand the differences between them. Since Charcuterie didn’t get into the definitions, off the shelf comes, of course, Julia, and Larousse Gastronomique. Julia says that a galantine is a boned bird stuffed with a meat mixture that is rolled into a sausage shape, poached and chilled. Larousse says that the cylindrical shape makes it, technically, a ballottine but that galantines may be served hot or cold. Just to clarify things a bit more, Larousse also says that a roulade is “any of various preparations which are then stuffed and rolled”. Clear as mud! At least everyone agreed that a forcemeat was part of the equation. The other part of the equation was time – or, for me, lack of time; the first 10 days of October we were going to be hiking the mountains of Virginia then going to a great music festival (It’s not called The Festy Experience for nothing- but more on that another day!).

Decision made! I will be using a big, fat, juicy Emerald Glen Farm chicken and will make my forcemeat from some of their pork mixed with a little veal. I read and read and read and thought I was ready but I procrastinated (big shock!) so we roasted that chicken for dinner. Now time’s running out and chicken #2 is in the fridge so I took the easy way out and made my forcemeat first:

1/2 lb of pork shoulder, cut in 1-inch cubes

1/2 lb of veal shoulder, cut in 1-inch cubes

1/4 lb pork fat, cut in 1-inch cubes

3 T roasted garlic

1/3 C shallots, finely diced

1/4 C dry white wine

2 tsp  sage, minced

2 tsp thyme, minced

2 tsp black pepper

2 tsp Kosher salt

Saute the shallots in a little rendered chicken or pork fat (or olive oil or bacon grease) until they are soft. Deglaze with the wine, reduce by half and refrigerate until chilled. Place the veal, pork and pork fat in a large bowl and combine with herbs, salt and pepper. Cover and allow to chill again for at least an hour or, preferably, overnight. Grind the chilled meats though the fine die of a chilled meat grinder into a mixing bowl set in ice. Add the garlic and shallots and beat with the paddle attachment until well mixed and tacky-feeling. Cook a small amount and adjust the seasonings, if necessary. Cover and refrigerate.

With that step finished, it was time to summon up the courage to debone that chicken. Interweb to the rescue! I came across this great video: Jacque Pepin making short work of deboning a chicken, then stuffing and tying it and making it look like child’s play- and I don’t mean Julia Child. Really! And what a cool technique to have in your arsenal! You have to do this!

Voila!

Season the tenderloins with salt and pepper then saute them over high heat until nicely brown. Salt and pepper the inside of your bird and commence stuffing. I started with the legs and squished the filling down inside of them really well then I filled up the cavity, laying the tenderloins and some strips of ham down the center of the forcemeat and tried to close it up so it would look like a chicken. I took some of the forcemeat out and tried again. And again and again until I was finally able to get the bird totally wrapped around the filling and start tyin’ her up. It’s easier than it sounds so just watch Jacque and obey! ”If it won’t fit, force it” will not actually work here in spite of the name. I finally had to accept that all of my forcemeat wasn’t going to fit in that bird; it just depends on the size of your chicken. It did make great meatballs, though!

One nice, neat chicken package!

I browned all of the bones that I had so carefully removed- even those cute little lollipops I made out of the wings just to see if I could. Then I turned them into the most beautiful stock using Michael Ruhlman’s low and slow technique. Fast forward to the next day after work and I have great chicken stock that I have degreased, a beautifully stuffed, beautifully raised chicken and I am ready to see Charcutepalooza Project #9 to the end.

I preheated the oven to 325°, salted and peppered the chicken then gave it a generous butter massage. About a cup of that stock with a little extra sprinkle of thyme and it was ready for the oven. Roast until the internal temperature is 150°, basting frequently. If it starts getting too brown, tent with aluminum foil. Let it rest for 15 or 20 minutes while your assembled family and friends hover because it’s now about 8 PM and everyone is ravenous! (This also gives you time to find the camera for the requisite pictures.)

Requisite picture

Heck with tur-duck-en, we have a cow-pig-en!

It took about an hour and a half to cook so I had plenty of time to work on my veggies. I decided that I wanted to serve it with something easy with pretty straightforward flavors. Since I had one of these:

Fresh out of the garden!

I thought I’d julienne it and make zucchini “spaghetti”. A little olive oil and garlic, salt and pepper in a nice hot saute pan is all you need then just top it off with some freshly grated Parmesan. If one squash is good, two’s even better, right? I had a nice little butternut squash that some friends gave me from their garden and a great, easy recipe that I had been dying to try that I adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi.

Herb-Crusted Butternut Squash

1 1/2  pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded and sliced into 1/2-inch slices

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

3 tablespoons Italian bread crumbs

6 tablespoons parsley, very finely chopped

2 1/2 teaspoons thyme, finely chopped (or substitute 1 tsp dried)

1 tablespoon lemon zest, grated

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic, minced, about 2 large cloves

salt

black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil , plus extra to brush the squash with

Preheat oven to 375°.

Place squash slices on greased baking sheet, parchment or Silpat (my preference). Brush the slices with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Combine the remaining ingredients with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil and mix well. Pat the crust mixture on the squash, covering generously. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until just tender and the crust is golden brown. If the crust begins to darken, cover loosely with foil and continue baking until squash is tender.

Even though the work can be broken up over several days and it’s totally worth the effort, I can’t exactly say that this is an ideal work-night dinner. I will definitely do it again- I’m thinking Thanksgiving. Cow-pig-key anyone?

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat

The amazing bassist Charlie Mingus wrote this elegy, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat  for the late jazz saxophone player Lester Young who was, I learned, born in Algiers, New Orleans.

Once again, I am amazed at how everything is connected and how often I travel full circle in my journey through the Charcutepalooza challenges. Sometimes my journey begins with my roots, sometimes it ends there but, most often, they’re just part of me. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” said William Shakespeare.

Now let’s get a little pork pie trivia out of the way before we delve into some real history:

Pork pie hats were, at one time, associated with jazz and blues musicians; they were also a favorite of Dean Martin and theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer (Father of the Atomic Bomb).

Did you know that pork pie is Cockney slang for “lie”?

Buster Keaton actually made his own pork pie hats! Who knew?

Moving on to the history lesson I promised…

Long, long ago in a land far, far away (Leicestershire, England in the early 1700’s, actually) a farmer’s wife began making a cheese that was sold by her brother-in-law at his pub in Stilton, The Bell Inn. This was the birth of the famous Stilton cheese that we still know and love today. Oddly enough, Stilton cheese cannot actually be produced in Stilton and it’s not known for certain if it ever was, but I digress! With the growing popularity of Stilton cheese, came a clever solution to the large quantities of whey that resulted. Pig food! The dairies began keeping pigs to put all of that excess whey to good use as pig food which resulted in…you guessed it…lots of pork! A grocer and a baker got together and started making pies out of the pigs and the Melton Mowbray pork pie was born.

Two things combined to make Melton Mowbray the center of the pork pie universe. One was the popular sport of foxhunting. After the Enclosures Act of 1761, the smaller farms were consolidated, the dairy business took off and all of that open space became prime foxhunting territory. The foxhunters noticed their grooms eating the pork pies and bakers began making the pies more portable. The second thing was location, location, location. Melton Mowbray is a small town in northeast Leicestershire and was six hours from London by stage coach. This happened to be the time at which horses were legally required to be rested. All of those hungry travelers needed to be fed and the pork pies, with their hard crust, were the perfect snack. It didn’t take long for the word to get out and they became all the rage in London.

Nowadays, Melton Mowbray is the home of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie Association and, more recently, it became the battleground for the fight to give Melton Mowbray pork pies protected status. The ten year long battle was finally won on April 4, 2008, giving it the same protected geographical status enjoyed by Parma ham, Newcastle Brown Ale, Stilton cheese, Parmigiano Reggiano and Champagne. Since any Tom, Dick or Harry could bake up any kind of inedible monstrosity and call it a Melton Mowbray pork pie, the residents of this ancient town were adamant about protecting their reputation and maintaining the distinctive qualities of their pies.

There are three things that make these raised pies so distinctive. First, the meat is fresh, not cured, so it is grey, not pink when baked. Secondly, they are baked free-standing so the sides are bowed. They are called raised pies because instead of lining a pan with the hot water/lard crust, it is hand-shaped around a mold, the meat is placed inside and a lid is put on top with holes for the steam to escape during baking. After baking, the holes are then used to add pork gravy that becomes jelly as the pies cool. Last but not least, they must be made in Melton Mowbray.

I was really going for authenticity in my pork pies but since I had never seen or eaten one, it was a bit of a challenge. Obviously, I failed on the location since Nashville is about 4000 miles away from Melton  Mowbray but I was there in spirit. By the time I decided to make a Melton  Mowbray pork pie and not just any pork pie, I realized I didn’t have any fresh pork belly. I did have a nice piece of unsmoked but cured pork belly so that was going to have to do. That was two strikes but I hit the next requirement out of the ballpark! For the raised crust, I used lard that I had rendered and found a jelly jar that was just the right size to use as a mold so I could shape it by hand.

My pastry mold happens to be full of local honey

I was putting all of this together based on my reading but I didn’t really have  a recipe to follow. I found lots of helpful hints to keep me on track so I thought I’d share some of these tidbits:

• There should be equal amounts of dough and meat with no filler like breadcrumbs in the meat.
• The crust should be glazed with egg and baked until it is very, very brown.
• Having two generously sized holes in the pastry lid makes adding the jelly much easier since one acts as a vent while you are pouring gravy into the other.
• The hot water pastry does not have to be hot to work with it but you will need to work it a bit in your hands to warm it up.

There were so many components to this challenge that I decided to break it up over a couple of days to give me a chance to figure out each step as I went along. The lard was easy since I already had some rendered and tucked away in the freezer. I trimmed and cubed the shoulder and belly, seasoned it up and ran it through the coarse die of my brand spanking new three pounds/minute meat grinder.  I roasted the bone left from the shoulder and made a  bit more stock to add to some that I had. With all of this delectable porky goodness going on I didn’t really want to use powdered gelatin so trotter gear to the rescue! Nothing like being able to build on what we’ve done so far! I warmed it, added the liquid to my stock and the yummy bits went into the meat. That left time for the stock chill so I could make sure it set nicely and gave me time to chill before putting all of these pieces together.

Pork Pie

The Meat:

2 1/2 lbs pork shoulder, trimmed and cubed

3/4 lb pork belly, cubed

2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp sage

1 tsp thyme

1/4 tsp mace

2 tsp salt

Mix all of the ingredients together, chill and mince by hand or grind in a meat grinder using the coarse die. Cook a small amount to check the seasoning. This was the amount of salt I used with the cured pork belly. If you use uncured belly, it will probably need more salt. Divide into six balls and refrigerate until you are ready for them.

The Pastry:

1 lb, 10.5 oz all purpose flour

7 oz (by weight) lard

10 oz water

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

1 cup jellied pork stock

Heat the water and lard until it is boiling and the lard is melted. Combine with the flour and salt. Knead until smooth. The dough should be neither dry nor sticky. Cover and allow to rest for an hour or refrigerate overnight. Divide into six pieces then divide each of those into two pieces, one twice as large as the other so you have base and the lid for each of the six pies you will make.

Line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper and preheat oven to 375°.

Roll out the larger of the two pieces of dough on a floured surface until it is about 4 inches in diameter. Place it over your  mold and shape the dough around it until it is a uniform thickness and height with no cracks.

It should be about an inch taller than the balls of meat

Roll out the smaller of the two pieces of pastry until it is a little bigger than the base; place the meat in the base. Moisten the edges of the base and the lid with water, place the lid over the meat and seal the edges very well.

If you are so inclined, crimping the edges gives them a very attractive finish.

If you have any leftover pieces of dough, cut them into decorative shapes and attach to the lids with a little water.

Brush the sides and tops with the beaten egg. Bake at 375° for 15 minutes then turn the heat down to 350° and bake for another hour and a half. Brush with beaten egg again and bake until very, very brown.

These are not brown enough!

Remove from oven and allow to cool. Warm the jellied pork stock and carefully pour into one of the holes in the top of the pie. A syringe or turkey baster works well for this job. Allow to cool completely so the stock will set. If any of these last long enough to be refrigerated, make sure you let them come up to room temp before enjoying them.

The traditional accompaniments to pork pie are spicy mustard, pickles and beer. I made the pies as authentically as I could manage but this is where I’m going to have to let my roots show.

A nice southern microbrew beer, Creole mustard and homemade watermelon rind pickles!

CREDITS:

www.porkpiers.wordpress.com was a wealth of information.

Thank you, Dr. D! I knew I could count on some great constructive criticism and, I was hoping, a bit of affirmation. I got both. Flavor -wise, I was on the right track but they needed more pepper, the crust was a bit too thick and should definitely be darker brown. The recipe reflects the amped up spices; pork pies should have a spicy kick to them. Thanks also for the party tip: tiny little pork pies that can be eaten in one bite!

It is a Christmas tradition in Leicestershire to have pork pie for breakfast. I think I’ll do my part to help keep that tradition alive- but maybe not for breakfast.

Give Me A Pigfoot

Here’s a little Bessie Smith singin’ an old blues number to get us in the mood:

Give Me A Pigfoot (And A Bottle Of Beer)

You know, sometimes a girl just can’t get a head! Therein lies my problem; no pig head for me right now.

Born and raised in south Louisiana, I LOVE hogshead cheese and it is in very short supply (read nonexistent) in Tennessee so I was totally thrilled with this month’s  Charcutepalooza  binding challenge. Like Mrs. Wheelbarrow, I’ve had a toe cheese experience although I couldn’t decide if it should properly be called toe cheese or butt cheese! Hmmmmm! Moving on…many thanks to Pink Guitar Farm for helping me in my quest for a pig’s head and I’m looking forward to this fall when I will be fortunate enough to get one of their Red Wattle/Berkshire pigs. Check ‘em out; they’re doing an awesome job!

I’ve always been a bit envious of all of the ethnocentric people that make up the melting pot that defines America and kinda felt left out. Even though my heritage embodies so much of the melting pot, I never felt that I had a special identity – until I moved away. So many of the things I took for granted were, I realized, very unique once they weren’t part of everyday life anymore. Crawfish, crab and shrimp boils from as far back as I can remember. red beans and rice, black beans, frying fish in the carport, arroz con pollo, roast pork and cochon du lait, Dad and our next door neighbor sitting outside shucking oysters, Rock n’ Bowl, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest! I miss it all but at the same time I love where I am and what I’m doing. All of those things are an integral part of who I am and help form the person I’m becoming as I move along in my quest to both go forward and look back.

When you get to New Orleans, if you are lucky enough to escape the tourist venues and get to experience the real NO, one of the first oddities you might notice is that a lot of the local neighborhood joints have this weird mix of Italian food and seafood. When you look at NO history, though, it makes total sense. There’s the French influence that tends to dominate and, of course, the Acadians that made their way down from Nova Scotia but there is also the Creole heritage from the Caribbean and Africa and a huge Italian, mostly Sicilian, influence as well. This is the melting pot from which I am drawing this month and I am so proud to be able to share it and keep it alive.

Beef Daube, the classic French braised beef larded with pork fat comes to NO, gets stirred around a bit, flirts with Italian red gravy and becomes Creole Beef Daube served over spaghetti. Using a nice chuck roast, it has a lovely gelatinous red-brown gravy. BUT… throw in a couple of pig feet and it becomes Beef Daube Glace, the city cousin of the country hogshead cheese.

Unctuous is not a word I throw around in everyday conversation…until now, thanks to Fergus Henderson, who introduced me to Trotter Gear. He said, “Unctuous potential: Trotter gear is your gastronomic friend.” Huh? What exactly IS trotter gear and how can it have the potential to add unctuousness? This challenge has taught me the true meaning of unctuous and also introduced me to Fergus Henderson and Trotter Gear; all of which are amazing. I can’t say it enough, “Trotter gear is your friend!”  It gives you the ability to instantly add body and wonderful mouth-feel to a sauce.

Trotter Gear

Pig feet (however many you can get hold of), rinsed and either shaved or singed to remove all hair (I promise it gets better after this!)

water to cover

Simmer until they are falling apart, about 4 hours, skimming off any foam that rises to the surface.  Let them cool slightly and pick all of the meat off of them. It should be burning your fingers! If it gets too cool, it will get so sticky that you can’t work with it. Strain the remaining stock, mince the meat and skin very finely and add it back into the stock. Chill and remove all of the fat that has solidified on the surface.

Trotter gear in all of its gelatinous glory

It’s now ready to be added to anything that needs to have its unctuous potential enhanced. Freeze any that won’t be used in the next week or two. This stuff is so fabulous that I gave some to my Dad for his birthday! Really.

What brought me to Trotter Gear in the first place was the fact that most recipes for Beef Daube Glace use packaged gelatin or that pesky, unobtainable pig’s head.  I went back to the Picayune’s Creole Cookbook and still couldn’t figure out how many packages of gelatin equal one pig’s foot. Trotter Gear gave me the ability to work out the proportions and adjust them as needed. Just like in sausage-making, a taste test is necessary but this time, instead of just taste testing, you also needed to test the “set”.  A little chill time in the freezer will let you know if it’s too firm (rubbery) or too loose to be able to slice.

Beef Daube

2-3 lb beef chuck roast

1 1/2 C celery, med dice

1 1/2 C carrots, med dice

3 C onions, med dice

1/3 C bacon grease, lard, or other fat

2 T garlic, minced

4 bay leaves

1 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp black pepper

2 tsp Kosher salt

2 T Worcestershire (ooooh mami!!)

2 C beef stock

3 C peeled, seeded tomatoes

The chuck is browned and the mise is ready- take a gander at those gorgeous Black Krim toatoes from the garden!

Melt your fat of choice in a Dutch oven big enough to hold all ingredients. Brown roast on both sides, about 5-8 minutes on each side and remove from pan.

Saute onion, celery and carrots until brown

Add garlic and saute 2-3 minutes longer. Add remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer then return roast to pan.

If needed, add enough water to barely cover the meat

Cover and braise at 350 until tender enough to pull apart with a fork, about 3 hours, turning over after 1 1/2 hours. When cool enough to handle, remove any fat, gristle or other icky bits, leaving some of the meat in medium-sized pieces and shredding the rest.

NOTE: Stop here and serve over spaghetti for traditional Creole Beef Daube. YUM!!

Strain the pan juices, discarding the solids, combine with the meat and refrigerate overnight. The next day skim as much fat from the surface of the meat as possible. It should be fairly gelatinous, especially if you used good homemade beef stock. Taste for seasoning. This should give you a pretty good idea about salt and spice. Remember that you need a little extra punch for cold dishes!

To make Beef Daube Glace:

Here comes the slightly tricky part:

Place the beef over a medium fire to warm, add about a cup of trotter gear and heat just until all is melted. Take about a tablespoon of meat + juice and put in the freezer until set, about 20 minutes. Taste for seasoning and set. The goal is for it to set enough to slice but still be soft enough to melt in your mouth. If it’s too firm, add a little stock or water. If it’s too loose, add more trotter gear and simmer to reduce the liquid a bit more. Repeat the taste and set test and readjust the consistency again, if necessary.  The goal here is rich, slightly spicy, beefy… unctuousness!

Oregano leaves, chives and jalapeno peppers from the garden to jazz it up a little.

This is part where you get to learn from my mistakes! Fill the mold very carefully so you don’t disturb all of those tiny garnishes that you so painstakingly glued down with trotter gear then press plastic wrap over the surface and smooth it out so it will lie flat on your serving dish. Allow to set overnight then carefully dip the mold in warm water and invert onto a serving platter. Much to my relief, the unmolding worked amazingly well.

Finally!

This one's heading to Louisiana as part of the birthday package!

My favorite size! Perfect for a party.

Give me a pigfoot and a bottle of beer

Howlin’ at the Moon

Well, we were at the Mother Church of Country Music (for the uninformed, that’s the Ryman Auditorium) last week being fabulously entertained by The Sam Bush Band so I thought I’d share one of the highlights of the evening:

Howlin’ at the Moon, written by James Ratts and John McEuen.

Take time for sunshine; take a whole lotta time for love

Take time for praisin’ things, heaven up above

Take your life as it may come cuz , boy it’ll be gone soon

Take a little time for howlin’ at the moon.

Somebody said,

Keep your eyes open, gotta keep your feet on solid ground

You gotta take time to take a real good look at everything you’ve found.

Take your life as it may come cuz, boy it’ll be gone soon

Take a little time for howlin’ at the moon.

Take a little time for sunshine; take a whole lotta time for love

Take time for praisin’ things, heaven up above

Gotta make music, gotta make music

Raise your voice in joy every day

You’ve got a lot to live for, you’ve got a lifetime to stay.

That pretty much sums up the last few weeks for us; we’ve been taking time for all of those things and more which has made me so busy I haven’t been able to catch my breath. We’ve probably done a bit more howlin’ at the moon than good sense dictates but that’s just the way it goes sometimes! Besides, it’s my birthmonth. We don’t mess around with birthdays around here; they are totally inadequate!

Now that we are between birthday parties (not mine), music festivals and lots of great family visits, it’s time to face a different kind of music. The Charcutepalooza July challenge is emulsified sausage and, I don’t know why but I chose mortadella instead of hot dogs, the other choice that was put out there for us. Never mind that I was totally intimidated by all of the things that can go wrong. I’ve never even seen mortadella that wasn’t some kind of icky luncheon meat thing. I knew there had to be more to it than that so my present to myself is…one beef bung! Whooohooo! How many people can say that??!!

Unfortunately, the intimidation thing raised its ugly head and I met it head-on by doing the only sensible thing; I ignored the whole project. That worked pretty well for me until I pulled my head out of  my…uh…out of the sand and realized the deadline was fast approaching and I was bung-less. Uh-oh. Then my food processor decided its time on Earth was done AND I totally incinerated both leads on my thermometer as well as the two chickens they were plugged into – think Viking funeral pyre here. So there I was, a week away from making mortadella and I seemed to be lacking a several key items.

When all else fails, read the instructions…carefully. Lucky me! A stand mixer is actually the preferred way of beating the sausage into submission and there is a bung-free method using lots of plastic wrap and a vacuum sealer. Two problems solved, one to go! I need to monitor the temperature of the water bath AND the meat VERY carefully or I will be feeding the neighbor’s dog some beautiful pork butt and kicking my own for squandering the pig’s contribution to my Charcuterie education. Time to channel my inner McGyver. My oven has a temperature probe so that’s a start. I can use it to monitor the water temp. Now for the meat temp…hmmm… an instant-read thermometer?

Ta-daaaa!!

After about an hour and a half of anxiously watching over my creation, it was finally done and chillin’ out in an ice bath. Now for the hard part – I have to wait two whole days before checking it out. Did it work? Did I make dog food? Will the nasty taste of the powdered milk be gone? Oh yeah – forgot to mention that part. I followed the recipe in Charcuterie (almost) to the letter. I’m not a fan of white pepper so I added a pinch of cayenne, two teaspoons of cracked black pepper and decreased the salt slightly because I know from past experience that I like my sausage a little less salty than our esteemed authors. As much as I love pistachios, I wasn’t sure how I’d like the texture in my sausage so I decided to pass on those, too. I also don’t care for powdered milk but I chickened out when it came to omitting it. What if my emulsion broke? How would I know if it was because of the missing dry milk or some other egregious error. Then after all of that chilling and grinding and chilling and beating and chilling and shaping, it tasted like that awful powdered milk. How disappointing was that??!!

OK, time for the unveiling:

Ta-da! again!

Instant gratification!

Delayed gratification: mortadella ripieni!

Thanks to Mario Batali for this lovely idea. Just slice the mortadella on the thin side, put a little goat cheese in the middle and roll it up like a little flat burrito. Brown it in a hot skillet and eat up. You definitely want some friends to help eat this but the beauty of it is that you can just make one or you can make a dozen. I know this may come as a shocker but fried pork-wrapped cheese is a little on the rich side but oh, so yummy. The good news is that it’s not hard to find friends willing to help you solve this problem.

After all of my worries about temperatures, powdered milk and cow bungs, my husband was a tad reluctant to try his first mortadella but, being the brave (and kind) soul that he is, he didn’t tell me that until after the fact.

Dinner!

The last of the local lettuce with some dried cranberries, pepper jelly vinaigrette and warm cubes of browned mortadella. Now I want those pistachios; they would have been great in the salad.

Final thoughts:

• That’s a lot of mortadella for two people. (Can you freeze it?)
• Still not sure about the whole powdered milk thing. It still had a funny flavor but I was the only one that thought so.
• I can’t wait to try hot dogs!
• What a great experience!

I Ain’t Broke But I’m Badly Bent

a little Dan Tyminski Band to hammer the point home:

I Ain’t Broke But I’m Badly Bent

and that’s the truth! Even with my favorite sausage assistant back in town (Thanks, Mom!) this challenge was…a challenge. Since my ducks didn’t arrive until last Thursday, we were in a bit of a time crunch. I could have caved in and bought duck but what is more free range, organic and in the spirit of the challenge than wild ducks shot by my brother and my nephews?! So I bought my casings and the stuffing tubes for my KA and bided my time till my duck delivery system got here from Louisiana (Thanks again, Mom!).

My brother and his boys, Kevin and Patrick, are the big hunters in the family and they were nice enough to share some of their bounty from last fall to help make my Charcutepalooza challenge really special. I had asked for 2 ducks and got 22: 1 wood duck, 1 greenhead, 1 canvasback, 1 shevler and 18 teal!!! I knew they would be very lean but my experience with duck is extremely limited- BIG emphasis on the extremely part- so imagine my surprise when I discovered that teal are about the size of a pigeon! Time for a glass of wine, some good music and a nice sharp knife then take a deep breath and jump in with both feet.

These are the big ones!

Three pairs of teal breasts (the tiny strip of meat is the tenderloin from a breasts)

I did leave the 6 that still had their heads for last but by then I had 16 ducks under my belt (as well as that glass of wine) so…

Off with their heads!

Since the boys all had to get up at the crack of dawn and sit in the cold and the ducks gave everything they had to give, I wanted to do justice by all of them. I spent 3 hours fabricating those babies and wound up with 3 pounds of breast meat plus one pair of breasts that looked worthy of turning into duck breast prosciutto (5.5 ounces!). I was able to render about a cup of fat from the skin and turned all of those little carcasses into a fabulous stock. We’re all used to the house smelling like porky goodness but this is the first time it smelled like ducky goodness. Last, but not least, there were 12 ounces of itty, bitty, little duckie legs.

Three leg & thigh quarters!!!

What does one do with a little duck fat and some little duck legs? Why, you make teeny, tiny confit, of course! The prosciutto and confit won’t be ready for a taste test in time for this post so more on those later.

Now that all of the little bits are taken care of, it’s time to step up to the grinder and get to it. After much agonizing over how we wanted to season our duck sausage, we wound up with an amalgamation of Brian Polcyn & Michael Ruhlman’s recipe from Charcuterie, Hank Shaw’s recipe from HunterAnglerGardenerCook and some personal touches of our own. The only thing we changed from the standard sausage making/stuffing directions given in Charcuterie was to use the coarse die to grind the meat and to let the sausages dry in a cool room (basement) for about 4 hours before we refrigerated them.

DUCK SAUSAGE

3 lbs duck meat, cut in 1-inch dice

1-1/2 lbs pork fat, cut in 1-inch dice

hog casings, soaked in warm water for at least 30 minutes and thoroughly rinsed, inside and out

3/4 tsp cinnamon (I use Penzey’s Ceylon cinnamon which is fairly mild)

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp ground star anise

1 T ground juniper berries

1 T whole caraway seeds

1 T ground black pepper

1 1/2 T Kosher salt

3 T chopped fresh sage

3 T roasted garlic

1/2 tsp pepper flakes

1/2 C red wine, chilled

1/4 C water, chilled

Grinding up the goodies

Slipping the casing on the lubricated stuffer using that universally known hand gesture

Mission accomplished

The chief sausage stuffer- thanks Mom!

and I am the chief sausage catcher

Finally... 4 1/2 lbs of lovely links

With the sausage-making done, we had to decide how we wanted to serve it. We had been so focused on the work at hand that we hadn’t even thought about that part of it. Grilled as part of a charcuterie plate or maybe gumbo? With cabbage, potatoes and carrots? Nothing really sounded worthy of all of that work. Think about it later…

Looking at the bounty of kale from the garden that was cleaned by, you guessed it, Mom (thanks – again!) I was dying to make it into a tart with some Noble Springs chevre and caramelized onions. It’s a little too much work for a week-night dinner but I had frozen a cornmeal pie crust a while back that would complement those flavors really well and turn it into an easy week-night dinner but what to serve with it? Well, duh! Duck sausage! With so much produce just starting to show up, I knew we’d figure out something delicious.

Greens and Cheese Tart

Both of these crust recipes make enough for two single-crust or one double-crust regular pie but use all of it for this tart and both are great; it just depends what you want. Using coarse, stone-ground cornmeal really gives a great texture.

The original crust I used for this tart:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 egg yolks

3 tablespoons olive oil

4 tablespoons butter , cold, unsalted, cut into small pieces

5 tablespoons  ice water

In a food processor, pulse the flour with the salt. Add the egg yolks and olive oil; pulse until combined. Add the butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. With the processor running, slowly add the ice water and process just until the dough comes together. Shape the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Cornmeal Pate Brisee from Tigress

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup cornmeal

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces

1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

In a food processor, pulse the flour, cornmeal, salt, and sugar. Add the butter, and process, until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 10 seconds. With the processor running, pour the ice water in a slow, steady stream, until the dough just holds together (Do not process for more than 30 seconds!!!). Shape the dough into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Filling

1 1/2  pounds onions, very thinly sliced

3 tablespoons olive oil

1  pound of your favorite greens or combination of greens

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2  teaspoon pepper

salt (the amount depend on how salty your cheeses are)

1 lb goat cheese (or half goat/half cream cheese or half feta/half cream cheese or any other combination that amuses you and has the same consistency)

1/4 cup pine nuts

In a large skillet, saute the onions in the olive oil until they are dark golden brown, about 45 minutes. Stir frequently and reduce heat if they start to stick. When they are almost done, add the spices, salt and pepper.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Strip the greens off of the stems and wash thoroughly. Blanch until tender, drain and refresh under cold water. Drain, thoroughly dry and chop finely. In a small bowl, blend the cream cheese, goat cheese and salt, if needed.

Preheat the oven to 400. Roll the dough out between two sheets of parchment or plastic wrap to a 12 X 15 inch rectangle. Place on a large cookie sheet and peel off the top sheet of parchment paper. If using plastic wrap, peel off one sheet, invert onto cookie sheet then peel off the other sheet. Spread the chopped greens over the pastry dough, leaving a two-inch border. Spread the goat cheese mixture over the greens. Top with the onions and sprinkle the pine nuts over the onions.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Yeah, I had a brain fade and put the cheese under the greens but still yummyliscious!

The Hunters: Kevin, Patrick & Geoff with the fruits of their labor...

and ours. Thanks, Mom

My Favorite Things

My Favorite Things beautifully played by very young Mark Schatz, Tony and Wyatt Rice.

This month my favorite thing has been sausage, sausage and more sausage. Thanks to our Charcutepalooza challenge, I got to make more sausage in one day than I’ve made in my whole life. I’ve made breakfast sausage a couple of times and I’ve ground my own beef on more than one occasion but this time I was able to do a bit of reaching and stretching because…I had a partner in crime! Now my usual overachieving, obsessive, excessive tendencies could really get out of control.

Mom was here for what we thought was a nice long visit but that week went by in an even bigger flash than usual. She has been my most devoted reader so it was only right that she should experience as many of my wild and crazy Year In Meat adventures as possible. We had Bucatini all’ Amatriciana, we made biscuits and tucked slices of tasso in them, we had kimchi in our Korean rice bowls, we made mozzarella for our homemade pizzas, we made English muffins and indulged in some of my bacon for breakfast one day and a slice of fatty another. We also went to the farmer’s market to pick up a 9 pound pork butt and a giant pack of creamy white pork fat.

After dicing up that beautiful butt, I had about 7 1/2 pounds of meat so, in my infinite wisdom, I decided that since I didn’t really need that much chorizo at one time, we should try some other flavors. After all, it’s just some different seasoning so how much extra work can it be? Meguez wasn’t an option because I couldn’t get my hands on any local lamb so we decided on chorizo to satisfy the challenge requirements and tossed in sweet Italian sausage and Greek loukaniko for good measure. Next time I think we’ll tackle one sausage at a time. Thank goodness we were organized and had lots of blue tape to label all of the bowls of meat and spices so we didn’t wind up with sweet Italian chorizo.

We stuck pretty close to Michael Ruhlman’s recipes for the chorizo and Italian sausage but tweaked the seasoning a bit to suite our taste. The original recipes were a tad salty so next time we’ll trim back on the salt a little bit. We liked more garlic, oregano, pepper and cumin than the original chorizo recipe called for. We also wanted extra basil, oregano, fennel seeds, pepper and vinegar in the Italian sausage and decided we liked the herbs ground in a coffee grinder first so they distribute more evenly throughout the meat. The loukaniko was more of a challenge but we were very happy with our finished product.

Getting our spices together

Pork fat for all my friends!

Sausage makin' Mama!

Loukaniko

3 lb cold pork shoulder in 1-inch dice

1 lb cold pork back fat in 1-inch dice

1 T salt

1 T each oregano, coriander and allspice

2 tsp thyme

4 tsp black pepper

1 1/2 T garlic, minced

2 bay leaves

zest from 1 large orange

2/3 cup chilled red wine

Grind all herbs together in a coffee grinder. Toss all ingredients together except red wine. Chill thoroughly, grind into a bowl sitting in a bowl of ice water. Use paddle attachment on mixer to beat wine into chilled ground pork. Beat for about 2-3 minutes until it comes together, the wine is incorporated and the meat has a sticky texture. Saute a small piece, taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary.

Who says you shouldn’t play with your food? Now it’s time to do just that!

Stuff a chunk of cheese inside of a sausage ball

Apply fire

Have a squirt bottle of water nearby- a large one! All of that gorgeous pork fat definitely adds fuel to the fire. Next, make a little quickie marinara sauce to dip the Italian sausage into and feta and roasted red bell pepper dip for the Loukaniko. Normally I would have crumbled up some feta and beaten in a little olive oil to make it nice and creamy before stirring in 3-4 pureed red bell peppers and a little roasted garlic but I was trying to find a use for some verrry soft feta cheese that I made a few weeks ago. It went into the brine nice and firm but proceeded to soften into feta goo. It was very tasty feta goo, but goo nonetheless. This is not my first batch of feta goo, either so I’ve gotten pretty good at finding uses for it. This was pretty tasty and made a great salad dressing, too.

Since we were in charge of snacky food for a little Sunday afternoon get-together I figured it was a good time to share my sausage making bounty. Three flavors of sausage balls seemed a little redundant and I wanted to do something special with the chorizo since it was the whole reason we had ventured into sausage making territory anyway. I couldn’t see anybody I know turning up their noses at fresh chorizo, roasted pepper strips and lots of ooey gooey melted cheese so Queso Fundido was my choice to show off the chorizo.

Brown about 3/4 lb of chorizo, breaking it up into small pieces as it cooks. Remove from pan and add half of a large onion, diced. When in has softened, add roasted pepper strips. I used what I had on hand and my choices were getting a little slim because I’ve been trying to use everything I put up last year. This wound up being 2 roasted red bell peppers, a couple of poblanos, a couple of sweet long peppers and 4-5 roasted jalapenos that I froze at the end of the season last year. Grate 8 ounces of cheese.

Colby & extra sharp cheddar waiting with the sausage balls and feta goo!

Top the hot sausage, pepper and onion mixture with the cheese and put in a 350 oven just until the cheese melts. I served it with my new favorite chips- sweet potato tortilla chips.

Party time!

The general consensus was that it was the best Italian sausage ever and when am I going to make more, the queso fundido rocked and the loukaniko was good but “different”. I’m interpreting that as “different” in a good way since there were only 2 left.

Chorizo is not just for parties, either. It seemed fitting to end the month of sausage with sausage so we had scrambled eggs and some home fries with chorizo for breakfast yesterday. The sweet potato chips were so good with the queso fundido that I decided to throw some in with my Yukon golds for the home fries (plus I didn’t have enough of the Yukon golds).

It didn't suck!

Nashville Cats

Nashville Cats written by The Lovin’ Spoonful and performed by The Del McCoury band.

Here's one of my Nashville cats with good taste in reading material

Well, guitar pickers aren’t the only thing there are 1352 of in Nashville right now! Aside from having 1352 things on my to-do list, I am the proud Mama of 1352 little baby ‘maters, peppers, squashes, zuccs and cukes. Can’t wait to get them in the ground; I’m so proud! There are also at least 1352 ways to co-mingle smoke and pork which brings us to…

Charcutepalooza Our challenge this month was hot smoking so I’ve been hot and smokin’ all month long! Gotta love that!

Since I did Canadian bacon last month, I started with the charcutier challenge, tasso. I have to confess that I was disappointed in our challenge. I was born and raised in south Louisiana but had never heard of tasso until the blackening craze of the eighties swept the country. Then BAM!! showed up on the scene and tasso started appearing in grocery stores as a salty, cayenne-laced piece of mediocre, mass-produced meat product. What’s a good coonass girl supposed to do? Thank Kim & Cathy (and Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn), that’s what! Thank you for bringing real tasso into the light and exposing that horrid other stuff for what it is. Thank you for taking the schtick out of it! Thank you for inspiring me to do this! The news might not have made the headlines yet but all you ‘paloozers out there know the truth: it’s great stuff!

So I did a little research, got a big beautiful pork butt from Emerald Glen Farm, and was ready to have a go at it; or at least I thought I was. I’m supposed to slice this shoulder into nice thick slabs to dredge in my cure. No problem except my pork anatomy lesson that taught me that butt is really shoulder seems to have left out a small detail. Thar’s bone in them thar pork butts! OK! I have a good sharp knife; I can handle this. Did I mention that it was 530 in the morning and I was trying to hurry up and slice my butt before work? (Begin juvenile jokes here) Since I’d already started slicing the first slab, I just cut around the bone. After I did that about eight more times, I had eight slabs and a big pretty bone so I cured, rubbed and smoked it, too. I figure that bone will make a mighty fine addition to a pot of beans.

I hate the misconception that if you throw cayenne in something, it is now Cajun or Creole (two totally different thing, BTW) so I appreciate the fact that the rub in Charcuterie didn’t do that. But it didn’t particularly appeal to me, either; partially because I don’t care for white pepper and partially because I thought marjoram was an odd herb to use in this context.

Generalization time - everyone, in La uses some kind of creole season salt, usually Tony Chachere’s. It is so common that, whether it’s Tony’s or not, it’s usually just called Tony’s. Except at our house where it’s Holly’s and that’s what I decided to use as my dry rub on the tasso. I don’t want my food to taste like creole seasoning so I prefer not to have a super-distinct flavor profile in my creole seasoning and started blending my own years ago. Penzey’s  is my favorite (only) source for dried herbs and spices and their toasted onion powder really tames the typical harsh taste of dehydrated onion. Grinding the herbs in a coffee grinder or food processor before adding the powdered spices makes it more uniform and makes a big difference. Give it a try and let me know how you like it.

Creole Seasoning

1/3 C salt

1/3 C garlic powder

1/4 C black pepper

1/4 C paprika

3 T toasted onion powder

2 T each oregano, thyme and basil

2 1/2 T cayenne

Note to self: DO NOT accidentally put the cayenne in the processor-cough, cough.

Now that I have a giant platter of smoky, porky, spicy goodness, it’s time to play! First something traditional – jambalaya – and I’m a brown jambalaya girl. For those of you that aren’t up on your jambalaya variations, there is a red version that has lots of tomato (not my favorite) and there is brown jambalaya that is roux-based and has no tomato. Use whatever combination of meat appeals to you; there is no right or wrong.

Brown Jambalaya

1 1/2 pounds smoked sausage, andouille &/or tasso,cut in 1/2 inch dice

1 1/2 pounds pork or chicken &/or sm-med peeled shrimp, meat cut in cubes no         bigger than an inch

1/3 cup drippings from the meat (add bacon grease if necessary)

1/3 cup flour

2 cups onion, diced

1 cup celery, diced

1 cup bell pepper, diced

1 tablespoon garlic, minced

1 cup green onions, finely sliced

1/3 cup parsley, minced

2 bay leaves

1/2 teaspoon basil

1/2 teaspoon thyme

1 teaspoon black pepper

cayenne and salt to taste- depends on how spicy/salty the sausage is

4 cups chicken stock

2 cups rice, Basmati rice is really great in this

In a large dutch oven or heavy sauté pan with a lid, brown the sausage/tasso then remove from pan. Brown the chicken &/or pork, remove from pan and add it to the sausage. Add enough bacon grease to make 1/3 cup of drippings.

Add flour and make a medium dark roux, stirring constantly. Add onion, bell pepper and celery and cook until soft. Add garlic, basil, thyme, salt, pepper and cayenne and cook 2-3 minutes. Add stock and stir until roux is mixed in and there are no lumps.  Add bay leaves and taste for salt and pepper – remember the rice triples in volume! Bring to a boil, add rice and meats and bring back to a boil.

If using shrimp, lay them over the top of the rice, cover and bake at 350 until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. DO NOT STIR while the rice is cooking. When the rice is cooked, add parsley and green onions. Carefully fluff the rice to mix.

One of the most important things on my to-do list was avert an impending bacon crisis. We were down to one measly little pack of bacon so I fixed that problem by curing and smoking a 15 pound slab of luscious pork belly. My (GOSM) Great Outdoors Smoky Mountain smoker wasn’t big enough to hold it intact, and neither were the zip-top bags, so I had to cut it in three pieces but our freezer is now bulging with little vacuum bags full of bacon and all is well.

So now I have tasso, I have bacon and I have some ground pork that I’ve been planning to season up for some breakfast sausage. That all adds up to just one thing in my book. It’s time to smoke a fatty!! Lest you think I’m dabbling in things I oughtn’t, let me illustrate my favorite method of rolling and smoking a fatty and before anybody calls the DEA, let me explain that, among meat smoking aficionados, a fatty is pork wrapped pork stuffed with something that is, preferably,uh…pork.

There are several steps to this process but none are difficult and the reward is great so let’s get started. You can form it up the night before if you want to get a head start on breakfast or party snacks. It makes a great appetizer to munch on while you’re waiting for your main meat to finish smoking. Now, you can cheat and buy bulk pork sausage but it’s so easy to season up some ground pork that it seems silly to use mass-produced stuff when everything else is homemade. Any of the seasonings mentioned in Charcuterie work well so get creative and mix your choice of seasoning into 1-2 pounds of ground pork (I used about a pound and half here). Put it in a 1 gallon zip-top bag and squash it flat so it goes into all of the corners and is evenly distributed. Zip it closed then put it in the fridge to chill while you work on the innards.

You can get pretty creative with the filling, just make sure nothing is very moist and any veggies are pre-cooked or the steam from the filling will make it fall apart. If you are going the breakfast route, scrambled eggs make a darn good filling and I think cheese is a required ingredient so I grated about 6 ounces of extra sharp cheddar. I’m partial to roasted red peppers and I always have some in the freezer so I sliced a couple of those up and diced about 8 ounces of tasso and sautéed it so I would have a little fat left over to saute some onions. I used shallots this time because I had a surplus of them but use what you have on hand. After the fat renders from the tasso and it gets a little browned, remove it from the pan and add about 3/4 cup shallots. Once they soften, add them to the bowl with the tasso and I threw in a little thyme just for fun.

Now it’s time to start assembling. Lay the zip-top bag of pork on the counter, unzip it, cut open two of the three other sides and peel the bag back.

Spread the grated cheese evenly, leaving a 1-2 inch border on all sides. Spread the other filling ingredients over the cheese.

Using the bag to help you, start rolling from the short side, tucking things in as you go. Keep your roll tight and seal the seam when you get to the bottom. Fold in the sides so the filling is completely encased or you’ll spill you guts in the smoker.

Roll it onto a clean piece of plastic wrap and wrap it up and twist the ends of the plastic together so you can really apply some pressure to it so it’s nice and firm. I usually cheat and just lay the gooey, greasy bag back over it but you can apply more even pressure if you use the plastic wrap. Now back into the fridge while we weave some bacon.

If you’ve ever made a lattice pie crust, it’s the same process and, if you haven’t, it’s a piece of cake. This was my first attempt at making lattice so don’t be afraid of the weave. I used 12 pieces of bacon but it depends on the length and width of your bacon as well as the length and width of your fatty. (Insert juvenile joke here!) Place a piece of plastic wrap on the counter and lay enough bacon down side-by-side and close together to equal the length of your fatty. Lift up every other slice, fold it back halfway and lay a slice of bacon across it.

Lay those slices back down, lift up the alternate slices and lay down another piece of bacon.

Repeat the alternating lifting/laying down until all of your bacon is used and it looks like this:

 

If you can resist frying it up and making the most beautiful BLT ever, it’s time to gift wrap that pork that you stashed in the fridge. Pull it out of the refrigerator, unwrap it and roll it onto the bacon weave.

Use the plastic wrap under the bacon(which I forgot to do) to help you roll it around the fatty and secure the ends with a couple of toothpicks.

Now, stand back, admire your meat and let all of the sexual innuendos that you’ve been suppressing fly. Smoke at about 250° until it reaches an internal temperature of 150-160°. You have to stick a thermometer into it longways so time for more juvenile jokes.  It should take about 2 hours (the smoking, not the jokes).

Now youve smoked a fatty, too!

Cool, man!!