This is the dry cured chorizo after 2 days of fermentation and 5 days of drying. Look at how beautiful that mold looks! They will take a month and a half or so to dry.
Day 5
August 28th, 2010New Sausages
August 22nd, 2010
It has been a while since I spent a day pumping out sausages. I made fresh chorizo sausage, dry cured chorizo and two different kinds of coppa.
These are the fresh chorizo drying and fermenting a bit before I packaged them up and threw them in the freezer. These guys were seasoned with a guajillo and ancho puree, garlic, cloves, vinegar and some Mexican oregano. This was pretty much the same recipe I used for the dry cured chorizo which are displayed below fermenting in my oven. In addition to the ingredients above, I added a lactic acid starter and cure number 2 to the mix.
They will ferment for 2 days in the oven and then I will transfer them to my drying fridge. I made 3 in some hog casings(on the left) and 4 in some narrow beef middles(on the right). I also made two different coppas which will be curing in the spices for two weeks and then transfered to the fridge to dry. One is seasoned with lemon zest, corriander, allspice, galic, white pepper, cayanne and paprika. The other one is seasoned with black pepper, juniper, cloves, garlic and allspice. In just a few months these guys will be ready. Stay tuned..
How to Cut a Coppa
August 21st, 2010This post has been promised for a while now, so I hope this makes some of you happy. A coppa is basically the pork chuck roll eye or the continuation of the ribeye muscles into the shoulder. You take off the underblade muscle that is usually included in a chuck roll. So let us begin.
This is the boston butt or bone-in pork shoulder. The glorious coppa is on the left side here or the side adjacent to the bone. Click here to see what a finished coppa looks like. It will help you understand what you are looking at.
Now follow the seam of fat down to the fat cap on the bottom of the photo.
Now follow the fat cap around the rest of the coppa.
Easy as that….Now smoke it, cure it, braise it, grill it or slow roast it. Any way you do it it will be delicious. I hope this helped some of you out.
Sourdough Starter and Pizza
July 25th, 2010I tried this a few times before with limited success. My previous wild sourdough starters, the urban starters as some refer to them, were never sour enough. I’ve read many essays on the subject and they all say the same thing: “Put equal parts of warm water and whole wheat or rye flour in a bowl. Everyday for a week pour off half and add more flour and water. Then move to the fridge and pour off half and add more water and flour every week.” I attempted this a few times and it was never great and they all ended up dying. In comes the River Cottage Bread book that says to “get to know your starter. Develop a relationship with it and know when it needs to be fed.” So this time around I listened, I mean, smelled the starter everyday and continued to feed it everyday for 3 weeks until it smelled the way I wanted it to smell. Now it is in the fridge and I feed it once a week.
Once you get to this stage, there are a couple ways to use it… 1.) you can use a ladle of it in any bread dough. It gives your bread or pizza dough great flavor or 2.) you can make a sourdough dough. This means you have to make a sponge the night before baking. Below is a pizza dough in which I used a ladle full of the starter.
Week Old Dough
July 11th, 2010I had some of the dough left from the previous post. I kept it in the fridge for a week and the delicious fermented flavors really developed. This was a lot better than the previous two loaves. Look at those beautiful air bubbles.
Bread
July 4th, 2010
It has been a while since I made some bread. I missed it a bit. These loaves have a great crust. I started baking the bread in a preheated 550* oven with my baking stone. I also had a pan filled with water in the bottom of the oven to prevent the crust from hardening too quickly. This allows for the full “oven spring” or final rise. After about 10 minutes, I lowered the oven temp to about 345* for about 20 to 30 minutes or until the loaves sounded hollow. Currently, the loaves are cooling. I can’t wait to try them.
Homemade Brats
June 12th, 2010
This is my first attempt at making fresh brats outside of a butcher shop. These are not traditional German style brats. Those guys are emulsified sausages which means that the meat is pulverized into a paste. Your run-of-the-mill hot dog is an example of an emulsified sausage. I like a chunky meat texture in my brats. These guys have the perfect amount of mace and nutmeg. I also seasoned them with; ginger, white wine, white pepper, toasted mustard seeds, marjoram, a touch of garlic, salt and some coriander seeds. I was going to throw some cardamom in there as well but you’d be amazed how much it is going for these days. I mean, a small bottle of ground cardamom was as much as the pork butt and pork prices are high, as well. Although, the wholesale market is sliding so look for some good meat sales come the 4th of July. Cheers!
Pork Chuck Roll
May 30th, 2010
This is probably my favorite cut of meat. It is basically a trimmed up chuck roll from a hog. It is also called a coppa fresca because it is the same cut from a hog that is used to make dry-cured coppa. Click here if you want to read more about that. I will post “how to” info for cutting a coppa fresca in the near future. I have done everything with this cut of pork. I have smoked it, slow roasted it for 12 hours, cured it and like I did tonight, slow roasted it on the grill.
So… pictured above is the coppa fresca rubbed with mint, corriander, star anise, clove, allspice, black pepper and salt. I rubbed it and let it sit over night. I then roasted it in my gas grill for 4 hours at about 300 degrees. I also made some refried black beans with baby artichokes and I glazed the coppa fresca with a glaze made from the drippings, honey and lemon. Also, those are some baby lettuces on top that I am growing on our deck. Tasty.
Chorizo
May 7th, 2010
Tonight I made my first batch of sausage in our new place. I made some chorizo seasoned with a guajillo, piquin, and pasilla pepper puree and a bunch of other stuff. I hang my fresh sausages for a couple hours after they are linked to develop some flavor. I couldn’t resist them and had to try one before it had hung. This is my best batch of chorizo so far.
Last Batch Before the Move
March 21st, 2010
After 65 days, I pulled the final 3 fennel seasoned salami out of my drying fridge. They are even better than the one I pulled out a few weeks back. The casing was a little harder to remove on these but a damp paper towel softened the casing enough to remove it. This is the final batch of salami in this apartment. We will see what the new place brings.