I 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.
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.
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!
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 
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.
After 65 days, I pulled the final 3 fennel seasoned salami out of my drying fridge. They are even better than 
Tonight I was eating some delicious pan roasted red snapper and crispy snapper skin tacos and started dreaming of fishing. With a hint of warm weather in the air(in Chicago that means 40 degrees and raining), I have started to plan my next fishing trip. I think it will be memorial day weekend and I will be venturing up to Vilas County Wisconsin. My goal is to score a musky over 40 inches or at least some tasty walleyes and perch. Other than that, nothing much going on here. We are getting ready for the big move and listening to some Cambodian music from the 60s and 70s. Also, all my salami are done but I haven’t taken them out of the drying fridge yet. Yes, I am that lazy. I had a long week last week and I am still trying to catch up. I cut way too many hanging tenders last week(not really, I love cutting meat). It was nice to be able to incorporate my meat cutting skills into my new job.
This is what you get. As with trimming any piece of meat, try to get under the membrane and tilt the knife blade up a bit as to not cut into the meat. Next turn the muscle over.
The only issues I have are: 1.) I need to find some good fatback because some of the fat I have been using has been a little creamy. and 2.) I need to add a bit more fennel to this batch. If anyone knows where I can find some fatback in Chicago or has some reccomendations for new projects please let me know.