Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I hung up 2 loins I've had in salt foe the past week and a half. I had some salumi fat rendered down, and I used it to make a "salumi rub" and coated one of the loins in it before hanging, just to add a little more depth in flavor. The paletilla's are still hanging and are getting firmer everyday. I also pulled down 46 pounds of salami I had made about 2 weeks ago from some left over berkshire pork we had. I made 8 different flavors. Four of the eight are more traditional. I made finochionna, sopressata, genoa, and a walnut salami. The other flavors are a little different. I used some tomato powder, carrot powder, and milk solids and created a bolognese salami. Another flavor I made was a beer and pretzel salami. I used some stale pretzels and dehydrated them, and mixed them with some beer powder. It tasted great. The fermentation of the beer powder mixed with the tang of the salami really went well together. I also made a thai- coconut one using dehydrated coconut. The last one I made was with soy sauce powder and wasabi powder. One of my favorites so far!

Mangalitsa Prosciutto

I took the two mangalitsa legs I have curing in salt and weighed them. They lost around 7% off its original weight. This is where most of the research I've done over the past couple of months comes into play. Even though I have my own personal "go to guide", I try to do as much research as I can on anything I am about to start curing. I have 3 major sources that I looked at before I started the prosciutto. I wrote down each method from the 3 sources, then compared each of the 3 major steps in curing prosciutto. The 3 steps that they all talked about were salt curing, incubating, then drying. I took all the information from the research I did, and looked at what was similar, and what were the major differences. From this, I created what I decided would be my own way of finishing my prosciutto. Of course, like all muscles, you must start them off in a salt bed for a certain amount of time. Which, between all of the info, is roughly about 1-2 months. Now comes the hard part. This is the time where every different book and website I've been looking at for the past year changes, but it's been the part that I've been looking forward to the most. Next is when I decide what I'm going to do to make this prosciutto my own. I'm going to give it just a little more time in the salt before I decide to hang it and start letting it move on to its final curing stages.

Mangalitsa Coppa

I was able to make 2 different styles of coppa with the two shoulders. I cured them both originally in the same cure. The methods were both the same, however, when it became time to hang them after the first month, I rolled one muscle in a more traditional, spicy rub and the other I did in a more sweeter. Both pieces have a tremendous amount of fat, so both flavors compliment each other well. I have been putting them both on the charcuterie plate and have been calling them "sweet and spicy coppa" and trying to get some guest feedback on which is their favorite, and to be honest the results have come back almost 50/50. Here are some pictures of the coppa's, just pulled down from the hooks!

Smoked Mangalitsa Lardo

With much of the mangalitsa back fat, I was able to smoke it with a mixture of hickory smoke powder and kept the salt crust that it was originally cured in. I figured with the salt crust still around it, the smoke would still penetrate and it would be too harsh on the delicate fat. I really liked the way it took on a bit of smokey color. I cold smoked it for about 3 hours, the rinsed off the salt crust, sliced, then melted on a piece of toasted baguette.

Many new things going on...

With all of the new items on the charcuterie plate, It has been selling really well. Everything on the plate is from the Mangalitsa pig we received a couple of months ago. I made some pork rinds and they came out great! I've been trying to make them for months now, doing a lot of research, but no methods have worked out so far. Finally found a way that they come out light and crispy. I've had some great customer feedback. After getting the mangalitsa, I found myself with with almost 8 pounds of back fat. I cured all of it and was coming up with different ways to flavor it. With one piece I decided to smoke it with hickory wood chips. Along with those two items, I have 2 different types of coppa. I have one thats cured in a cuban spice. This one is sweeter and tastes great. The other coppa is cured more traditionally, in a spicier crust. The finochionna is also ready. This is the first salami that I have made with the mangalitsa.

Busy days...

I finally have all of the cuts of pork all in cures. The prosciutto each weighed around 11 pounds each. I used about a pound and a half of salt, with about 5 tablespoons of pink salt and divided that up into 2 batches. Since I left the hoof on, I wanted to wrap in in parchment paper and pack it in salt. I rubbed all around the exposed bone and covered the meat area in about and inch thick layer of salt. After coving the leg, I used a non-reactive pan to prop up the leg from under the thick side, drawing a lot of the moisture from the thicker side, down to help it speed up the process. I referenced several resources and decided, what I thought, would be the best way to cure it. Today I will redistribute the cure and decide if I still want to weigh down the prosciutto to help speed up the process.

The coppa is in the cure and looks good. After 9 days, I will re-distribute the cure over the muscles. The lardo that I have is a little thicker than the last batch I did. It might take just a little longer to cure.

Mangalitsa

I have not blogged in quite a while. It has been a busy past month. Our chef at the restaurant left to another place. With that, they wanted to cut the charcuterie program for a while during the transition into getting a new chef. In that time, I spent a week in Los Angeles staging at a restaurant there that was interested in starting up a charcuterie program. I had a great time while I was there, meeting some new faces and learning a couple things. When I came back, our new chef, a great local talent, was hired and his first move was starting up the cured meats. It took 2 days to get what I had been asking for, for at least 5 months. We received 2 shoulders of mangalitsa pigs, each weighing around 29 lbs. After butchering, I have about 9 lbs of lardo, 6 lbs of coppa, at least 10 lbs for salami, and two 11 lb paletilla's for front leg prosciutto. I'm not quite sure if I'm going to use both for prosciutto, or use one for salami. Here are some pictures of the whole shoulders, then one leg, after butchering, for prosciutto.