charcuterie

Nduja is a Spreadable Salame

April 28, 2018 by Jason Leave a Comment

Don’t let the moldy casing fool ya. The magic is inside. This has been drying for a while now. I just uncased a few more, rolled them in more Calabrian pepper powder, and vac sealed for some additional time in the fridge. It should be very spicy. We’ll know more later. I still have a larger caliber (about 2 pound) stuffed in a beef bung still in the drying chamber.

This is Nduja. It is a fermented, cured, spreadable salami. The highlights of Nduja is that it is typically spicy hot, made from a variety of Calabrian peppers, has a much larger percentage of fat than lean pork, and of course, it’s spreadable. One might even dispute it is salami. It’s still hung up to dry a considerable amount before cutting open and knifing it out.

The high-fat content is what makes it spreadable. The high-quality pork I started with had beautiful, stark white fat and the animal was harvested only a day earlier. I brought it home, sorted out 70% fat back, and 30% belly (which is about 50/50 lean/fat). So that brings us maybe closer to 80% fat! I used a 1:1 ratio of sweet and hot Calabrian pepper powders, and elected for Aleppo pepper instead of cayenne.

I got all of the fat close to frozen and made sure the grinder, attachments, and trays were super cold too. This is to prevent smear, especially since it was going through the grinder twice. I ground the fat first, then the belly separate through my medium die. I hand-mixed the farce, then folded in the spice mix. The white fat soaked up the brick red color of the pepper powders. I then added in the starter culture along with a 1/2 cup of dry red wine. I took all of that and put it through the grinder using the small die. It was closer to a paste now but still around 42F or so.

I put it into my stuffer (that was also pre-chilled in the freezer) and stuffed into 4 hog ends and 1 beef bung. I still have to truss them up, but there’s time since they will sit at 80F and 80% humidity for 72 hours to ferment, then go into the drying chamber for a good while longer. This will be an interesting one. I found myself salivating thinking about how it should taste when it’s done.

After watching and reading the many variations of how people make it, here is what I ended up with.

80/50 fat/lean pork
.25% #2
2% kosher sea salt
.3% dextrose
.9% hot Calabrian pepper powder
.9% sweet Calabrian pepper powder
.5% Aleppo Pepper
.01% B-LC-007 starter culture.
120ml dry red wine

Venison Neck Ham or Pepper Loaf

December 31, 2017 by Jason Leave a Comment

I tried a new variation on the neck roast from a deer I took this year. I always make it a point to harvest the neck roast from any deer I take and I take the time to get all of it and keep it as the biggest piece I can. If it comes out decent, I’ll try something new with it. But in most cases, it comes out kind of scraggly and it’s ground along with the skirt meat from around the rib cages into sausage meat.

This year, I got it out in mostly one scraggly piece of meat. I took it and the skirt meat and weighed it out. I made up a spice mix (below) and added it with the meat, and tossed it in the fridge for a couple weeks, turning and massaging it every other day.

Venison Ham (It tasted like pepper loaf in the end)

2280 grams of venison neck and skirt meat
2.25% kosher salt
.25% Cure #1
2% turbinado sugar
12 juniper berries, crushed
.5 Blk. pepper
.50% basic steak seasoning

Add all spices to the meat, massage and add into plastic vac bag, scraping all of the spice and salt into the bag as well. It’s ok to wash the bowl out with a bit of distilled water just to drain ALL of the spices/salt into the bag. Seal and put in fridge for 7-10 days (or as long as you want if you are using EQ).

When I found a moment, I got it out, rinsed it off, and laid it on some clean dry towels just to soak up as much water as possible. I laid out a few layers of plastic wrap and I spread the neck roast out like a big carpet. I got out the transglutamase (TG, meat glue, that will bind proteins together) and sprinkled it directly on to the meat in a liberal fashion. I layered on the skirt meat and alternated sprinkling the TG. I was looking for a uniform thickness of meat that I could roll up in the plastic wrap like a big sausage. The pics below will illustrate it better.

Mind you, the TG I had expired in 2015… ugh, but what the heck, it was an experiment. Once it was rolled up tight in the plastic wrap, I slipped some netting over it, and pricked it with the sausage pricker to let all the air pockets out. Since it was a mass of shredded meat, I massaged it a bit to force all the air out that I could. Now it was to sit to let the TM set.

It sat in the fridge for two days before I took it out, slipped off the netting and carefully took it out of the plastic wrap. Then I slipped the netting back on to it and got the smoker going. The smoker was set 10 175F. It fluctuated between that and 200F for about 9-10 hours. I filled my water pan at the bottom with water to keep a decent amount of moisture going. You’ll smoke to an internal temperature of 155F. Remember, the smoke is handled first thing while there’s still a good pellicle. Once that’s gone, it stops taking smoke for the most part… so, add the smoke early on… then let finish out to the needed internal temperature. I also added a tin-foil tent at the half-way point just to try and keep the surface from drying too much. This let the moisture come straight up under the ham and the foil tent.

It was really hard to not rip in to this at this point, but I wrapped it good in tin foil and set on the counter until it cooled enough to go into the fridge. Yup… it get’s chilled over night, and then sliced in the morning.

Overall, it turned out great, and I’ll definitely be doing this more. The meat glue did it’s job… but since it was old, the seams did come apart a bit as you can see in the pics. It still wasn’t a big deal. When it was sliced, it kind of fell apart… the way you’d like if you were layering it onto some rye with a plop of saur kraut. It was good on crackers with mustard, and just straight up. I suppose you could fry it in a skillet too… but, it’s fully cooked at this point, and it really just works as a lunchmeat.

I should mention my inspiration for this project was from Chris Varner’s “Ham-Grenade” that is posted in the Salt Cured Pig group on Facebook. Chris is another daring salumiere I like to watch among the many other talents there. If you’re really in to curing and drying, I whole-heartedly recommend these groups on Facebook. They provide a wealth of inspiration and knowledge… and have a passionate readership who’s highly engaged.

Hope you can try it this with your next deer harvest… and let me know how it goes!

Deer, hung and aged for a solid 12 days! Look at the color.

Venison neck and skirt meat trimmed, and seasoned in the spice mix.

The meat and spice mix was in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

Out of the cure, the meat was rinsed, dried and layered on plastic wrap. Transglutamase was sprinkled on between each layer.

The meat was rolled up into a tight log and tied on the ends, then netted, pricked.. and massage out all the air.

Once out of the wrap, it was re-netted and then hot smoked at 175F for 10 hours.

The ham came out of the smoker, was wrapped in foil and then left in fridge overnight.

Finally, we get to slice. Notice the meat glue didn’t hold up completely.

It worked good on a soda cracker with mustard.

Well enough to make some good ruben-style sammies.

Here is it packaged up for family gifts.

Deer Heart Pastrami

December 3, 2017 by Jason Leave a Comment

Finally. I’ve been wanting to try a deer heart pastrami for a while now. I got it done… and did the final hot smoke and steaming today. The recipe was taken from Michael Pendley’s venison pastrami recipe on RealTree.com. I mainly went with his ingredients and followed his procedure, but used two deer hearts and a pork heart I had. The results are not disappointing!

I love pastrami, and while I usually dry cure my deer hearts, I wanted to do a pastrami because of the dense, silky texture of the heart meat. With all the fat on the outside, it just seemed perfect. I did trim a little of the outer fat off though. I have an exact process of dressing deer hearts at this point. Where and how it’s cut is the same all the time if I’m wanting to keep it in a single piece. In dry-curing, it get EQ cured, then rolled tight and trussed before drying. Once during that process, it get’s unrolled, brushed, a layer of cracked pepper put on, then rolled back up, and re-trussed.

For the pastrami, it was cut and dressed the same way, put in the brine for about 9 days, washed off, rubbed, then hot smoked before steaming. It was rolled back up into the shape of the heart before laid on the top rack of my smoker.

Hearts in the brine, then into the fridge.

For the brine;

2 quarts of water
½ cup kosher salt
½ cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon Instacure #1
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
2 crumbled bay leaves
½ teaspoon powdered ginger

I added 3 hearts (2 deer and one pork) – I mixed it up and heated it in a pot just as prescribed in Michael’s article. Once cooled, I added the cleaned, dressed hearts. I let it go in the brine for about 8 or 9 days because that’s how long it took me to get back to it.

Hearts out of the hot smoke, and into the steam.

I washed off with water, and rubbed it down with:

2 tablespoons cracked BP
1 tablespoon ground coriander seeds (my own in fact)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon Steak seasoning
1 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoons onion powder

I mixed all the ingredients, and rubbed the inside and outside of the hearts really well. I got it into all the crevices of the inside. Then I rolled them up, and laid them on the top rack of the smoker. I did the first hour at 225 over apple wood chunks… and then ramped it up to 250 until an internal temp of 150. When it came off, I laid them on a rack over a tray of water in the oven at 250 for 1.5 hours to steam it. When it came out, I sliced, ate some, and vac’d them into little Carl Budding-like packs to share with friends.

I highly recommend this. It’s really worth it. Enjoy some pics, and commentary.

Dressing a deer heart just entail cutting out the webbing and whatever fat you want off the outside.

After cure, rinse, and rub with spice mix.

Took the ends after slicing and diced them up for addition into another dish.

Traditional English Pork Pie

November 13, 2015 by Jason Leave a Comment

While going through the freezer the other night making space for hunting season, I collected a number of pig trotters that were begging to have something done with them. I decided on pork pie. The trotters would be cleaned and boiled to make an aspic for the jelly. I depended on a mash of recipes and processes from the Internet as well as some charcuterie books. The components of a pork pie consist of the outer pastry shell, the meat filling, and the aspic, or jelly that is poured in before chilling the pie.

Preparing the jelly by boiling the trotters with other seasonings.

Here’s what I ended up with.

For the jelly, I rendered my pig trotters to make the aspic the day before since it alone takes about 3 hours to cook.

1 lb. of pig trotters. I had 4, and used them all
4 large chopped carrots
1 large chopped onion
1 chopped stick of celery
4-5 bay leaves
1 tbsp. of chopped parsley
1 tbsp. of thyme
½ tbsp. of peppercorns

I also had some dehydrated seasoned tomatoes that I added in. It’s OK to improvise. I cleaned and scraped off any hair or debris from the trotters. I also blanched them and drained the water before using. Add the trotters and all the ingredients above to a clean pot and fill with water until everything is just covered. Bring it to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for three hours. You can skim any scum as needed. Once done, strain and put back on the stove to simmer until the liquid is reduced by 30-40%. When this is chilled, it will turn to a jelly that can be cut with a knife, but not too rubbery. I chilled this until the next day, and reheated before using.

For the filling, I used just over a pound of 50/50 lean/fat pork that I had, but you can use shoulder, or other cuts you that you like.

1.3 lb pork and fat
1 chopped onion
1 tsp. sage
1 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. allspice
I also added 2 cloves crushed garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all the ingredients with the pork and fat, and add to your pan that is lined with the pastry shell. You do not need to pack the filling tight as you will want the space for the jelly to run down through later. Once the filling is added, roll out your lid, place it on top, and flute around the edges. I also added some leaves (since it’s fall, and I was inspired). Poke a hole about the size of your pinky in the top middle… or make two on each side. This hole will be used to pour the aspic in later after it’s cooled.

I had some filling left over, and so I made up another batch of pastry and lined muffin tins to make smaller personal pies.

The hot water pastry, simple, neat and quick since I had lard already rendered and ready. Really, you can use whatever pastry recipe you like, but I used,

4 oz. water
4 oz. lard
10 oz. flour
½ tsp. salt
1 egg beaten for the egg wash.

Boil the water and lard until the lard is melted. Add the salt and flour and mix until it forms into dough. The lard keeps the pan lubricated and you should be able to tip the dough out and knead it by hand before rolling it out. As the dough cools, it begins to harden. I found that I needed it to cool more so that it didn’t tear when I lifted it up to line the pan. Flour your surface, knead it and roll it out to about 1/8″ thick, and line a 3×6″ pan. Make sure you keep enough to make a lid for the pie.

Bake at 400°F for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375°F and bake for another hour. You can remove it from the tin once it’s manageable, but this time, I let it stay in the pan.

Boil up the jelly and allow to cool a little. Using a funnel, pour the jelly into the pie through the hole(s) you made. Keep adding more jelly and allow it to settle before adding more. When the pie cools again, the jelly will set. Pork pie is traditionally eaten cold, but if you want to warm it a little, go for it. Just don’t warm so much that your jelly re-liquefies or you’ll be robbed of the savory flavor that is… pork pie.

The trotters fell apart after they were boiled.

The 50/50 pork/fat that was minced for the filling.

Using the remainder to make smaller pies.

The baked pies, eggwashed before cooking, and ready for the jelly.

Rabbit sausage with Morels and Ramps

January 15, 2015 by Jason 1 Comment

Rabbit and morel sausage, or also known as, ‘Bunny Bangers’… one of my seasonal favorites. Seasonal because you must have fresh morels, and non-freezer-burnt rabbit. Deboning a rabbit is some pretty tedious work too. Whether you are harvesting your own rabbits, or buying them from a breeder, have that rabbit ready for when the morels pop! This has to be hands down, my favorite fresh sausage.

Like all sausage making, your equipment, trays, grinder head, stuffer, and all the meat and fat have to be cold! Cold as possible just short of frozen. Rabbit fat is good stuff. I use all of it and only add the needed amount of pork fat, Have it diced and frozen ahead of time. I also de-bone the rabbit and freeze it on flat trays ahead of time. This way, when it comes time to use it, you have a sheet of chopped rabbit meat that is ready to use after a very quick thaw (just enough to break it apart). Soak your casings in lukewarm water while you prepare everything else too.

Mix all your spices. This is a simple one. Salt, pepper and garlic. Nothing else is needed because you want to let the rabbit and morels shine. Admittedly, I change it up though. I’ve tried adding cumin and rubbed sage, and always fresh minced garlic. It’s really up to you. I list percentages below so that you can weigh out your trim and adjust your fat and spices accordingly.

Rabbit/Morel Sausage Recipe

Rabbit trim (deboned, chunked and mostly frozen)
32% Fat back, cubed (mostly frozen)

Take total weight in grams of the rabbit trim + fat, and weigh out your spices.

2% kosher salt
.2% cracked black pepper
.6% garlic (fresh, crushed or minced)
Morel mushrooms. However many you have, or want (chopped any size you like)
Optional: Ramps! They are usually in season along with morels.
Optional: 3/4 cup asiago, romano or parmesan (shaved or chunked)
1 cup of red wine
4-5 feet of casings

Some people add the spices to the meat and fat before grinding. Others, do it after grinding. I have tried both ways and cannot find a notable difference in taste but I have decided that I like to toss the meat and fat in the spices, then grind as helps get the spices well-integrated.

Have everything together, and cold, then grind that meat and fat into a bowl set in ice, or a deep-side tray. BUT DON’T GRIND THE MORELS OR RAMPS. You don’t want to chop them into oblivion. Once ground, add the spices (if you haven’t already) and mix together. Then add the wine and mix some more. The ramps can be chopped into 1 inch pieces. The morels should be cut to the size you like (bigger chunks for me) and then folded in to the final force-meat. Let sit for the pellicle. The time here depends on how cold you’ve managed to keep things. I find I have plenty of time to do the quenelle test (adjust the spices) and prepare the stuffer.

When the farce is sticky, stuff into the casings, twist and let sit for about 20 minutes to let it bind a little. I have not tried cold-smoking them yet. Some day, I will. Here is where I cut them to about 4 per pack and vac seal them before tossing them into the freezer.

To serve, I thaw completely, and give them a gentle poaching. If you are using the right vac seal bags, you can sous vide the sausages right in the bag before opening. Just be sure to not over-cook. You want the sausage still pink inside. Finish on the grill. Check out some of the pics.