I am just about to blow out the door to catch a train to NYC to meet up with Mike Pardus, Kris Ray and a bunch of other culinarians for a walking tour through the markets and eateries of China Town, so I am not going to spend too many words on this post.
Here is a slide show of some of the work I did at the farm last week.
And some follow up shots of the same product the way they looked this week.
LATER!
7 comments:
Why am I reading this - go!
I trust you gentlemen are Certified
Do you leave the skin on the bellies when you hang them up to dry?
Adriana
I take the skin off the bellies before curing for a number of reasons
1) they cure more evenly
2) they dry more evenly
3) the skin makes the finished bacon very hard to cut into thin strips unless you remove it. Also if you did manage to cut it thinly say, on a slicer, the strips would curl up when they cooked and the skin would be very tough
Thanks for your prompt reply. I'm just beginning to cure about 3,5kg of belly, so I'll be sure to get rid of the skin right away.
By the way, I'm a big fan your blog, learn so much...
One (two) more things: what would you recommend as spices for reseasoning?
I live in Brazil and use something called "salt cure", nitrite and nitrate. Would that work for salamis too?
Adriana
It is not advisable to use nitrite and nitrate for unfermented meat like bacon unless you are going to roll it up like a jelly roll and age it a long time (More than 5 weeks). If you are making slab bacon, you should use curing salt with only nitrite.
Here are some examples of nitrite only curing salts
Prague powder #1
Instacure #1
TCM #1
DC cure #1
They are all the same and contain only salt, dextrose and nitrite
The "Salt Cure nitrate and nitrite" is best for thick salami that will age more than 5 weeks. It is used for this because after a while the nitrite becomes ineffective and the nitrate, which takes longer to break down into the chemicals that kill pathogenic bacteria etc. gives added protection.
Will try to get the stuff.
thanks.
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