Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Lendenspeck

On of my favorite projects this year has been Lendenspeck. This is a cured pork loin wrapped with a curred bacon side then smoked for several hours to a desired internal temperature. This particular recipe comes from the following link. http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Lendenspeck.pdf

Here are some photos that illustrate the project as it unfolds. The first shows the assembly complete with the product trussed up and ready for smoking.

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After reaching the desired internal temperature the appearance is beautifully colored.

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Then into the curing chamber for another 60 days to age

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Finally it's ready to slice.

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Thursday, April 22, 2010

Life as a ham

Getting on with all this salami biuisness I have to say, man cannot live from Salami alone.
I'll reserve room in my next few posts for the meatier viarety of dry curing, the ham.
Additionally I'll throw in some Canadian Bacon, Lendenspeck and a brined cured ham from a couple years ago.

First, lets get started by introducing the first of my hams in the dry cure process, the Missouri Style Ham. I cured these two hams using a sugar cure method, one with natural pure cane brown sugar, the other with a pure maple sugar cure.

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These hams were salted with a sugar cure variation mostley stemming from this recipe:

1 (15 lb.) ham
2 cups Salt
2 tbsp. Brown sugar
1 tsp. Black pepper
1 tsp. Red pepper

There was also a ham my wife made (sorry, she's more secretive and not as sharing as I)
here is the ham being spiced.

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Ok, so I'm not just going to hang these hams in a shed in the middle of winter here in Michigan. They'd syurely freeze and never finish curing on my time line. So we opted to hang them in the cooler.

Bagged up for more time in the cooler.

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There are many ways to cure. I prefer salting for a given period of time based on weight, a proper equalization period, then either with or without smoking, move the ham into the drying chamber for the aging process. I prefer to smoke my hams prior to drying if I do use smoke.

Here is a photo ofg some hams under smoke in this process:

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Lookin mighty tastey. We'll let these set for a spell.. Bewteen 6 months to a year perhaps.


And then the day came.... Sliced and ready to taste. It was everything you could expect. Even better. The spices were very evident but not overpowering or strong. A perfect balance.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Making up and drying a run of Salamis

In previous posts you saw vaious salamlis being made. This post offers a little more insight into the process.

First, the grinding of pork and back fat,
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Mixing a paste for stuffing

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Filling the stuffer

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Stuffing and netting the casing

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Introducing the salamis into the fermenting chamber for the fermenting period.

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Then hanging the salamis in the drying chamber until the proper drying weight has been reached.

















I beleieve that combined with the correct spices, lactic acids and proper fermentation, this process is the most important. I think that too much emphasis is put on the actual minute by minute controlling of the temp. and humidity but an overall correct enviroment with few changes to be most important.

Pepperoni

This run of pepperonis offered us a bounty of different dishes from pizzas, to suaces spiced with diced and minced pepperoni. Again using lenpolis wesite for the recipes, this project was rather quick to dry.

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Salami Noisette



Here is a great salami recipe that I tried not too long ago. Nice medium flavor using a nice balance of wine with hazelnuts.
http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Salami%20noisette.pdf

Next, we'll be trying some Pepperonis.