Photo by my beloved Donna
And best wishes to you for a happy and fruitful new year with lots of home cooked meals!
See you in the new year!
(Yes, this is our cherished pig's nose ornament, bitten off by my dear father at a medieval celebration.)
© 2013 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2013Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.
Deck the halls with jowls and bellies
cute.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Thank you for all the insights this year. And most of all for the badass spoon!
Hi Michael. So, I'm making a little slip of pancetta, not much larger than a hardback book, 596g. Started with 25g of salt/spice rubbed in. I'm 5 days in. I sort of did my own thing -- spices, salt, a little garlic (whole clove, slightly crushed) a little fresh sage thyme, no pink salt. That sort of thing. Every day I pour off the accumulated liquid (keeping it in a plastic container - incidentally, following the River Cottage direction) and apply a sprinkling more salt (about 6 grams?). But I see you don't reapply salt. Though River Cottage says to do this. They also say 5 days vs. 7.
My questions are, if you please: 1) 5 or 7 days to fully cure this small piece of meat? 2) Should I stop the pouring/reapplying the salt cure? Am I going to make it too salty? 3) River C. says that to hang it now, if you don't smoke, the piece will just keep getting unpalatably salty. But I like the idea of hanging it and drying it out. Hugh says to use what you want now, but freeze the rest. Which brings me to my final question 4) If I do hang it, can I just hang it in the fridge (or lay it on a rack over a plate) or must it be at room temp? Because I live in L.A. and it's warm here.
Thank you for taking the time to help. I want to experiment with this and I am open to disaster, but I want to at least try to get it right!
Francis-Olive
if its really thin, five days should be plenty. I don't pour off liquid. why do this? drying it will concentrate salt. hard to advise without being there. ok to dry in fridge. use your common sense in all matters.
Happy holidays to all.
I hope this is not an intrusion on a detox, or monk school hiatus, but the Friday cocktail post has been absent.
I am on vacation and inherited a large bottle of premium vodka, not sure what to do with it, other than use it to clean counter tops.
I tried a martini - kangaroo, I'm with you, vodka is just gin without personality, I found it boring and bland.
My wife had a vodka tonic, I still prefer a gin and tonic it warm weather.
There was a drink I made years ago with Cointreau that I liked but could not remember what it was, I tried Googling it and all I came up with was the Cosmopolitan, that's not it, too sweet and Sex and the City was played out with that drink years ago.
I finally found it amongst the cobwebs and Google help. It's called a lemon drop. Many variations use simple syrup, sweet and sour mix - blech!
This one is just vodka, Cointreau, and lemon juice, half sugar lemon zest rim, and a twist in a martini glass.
Not sure of the proportions yet, but something like:
2 oz vodka
1 oz Cointreau
.5 oz lemon juice
I'll probably increase the lemon and decrease the Cointreau. Bringing a little summer into winter is always nice.
Cheers, happy merry everything all.