the weather is still dreadful. I actually LIKE having a real winter. However, during the four years we lived in Michigan, with wonderful autumns that were colorful, spring that was lovely, but with very short, very hot summers ("so mild" you didn't "need" AC, yet so hot that they had to close MSU offices because the un-air-conditioned office spaces had temperatures in the 90's even with all the lights turned off...you can get an average temperature of 80, not so uncomfortable, by averaging a high of 60 and a high of 100, neither of which is comfortable in late July), and winters that seemed to last FOREVER, I was always either too hot or too cold. Kentucky has, as a rule, short, cold winters, short, hot and humid summers, and gorgeous falls and springs. This winter has been TOO BLOODY COLD. TOO MUCH snow. At least we haven't had a nasty ice storm, but it's been too cold for that.
Yesterday it got up to NOT QUITE BUT ALMOST 60 degrees. And the sun was out. Today it was back to 40 degrees, misty and temps falling. But hey, March is just around the corner...
My new batch of duck prosciutto is almost ready. And the last batch was really good. The jury is out on the sauerkraut. I don't think it's really ready yet (been far too cold out in the pantry, which is where I cure these things). If it's dreadful, though, I don't think I care much. It made a big mess, and it cost me about $4.00.
I am now curing some brisket to make corned beef. Put it in on Saturday, and it needs to cure until at least Thursday. At which point I will have a look, and if I decide it's ready to cook, I plan to cook half and freeze the other half. I hope it's okay to freeze corned beef. I bought half an un-trimmed brisket (7 pounds), cut it in two, and am curing it in a huge stock pot out in the pantry (the temperature out there isn't much higher than the temp outside...I have a thermometer on the counter there...it's in the low 40's right now...so who needs a fridge?!?)
My next project will be (I hope) garlic sausage. I have had all the ingredients and have been postponing actually leap into the sausage making project for a couple of months now. And I have a couple of pork bellies in the freezer (you buy the stuff frozen from Critchfield's Meats, and I have been putting it in the freezer to await my project...), which I need to turn into bacon. I'm not sure exactly why I've been dragging my feet on this, but I have.
I have cured salmon, however. My gravlax (which predates my Charcuterie book, a gift at Christmas 2009) has been really good. My cured salmon using the recipe in the Charcuterie book was very good, except that Phil didn't like it, as it tasted too much like fennel. It was cured with salt, sugar, pepper, fennel seeds, and slivered fennel, including a couple of other things; these were the active ingredients. Phil suggested that I try it again with dill flavoring, which I did, using dill seed, dried dill weed, and live dill fronds, etc., otherwise the same recipe. It was BORING with a capital "B". Stay tuned...
Stay tuned...but the guys at Critchfield's said that the pork Shoulder roast butt (I think it is) has enough fat to make decent sausage, and I will indeed try it, but based on a very small sample size when I made some Mexican sausage using the meat grinder gizmo on my Kitchenaid mixer, I am not convinced that it won't need rather more fat. And the only decent supply of pork fat I seem to find here in Lexington is the pork belly (from the part that is not lean...). We'll see, when I finally get around to taking a big gulp and making sausage...
No comments:
Post a Comment