64 replies to this topic

[joesan]

Don - I make my Guanciale with the skin on and it works great. I remove it as and when I use the Guanciale (i.e. piece by piece). However looking at the Len Poli recipe more closely you can see that his doesn't have the skin on in the photos. I don't think it will hurt either way.

I would definitely try to remove all glands - they are much easier to spot than you might think as they do look different from the main meat.

[dondford]

Thanks, Guys.
One more question. How us Guanciale pronounced??

D

[joesan]

Gwan - cha - lay.

It just means cheek in Italian.


I haven't tried Len's recipe yet but it looks good and he certainly knows his stuff. I normally use Mario's - it is very simple indeed and produces great results. The only thing I noticed was that it was pretty salty.

In Len's instructions he suggests soaking the cheeks for 20 minutes after curing and before drying. I intend doing that with the two jowls I've made to Mario's recipe that are currently sitting in the fridge.

Here is a picture of them in their vacuum bag -



Can't wait!!!

[dondford]

Gwan - cha - lay.

Thanks! I will pick up my pork belly and jowl today. I will make my second batch of Pancetta with the belly (I have become addicted to the stuff) and my first Guanciale with the jowl. Yours looks great and I'm sure it will turn out great.

D

[Abra]

I used Mario's recipe, then went into the shop here where Mario's Dad makes fabulous guanciale and asked him why his was better than mine. Without even taking a breath he said "juniper." I haven't tried it yet, but evidently the wild and exciting flavor comes from some ground juniper berries in the rub.

[joesan]

Abra - Thanks for the tip on the juniper. I envy you being so close to the source. I am wondering if I can open my bag and add some. Think I'll try it.

Did you find the Mario recipe a bit salty?

[jmolinari]

Juniper is a must on guanciale and on pancetta.

[dondford]

[quote=
Without even taking a breath he said "juniper."
[/quote]


I confused; isn't the Babbo recipe Mario's? The Babbo recipe I have per the link below
http://www.babbonyc....-guanciale.html doesn't call for juniper berries. I use juniper in my Pancetta and can easily add them to the Guanciale.
Please post the Mario recipe you have.

Also, I'm in the hot humid south and don't have a place to air dry at 50-60 degrees; the last Pancetta and Lardo I made I had to dry it in the refrigerator, but I didn't see any ill effects. Where to you guys hang it in the hot summer?

D

[joesan]

Don - I am using the one from the Babbo cookbook and it looks the same as what you posted. I guess Father and son use a different recipe! I think that the juniper would probably be a nice addition so I am going to try it.

As for what I do about the hot summer - that's really not a problem here in London, tragically! But I do the same as you and cure and dry everthing in the fridge at the moment. I get good results so that doesn't seem to be a problem.

[Abra]

That's it, father and son differ. And truth to tell, Dad's guanciale is awe inspiring. I wouldn't hestitate to add it a bit later.

Even though it's seldom hot here in the summer, I only do charcuterie in the cooler months, and then I hang it in a little chamber in my garage. You can see it here.

Edited by Abra, 22 August 2007 - 05:21 PM.

[jmolinari]

guanciale and pancetta can be dried in a regular fridge without ill effects. I did a head to head of a pancetta cured in my chamber at 55/65% rh and my fridge, and they were basically the same.

The fridge one comes out a little mummified, but wrap it in a damp paper towel and put in a ziplock bag for a few days, and it'll be great.

I imagine this is b/c they are relatively thin pieces of meat, and overdrying isn't a problem given the fat content.

[Abra]

Hey, that's interesting to know. I would have thought a fat roll of pancetta would get really dried out on the outside edges.

[ned]

I'm working up a recipe for a 21 day guanciale cure. It is equal parts salt and sugar-3 pounds of each 6 ounces of pink salt. To all you pink salt experts out there, does that seem like too much pink salt?

Thanks

[qrn]

I'm working up a recipe for a 21 day guanciale cure.  It is equal parts salt and sugar-3 pounds of each 6 ounces of pink salt.  To all you pink salt experts out there, does that seem like too much pink salt?

Thanks

The standard dose is 1tsp (6grams) per 5 pounds (2250g) of meat...And for the rest of the cure. I would not use more salt than 4 to 5% of the weight of the meat..The sugar would be at 50% of the salt.
Bud

[jmolinari]

even 4-5% salt sounds high to me. I normally use about 3.5-4%.

[qrn]

even 4-5% salt sounds high to me. I normally use about 3.5-4%.

Yea, you're right...I just ate some bacon that I just finished , and it was at 4%.and was a bit high. I was using 3% and it was not enough, so I changed to 4%, and it was to much...guess 3 1/2% is for next time...
I guess the adage" the more we know , the less we know", applies to me...LOL!

Think I will cut the lardo we talked about the other day with a bit of water.It was gonna be 9%
Bud

[ned]

I'm working up a recipe for a 21 day guanciale cure.  It is equal parts salt and sugar-3 pounds of each 6 ounces of pink salt.  To all you pink salt experts out there, does that seem like too much pink salt?

Thanks

The standard dose is 1tsp (6grams) per 5 pounds (2250g) of meat...And for the rest of the cure. I would not use more salt than 4 to 5% of the weight of the meat..The sugar would be at 50% of the salt.
Bud

Thanks for the reply. So if you do it that way, is your total cure weight based on the total weight of the meat to be cured? If so, and if you don't mind saying, what is the ratio that you use?

[qrn]

I'm working up a recipe for a 21 day guanciale cure.  It is equal parts salt and sugar-3 pounds of each 6 ounces of pink salt.  To all you pink salt experts out there, does that seem like too much pink salt?

Thanks

The standard dose is 1tsp (6grams) per 5 pounds (2250g) of meat...And for the rest of the cure. I would not use more salt than 4 to 5% of the weight of the meat..The sugar would be at 50% of the salt.
Bud

Thanks for the reply. So if you do it that way, is your total cure weight based on the total weight of the meat to be cured? If so, and if you don't mind saying, what is the ratio that you use?

Yes the %;s are the amount of residual salt in the meat (salt % is of the total weight of the meat) Scale the pink salt the same way. I try and cure in bags and add the % of cure that I want (as per upthread comment3.5% looks good) and let it sit in fridge till all of it is absorbed.
If you are brining that is a different process to calculate.
Good luck!
Bud

[cookingkid]

Just throwing my two cents out there.

I prefer to cure guanciale without the skin for two reasons. It's going to come off anyway, and jowls usually come off of the kill line, i.e. slightly messy. Don't get me wrong, the pig is killed, scalded, scraped, then the head pops off, but it hasn't been as cleaned as the rest of the body. It's also easier to not have it so an unexperienced garde manger cook doesn't leave it on by accident as a guest tries to chew through the shoe leather skin.

The guanciale recipe from Babbo is one recipe I haven't converted fully to metric. I have switched out the sugar for dark muscovado sugar. In the original version, the heirloom jowls (tamm) are full of an unctuous sweetness. In the dark muscovado version, the sweetness is paried with a little bitter bite. I also cure the jowls much longer than the Babbo recipe suggests. I think it calls for 21 days, but depending on the size, I will let it go for two to three months. In such a case, I er on the side of adding sel rose at the 6 gram to every 2200 g of meat ratio.

I think the juniper would be a great touch. I haven't tried Len's recipe, but it looked good. Not as simple for a seasoning meat for sauces, but it sounds great for a charcuterie plate. I like to add szechuan peppercorns to my pancetta instead of black peppercorns...figured I would throw that one out there, too.

[Recoil Rob]

Can someone point me to the basic guanciale recipe? I thought it was in CHARCUTERIE but it's not, perhaps it's in a Batali book?

I tried our search engine but couldn't get specific enough.

My neighbor just slaughtered two pigs and I have two cheeks waiting for a cure.

thanks, Rob

[DerekW]

Will this one from the Babbo website suffice?

[Andrew Fenton]

Can someone point me to the basic guanciale recipe? I thought it was in CHARCUTERIE but it's not...

Check again; it's on p. 47 in my edition.

[HKDave]

Can someone point me to the basic guanciale recipe? I thought it was in CHARCUTERIE but it's not...

Check again; it's on p. 47 in my edition.

It's not in every edition; my home copy of Charcuterie doesn't have it but I know the copy at work does.

Here's Len Poli's recipe; I've used it and it works.
http://lpoli.50webs....s/Guanciale.pdf

[Recoil Rob]

Thanks for the Babbo recipe, that should work.

Andrew, my CHARCUTERIE is the first edition and p.47 has drawings of pancetta, no guanciale recipe. If you have a copy you could email or fax me I would love to see it.

HKDave, thanks but that file wouldn't open for me, perhaps it's corrupted.

Does anyone know if the meat should be wrapped in cheesecloth while drying or left naked?

Also, here are some pics of the jowls I got, they're pretty big, over 10" long and about 2" at the thickest point. I have trimmed out several small pea sized nodes that were a brown color. I read in CHARCUTERIE that one should be careful to trim out all the glands, is this what was meant?

It looks to me as though the pieces I have are bigger than the drawings in the book, they have a large covering of fat. Can I use the whole pieces as they are or should I trim them to a more uniform shape?

Edited by Recoil Rob, 09 December 2008 - 10:22 PM.

[HKDave]

HKDave, thanks but that file wouldn't open for me, perhaps it's corrupted.

Does anyone know if the meat should be wrapped in cheesecloth while drying or left naked?

It's definitely not corrupted; opens fine for me. But it's a .pdf (adobe acrobat) file. Try downloading it and opening with Adobe Reader if it won't open in your browser.

I didn't wrap in cheesecloth, just hung it loosely tented with parchment paper to keep dust etc off. I did the entire drying in the walk-in fridge because the restaurant was too warm for drying in the back room. Worked fine.

[Andrew Fenton]

Andrew, my CHARCUTERIE is the first edition and p.47 has drawings of pancetta, no guanciale recipe. If you have a copy you could email or fax me I would love to see it.

Whoops, my bad!

Anyway, I was able to read that .pdf file (but only with Adobe Reader, not the software I usually use.) The first direction is to remove the salivary glands, which sound like the bubbles or nodes you noticed. So it sounds like you did the right thing.

Good luck with the guanciale! I haven't made it yet-- it'll have to wait until I get a curing chamber set up in January or February-- but I'm looking forward to giving it a go myself. Be sure to report on your results!

[Recoil Rob]

Andrew, my CHARCUTERIE is the first edition and p.47 has drawings of pancetta, no guanciale recipe. If you have a copy you could email or fax me I would love to see it.

Whoops, my bad!

Anyway, I was able to read that .pdf file (but only with Adobe Reader, not the software I usually use.) The first direction is to remove the salivary glands, which sound like the bubbles or nodes you noticed. So it sounds like you did the right thing.

Good luck with the guanciale! I haven't made it yet-- it'll have to wait until I get a curing chamber set up in January or February-- but I'm looking forward to giving it a go myself. Be sure to report on your results!

I've actually noticed two different types of little nodes. There the brownish ones I removed but here are also areas of tiny pink bubbles, the same color as the meat. Any idea if these should be removed also?

[Chris Hennes]

I've actually noticed two different types of little nodes. There the brownish ones I removed but here are also areas of tiny pink bubbles, the same color as the meat. Any idea if these should be removed also?

You can see my jowls here: I only removed the brownish ones, and everything cured up fine.

[Recoil Rob]

Well, I'm curing.

I ended up trimming out all the salivary glands, even the ones that were the same color as the meat. It wasn't that much, a few tablespoons each and some fat came off with it but from what I read it seemed like a good idea.

For my cure I used a combination of the three recipes (Poli's, Babbo's and the pancetta cure from CHARCUTERIE (1st Edition) which the book stated was the same one to use for guanciale).

1/2c Morton's Kosher salt
1/2c light brown sugar
1/2tsp. Instacure #2 (this was a compromise, one recipe said to use 1-1/2tsp. #2, one said #1 and the other had none)
Garlic, sage, peppercorns, thyme, rosemary & juniper

In the photo they look like fried cutlets but that's the brown sugar. I had some granite slabs that I will put on top while they cure to even them out. There are also two chunks that were thicker than the rest so I cut them off and they are curing also, but probably for less time.

Now it's sit and wait for a week. If they throw off some liquid brine am I supposed to drain it off?

Thanks, Rob

[Chris Hennes]

Now it's sit and wait for a week. If they throw off some liquid brine am I supposed to drain it off?

No: let them continue to brine in it. You may be better off putting them in ziploc-type bags so that more of the brine is in contact with the meat.

Are you planning on rinsing them before you hang them? I think the Ruhlman recipe calls for that; I don't know about the others. I did, anyway, and I think it was a good idea.