cleglue

Very nice job on the ham. I like the smoker idea. Are the hams finished or do they need more time to cure? I looked at the recipe last night...I believe it said seven weeks.

I started reading this thread last week and the next thing I know I ordered the vanilla beans and made a trip to the ABC store and now have started the process of making the vanilla extract. I'm starting with Everclear as andiesenji recommended. I order a pound of the Grade B Bourbon beans and 30 of the mixed and didn't realize until today before taking the knife to the pound package that the Ebayer sent Tahitian beans instead so I'm try to get back with him and see about him sending what I ordered. I was just excited I guess that they arrive so quickly. Here are the beginning pictures. Next week I'll add the vodka and maybe start more if I can get the bourbons beans in.

jmolinari, Thanks for the recipe. I'll probably try it sometime with about 5 pounds of meat. The 25 pounds I made was also a lot of work. I like you blog site.

I wasn't sure how it was suppose to taste...it does seem to be and acquired taste. About 50 % of the people around here like it other's do not. I've only had one person that has actually had soppressata before and he and his entire family loved it. I think it tasted fine...I've only had a store bought shrink wrapped soppressata a few weeks before making this. I think the recipe is fine. This was my first attempt at dry curing anything.

Last night I attempted making Stromboli. I followed the recipe below for the dough and filling. I forgot to put the basil and oregano (it was sitting right next to me). I used my own sauce. I did add a little sauce in the Stromboli. The Stromboli that leaked a lot of cheese was wrapped like the instructions. The one with only a small leak was wrapped at how I thought it should be. Next time I need to work on the wrapping. Over all they tasted really good. They were baked on a stone. I'll be eating the second one tonight. http://www.pizzamaniac.com/index.php/archi...ssic-stromboli/

Here is my second post. My wife's cousin's husband and I made Soppressata a few weeks back. We used the recipe from the book "Charcuterie The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing" by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn...page 186-188. The hog middles truly were a pain in the rear. The middles had a lot of very thin spots which caused them to explode will stuffing. I also need to learn to tie the links better. I had a few that fell. I love the fibrous casing I use for venison sausage much better. We made 25 pounds of soppressata. Here are the pictures. The white bowl is fat back. Here is what it looked like about 2 1/2 weeks into the project. Here is the finished product. Click on any picture below and you will be able to see the pictures larger then click through the album. A New York friend of my wife thinks this was great. This is my first attempt at dry curing sausage.

This is my first post on the eGullet forum. I tried the Chef Milos’s Country Venison Sausage recipe p. 157-158 from the book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. I used fibrous casing instead of hog casings. Here are the pictures. I don’t have any of them in the smoker. Below is the finished probduct. Some people said that it needed more spice and other’s thought it was just fine. Over all I thought is was fine. I will do this recipe again.