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Hi all, I've made some batches of duck leg confit and pork belly confit following the recipes in "Charcuterie" by Ruhlman and Polcyn. I'm pretty new to confit in general, so I'm wondering about the dry cure that is usually applied to meat that is to be used for confit. Why do we do it? It often involves significant amounts of salt, so I'm wondering if it's done for flavour, conservation purposes, or perhaps both? Would uncured, confited duck legs spoil quicker or simply taste less?

I have made duck confit a few times, mainly following Judy Rogers Zuni Cafe cookbook recipe as well as Buchon's cookbook and Michael Ruhlman's online post as guides (ruhlman.com/2010/09/how-to-make-duck-confit-fall-is-here-time-to-preserve-duck/)... What I have found confusing is that these sources are very diverse on the time---Judy says 1 1/2 - 2 hours (at 200 degrees) and Ruhlman, Emeril, Thomas Keller all fall on the side of 12 hours (same temp). Using Judy Rogers shorter time, and using a tip from somewhere online about checking with a bamboo skewer (when it can be inserted without resistance, the duck is finished), I have made a very satisfactory product. On the other hand, if cooking for a much longer time results in even more wonderful results (and doesn't result in a product that falls apart when trying to crisp it after a few months in the fridge), I would be delighted to do that. I just don't want to re-invent the wheel if there is no reason... So if anyone has already done the comparison, I would be grateful to hear the verdict... I find it very curious that there is such a disparity in the cooking times amongst such talented chefs... Here are the citations: Buchon, page 135. Place an oven thermometer in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 190degrees F......and cook for 10 hours. Michael Ruhlman (see URL in original post): ...put them in a 180 degree oven for 10 to 12 hours. Emeril (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/em... ...Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.... Cover and bake for 12 to 14 hours, or until the meat pulls away from the bone. Judy Rodgers, Zuni Cafe Cookbook, p432: ...I try to hold the fat at 200-205 degrees F..... In general, allow between 1 1/2 - 2 hours for 12 oz duck legs,....checking every 10 minutes after the first hour... Thanks, Ken K

Many who have used this book a lot note that there are many errors in it. We have used it for some sausages and the bacon only and we have found the following errors: page 42, Fresh Bacon: 9th line down: "adding 1/4 cup/30 grams of dry cure" should read "adding 1/4 cup/50 grams of dry cure" page 120, Breakfast Sausage with Fresh Ginger and Sage: fourth ingredient calls for 30 grams of fresh sage. Well, that's a whole lot of sage. I put in 16 grams and found it to be more than plenty. What are the other errors that people have found? Help.

I tried Fromagerie Atwater to no avail... any other ideas to source italian lardo?

Hi, A friend of mine purchased almost 15 meters of natural hog casings for me at a local butcher yesterday. The butcher told him that they usually stored their casings in a brine under refrigeration. I am planning on using the casings in a couple of weeks time, and I have for now put them in a 5% brine in my fridge. Ruhlman and Polcyn's "Charcuterie" suggests that natural casings stored in a brine will keep roughly a month in the refrigerator, and I guess I should be able to use the casings within a month's time. However, do I need to use a stronger brine to keep them that long, or will a 5% brine do? Will an overnight soak be sufficient time to rid the casings of the salty flavour before filling? This is my first time at making the real deal at home, so any thoughts and advice are very welcome! Thanks!

Hi all, I am a first timer with regard to making confit duck legs. Living out in the sticks, I cannot readily get fresh duck, so have procured some frozen white pekin duck legs. I have defrosted them, trimmed off the excess fat to render, salted them heavily with sea salt, bay leaves, thyme, garlic, juniper berries and pepper and vacuum sealed them. I intend to leave them to cure for twelve hours in the fridge, unpack and rinse then cook sous vide at 78 degrees C for 12 hours. The photos are just after packing. My main questions are: How much liquid should be extracted from the legs? Should I include further seasonings in the bags when cooking? Is 12 hours curing adequate? How long should I let it rest before consumption? I have trawled the forums and google, and I am finding so much conflicting information. Thanks Simon

I am first time poster (Have lurked here fior 5+ years)... I have made Pastrami a number of times with reasonable success, but have never made Montreal smoked meat... I have finally found a recipe for Smoked meat (Mile End Cookbook) and want to have a go at it.....As well as Pastrami....I have bought a whole un-trimmed brisket (flat and point (deckel) attached for my smoked meat as well as a plate (navel) for my pastrami.... I will be dry curing both cuts (whole brisket for smoked meat & plate (navel) for pastrami) (obviously different curing & spicing processes)....I shall be smoking them together with either cherry, apple or oak..(suggestions as to which wood will be appreciated). As my whole brisket is approx. 10 lbs and my plate is about 7 lbs. I am going to have more pastrami/smoked meat than I can reasonably consume in a few days.... My question is: I have a "Foodsaver" vacuum sealer and want to package into 2-3 lb. portions for use at a later date....My thought is to take the process through curing/spicing/smoking and then portion and vacuum pack for later use. I would then finish with the steaming just prior to consuming.... Question #1.......How long will the vacuum sealed pastrami/smoked meat last in the fridge??? Question #2. ...Can I freeze the vacuum sealed packages without loss of quality for a longer period of time, say 1-2 months...??? Question #3....Should I steam the meat prior to vacuum sealing, freezing etc.??? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks Mike

I am following the directions in Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie for the fennel cured salmon and am wondering if it is okay to cure the salmon in a ziploc bag. I regularly use ziplocs to cure bacon so I'm thinking there probably isn't any issue. They talk about using foil but that seems less convenient and I can get most of the air out of a ziploc so the cure covers the salmon more evenly. Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks

I'm sure this matter has been discussed in part or whole somewhere on egullet, but after 20 minutes of various searches I sure can't find it! ]So, thanks for a pointer if you know of a previous thread. In short, I recently cut down a coppa I made and the end product ended up having too salty a taste. I've made this recipe several times with great success. This time, I'm positive the extra saltiness has to do with the fact that, due to an personal emergency, it had to spend too much time in the salt cure before it was hung (as in over a week extra). This raises a few questions for me about procedures and troubleshooting. 1. First, obviously, any suggestions for an after-the-fact how to rectify this too-salty coppa? Of course, I could chop it up and mix it into some sort of cooked dishes, but in this case, I'm specifically curious about ideas to rescue it to make it more palatable to eat on it's own. I'm open to experimentation. 2. Given that I knew that it had spent too long in the cure, what would have you advised that I had done previous to air curing? I gave it a good vinegar and water washing and about a 1 hour cold water bath before hanging. 3. Can a too-salty result be the result of too much salt in the cure? I wouldn't think so, but now I'm curious. It's been my experience that the amount of salt is less of an issue than the length of time it spends curing. I've always relied on visual cues and firmness. Thanks for any ideas.

Hi eGulleters, I have a quick question, and I'm sorry if this was already answered in another topic (although I looked for a little while and didn't see this). I tried my hand at homemade bacon this last week, using an ~6 pound pork belly and Mr. Ruhlman's basic cure recipe. I don't have a smoker, so I cooked the cured belly in a 200 F oven for about three hours (I was waiting for an internal temp of 150, and it never quite got there...). When I rinse and dried the out-of-the-brine belly, it seemed a little soft to me, but I cooked it anyways (I was excited). I don't think I used enough of the curing mixture (a 5-pound recipe for a 6-pound belly, and some of the cure was left on the cutting board), so I get the feeling that my bacon is under cured. It also doesn't have that nice pink hue in the middle of the belly. The bacon is still pretty good, although not what I was expecting: more porky than bacony. So here is my question: Can I re-cure the belly, or do I have to live with what I've got? Thanks for your help, and sorry again if I'm repeating already-answered questions.

This morning I started writing the WikiGullet article on Chorizo, so naturally turned to Diana Kennedy's books for information about Mexican chorizo. To my surprise, it's not at all what I expected! I have eaten and made many Mexican chorizos, all of which followed the same basic formula of being flavored primarily by chiles: so when I came across Chorizo Verde I was a little shocked! It all makes me wonder: what other sorts of "Chorizo" exist in Mexican cuisine that I have never heard of? Presumably there are a zillion regional variants?

Hello all - for the 99.99% of you who do not live in the NY Finger Lakes region, this may be a bore. However, this posting is directed toward that handful who are "local," and the somewhat larger handful of eG people who don't live near here, but who have kitchen friends who do. I've just started a new Meetup.com group, named "Offal Majesty." I hope it to become a cooks' group specializing in producing dishes based on the so-called "variety meats," and in the cooperative production of charcuterie - muscle meat based, or offal based. Sometimes our meetings will finish with a participants' dinner; other times we'll just split up what we've made and take the product home for curing, or for sharing with family and friends. To find out more, please check out the group's website on Meetup.com. If you think you might know potential members ("Cooks with guts"), please forward the group's URL to them. Tanx, Paul Host Note: Please click here for the terms under which this announcement has been posted.

I found a link here, on egullet, for a recipe of pancetta. I was amused by the sentence at the bottom "pancetta is not meant to be eaten uncooked". Is it just cultural? I grew up eating it. In my university cafeteria in Milan, it was the cheapest panino on sale, only 1,000 lire at the time. Nice and comforting for me a panino with pancetta dolce (the fattier pancetta). So, why not eating it raw? And lardo?

Sorry if this has been written about so far, but I looked and could not find it. I am about to make a large bit of Duck Confit, and curious what is the process to can (in a jars) the confit. I read the Duck Confit thread, and the writer stated you could jar them and it would last, but it was light in detail since that was not the actual topic he was writing about. I am finding it hard to find actual information on the web or in preserving books to actually preserving the cofit. Here are my questions if anyone can help.... 1. How long do i boil the jars to ensure everything is sterile. ( i plan on using the smallest Ball jars ) 2. Can I keep the preserved confit in a basement or cool place versus in the fridge. My point in preserving this is to keep from the fridge. 3. Any idea how long it will last, or i guess how long until the layer of duck fat on the top will last before it spoils/goes rancid ? 4. Can i use a water bath (sous vide or without bag) to heat the jars? I do not have a pressure cooker but do have a Polyscience Immersion Circulator. 5. If yes on the Polyscience Immersion Circulator, any idea on temp etc. Any luck with bags or no bags? Thanks for any help !

Hello all, So I just got my grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid, and my sausage stuffer will be coming soon. I'm interested in trying to make some sausages for the first time when they come in, but most of the recipes I've found call for pork fatback as the fat component of the sausage. The grocers near me aren't that great, and I haven't been able to source any locally. I do have about a pound of leftover duck fat in the fridge though. I'm not sure what particular properties of fatback make it so popular for sausage making, but do you think frozen duck fat would be a serviceable substitute? Thanks much, Justin

An Armenian, Turkish, Russian cured cut of meat. Usually made from beef, it's cured, dried and coated with a highly spiced mixture called Chemen. This is a piece I bought at Bedo's in Burj Hammoud (a neighborhood with a large Armenian community). While in Beirut this past summer, I got a basturma recipe straight from an Armenian grandmother. I was even told where to buy the ingredients in Burj Hammoud. The stuff in the can is a red food coloring. While most recipes call for the fillet, I decided to go with an eye of round. This was about 4lbs and I sliced it in half to end up with 2 thinner pieces. I laid the pieces on a bed of kosher salt and covered them with more. I placed them in the fridge for 4 days. The pan was drained every day, I'd say the meat lost about 3 pints of liquid. This is what they look like on the last day. As per the instructions, the meat was rinsed and soaked in water for 1 hour. The slabs were dried and wrapped with cheese cloth and pressed between two cutting boards in the fridge for 2 days. To my surprise there was no liquid released after the pressing. In fact the cheese cloth was barely damp. The meat was pretty firm. I had skipped the step in which I was supposed to insert a twine through the narrow (thin) end of the meat to hang them with. Here my wife had a clever idea. She used a crochet needle to poke through and retrieve the twine. I wasn't about to hang these outside so I took them to work and hung them in a keg cooler. Directly in the air flow from the evaporator. They hung for 15 days. Next: Making the Chemen and coating the meat.

I just started making my own hotdogs. The first two tries were fairly successful. I use a recipe found in Len Poli's collection of sausage recipes. I adapted it to use lean beef and pork fat. I then smoke them with hickory. Normally until they are 130F or so. Then I vac pack and sous vide to the recommended 151F finish temperature. However, many folks will simply put them in a water bath, no sous vide, and finish that way. Last time I decided to do mix the approach a bit. I used my sous vide setup, but instead of vac packing, I simply put in heavier ziplock style bags, added water, and finished that way. The result was disasterous. The fat leached out of the hotdogs and left me with a very dry product. And this puzzles me greatly. At the 151F temperature, there shouldn't be any serious loss of fat. That is the lower end of what a street vendor should be keeping his hotdogs at in a cart. And those can sit for quite awhile before they are sold. I had expected to lose some flavor to the water in the ziplock, but not all the hotdogs moisture. Any ideas what would be causing that? I have cooked these hotdogs in boiling water, they come out fine. But sit for an hour or more in a bath and they become barely edible. Size of dogs: about a 1 inch "dinner dog" using 26ml or 28ml collagen casing. Photo below is the normal setup, not with water in the ziplock. - and we make sure they are all submerged.

Has anyone used the LEM Meat grinders? I have been using the attachment on my Hobart mixer 20QT, but it does not quite do the job as weel as I would like. IE: clogging of some of the holes, not uniform grind etc. I'm not sure if this is due to sloppy tolerances of the die plates and blade or not. I always chill the grinder and make sure the meat is cold usually start off on a 3/4 die and go down to a 3/16. I'm curious if the commercial grinders are any better with this? I have been looking at the LEM 780 3/4 hp unit.

Hi, I did one of my first attemts at sausage making yesterday; and had a rather frustrating experience with my Kenwood Chef sausage filler attachment. I had to press really hard to get anything to come out of the nozzle, and the "plastic stuffer" was hard to get up again, because of the vacum beeing produced. The meat was gooy and a mashy when it finally got into the casings. Is this attachment any good at all, or did I do something wrong, like pressing down to hard? I sure was hard work, I got a real good workout. I sous vided the sausages to 61.5c and shock-chilled. I have not tasted them yet; but they look almost like emulsified sausages (not intended!) - I am hoping for great taste and sub-par texture :-)

Hi everyone, I just had to re-sign up since it's been awhile I wanted to let you all know the awesome news that I will be releasing a book at the end of the year about my time learning the charcuterie and butchery of Spain. It's called Charcutería: The Soul of Spain, and will have a foreword by James Beard award-winning chef José Andrés. The book is going to have a bunch of traditional techniques and recipes for Spanish charcuterie and pork butchery, as well as recipes and other little tricks I picked up working with the folks in the Extremaduran countryside. My photog and I just got back from visiting Spain for the photoshoot and the guys up in Asturias did a little video about it. Here's the link to the video: http://www.whereisasturias.com/?p=6602 And a link to our FB page (Lots more photos... please like!): https://www.facebook.com/charcuteriaspain?ref=ts&fref=ts Please feel free to write me if you have any requests or questions for the book--really trying to make something that my fellow meatheads and sausage nerds can get into. Ciao, jeff PS: As a little offering to my hopefully-new eGullet pals here's a sexy photo from the Jamón slicing shoot. Tatoos and meat...

I am looking for good online collections of sausage/bacon/ham recipes and reviews on the quality of the recipes. So far I've located: Jason Molinari's excellent blog: http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/ Len Poli's Collection: http://lpoli.50webs.com/Sausage%20recipes.htm The Spicy Sausage: http://thespicysausage.com/sausagemakingrecipes.htm

Hi all Any recommendations for places to get absolutely superlative charcuterie in London, or the UK? Either home-made or imported. I already know of Brindisa (Exmouth Market) for Spanish ham and I believe the Ginger Pig also do charcuterie (Borough Market / Marylebone). Outside of London I know of Trealy Farm. There's also a great producer somewhere in Shropshire but the name has eluded me. Any other suggestions? Cheers

I saw this link today to an article at npr.org on how chocolate and bacon are making more appearances than ever. Anyone ever tried things like this? I dipped some bacon in dark chocolate a week or so ago after having a number of people ask me about it. I have to say, it wasn't terrible, but not my favorite result. Comments?

I started curing some lamb belly but its awful thin. Can I roll it or something? I wanted to try lamb bacon but it seems too thin to slice. (Since I got it from the local Islamic market, it came skinless.) Anyone have an idea? Thanks Kevin

I was wondering if anyone could help me out with a recipe for this. I live in central Wisconsin and a friend came back with a grab bag of wonderful sausage from Louisiana, (excellent boudin, garlic sausage, etc.) The most amazing thing she brought back was fresh Green Onion sausage from Rouses Grocery store. I have to say I fell in love with it immediately. Everyone I shared it with loved it as well. I make my own sausage so I have the tools and techniques to make it. The seasonings seemed basic, but I would like to try to get some direction, before trying to create my own and end up messing things up. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!