Cooking with Your Charcuterie

[Chris Amirault]

Over in the miraculous, slightly obsessive, and wonderful Charcuterie topic, many eGulleteers have been learning from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie. As a result, we've got freezers full of bacon, andouille, hocks, pancetta, and who knows what else.

This topic is for cooking with those salted, smoked, and cured products. For example, I'm going to start with a very basic recipe, just a simple few steps that lead to a fantastic plate: the classic bistro frissee salad with lardons. This salad -- frissee lightly dressed with a vinaigrette, tossed with lardons (thickly diced and well-cooked pieces of bacon), and topped with a fried egg -- is a fantastic showcase for the high-quality bacon you'll be producing if you start curing and smoking your own. Being able to add lardons that are both crispy and meaty into your salad is a remarkable joy.

What else are people doing with their cured products?

[Chad]

Over in the miraculous, slightly obsessive, and wonderful Charcuterie topic, many eGulleteers have been learning from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie. As a result, we've got freezers full of bacon, andouille, hocks, pancetta, and who knows what else.

<snippity doo dah>

What else are people doing with their cured products?

←

We're moving shortly, so I'm desperately clearing out the freezer. I've done the basic pork sausage from Charcuterie, but with triple the garlic in both link and loose form, smoked bacon and the chicken/basil/tomato sausage. The chicken sausage is amazing. We've had it in a variety of forms but the best is homemade pizza -- hands down.

For the dough

• 22oz bread flour -- 5 cups if you use the spoon & level method, 4 cups if you use the scoop & sweep-against-the-side-of-the-bag method
  
• 1 Tblsp honey
  
• 3-4 tsp kosher salt (2 tsp table salt)
  
• 1 pkg yeast or 2 tsp instant yeast
  
• 3 Tblsp olive oil
  
• 1/3/4 cups water (70-110 degrees F)
  

Mix on 2 on KitchenAid stand mixer with dough hook for 4 min. or until the mixture forms a coarse ball. Let rest 5 min. Then mix 2 minutes longer or until the dough cleans the sides of the bowl.

I've had the best luck dividing this dough into 2 pizzas or 5-6 calzones, so, if making pizza, divide dough into 2 equal pieces, coat with olive oil and let rise for at least 1 hour & degas (punch down gently). For even more flavorful crust, refrigerate overnight & let the dough sit for at least an hour before rolling out.

For the Sausage I don't do much other than give it a quick saute in a pan. I don't want it to overcook and lose flavor or get grainy. The chicken/basil/tomato sausage needs to reach a temp of 160, but it certainly doesn't need to go too much over that, so I prefer to saute gently until just under, trusting to carryover and oven baking to do the rest.

For the Sauce I generally use San Marzano tomatoes w/basil & puree them with a stick blender, but you can use your favorite tomato sauce recipe or even jarred sauce (the Barilla brand doesn't suck). Just disperse lightly around the 14" pizza round you've rolled or cajoled out of each section of dough.

You've preheated your oven to 500 or 550, right? You have a pizza stone, right? If you don't have a stone, change "peel" to "sheet pan" and you'll be in great shape.

Coat your peel with semolina/polenta to act as tasty ball bearings for transfer. Roll out or press out the dough to slightly larger than the desired size. Transfer to the peel or sheet pan. Slide the peel or sheet pan around to make sure the dough isn't sticking. That's a major pain in the ass and will necessitate serious oven cleanup. Trust me. Make sure your dough round will slide around on the peel or sheet pan. Give the dough round a light coat of sauce, add the browned (but slightly undercooked) chicken sausage & sprinkle on a mix of asiago, mozarella & parmesan, slide onto the stone & bake for 7-10 minutes until the outer crust is bubbly. If you don't have a stone, slide the sheet pan into the oven as-is an check in about 7-10 minutes.

When everything is GBD (Golden Brown & Delicious), let cool, slice & serve.

Works for me.

Chad

[Kent Wang]

Wrap shrimp or asparagus in thinly-sliced prosciutto or pancetta, then pan-fry.

[LEdlund]

Great thread Chris! I was just thinking about the same thing.

My first attempt at the maple cured bacon is done but came out too sweet for many savory preparations. I'll stick to traditional breakfasts for that one.

I have some linguica from my local charcuterie class and I was thinking of making feijoada with that. But I also have some kielbasa I made in that class and am looking for fun and different ideas to do with that. My go-to kielbasa dish is to layer sliced or quartered new pototoes with green beans, zucchini and onions and top it with chunks of kielbasa. Bake it at 350 degrees until the potatoes are done. Yum.

[Dave Weinstein]

"Bacon Wrapped in Scallop"

Four large scallops

Four lardons of bacon (made with lapsang souchong tea and sichuan pepper).

Fry the bacon, then insert into the center of the scallops, and pan sear the scallops.

"Smoked Salad"

Fresh baby Argula

Slivered orange bacon (made with lapsang souchong tea, orange peel, orange oil, and brown sugar)

Raw cashews

Smoked blue cheese

Aged Balsamic vinegar

Fry the bacon slivers over medium heat, when they are crisp, add the cashews until roasted. Pour the bacon and cashew hot mixture over the baby argula, crumble the cheese over it, and top with an aged sweet balsamic.

[Bombdog]

Pork sausage, made with smoked fat back, roasted poblano and chipotle peppers, cilantro and sun dried tomatoes. Grilled and served with Rancho Gordo posole verde.

Lamb sausage, made with lamb, fat back, chopped fresh rosemary, garlic and feta cheese. Grilled and served with grilled eggplant and a salad of cucumber, red onion, feta and kalamata olives.

But my favorite, a charcuterie plate of duck proscuito, bresaola, peperone, tuscan, and venison salames.