As the winter set in and the days got shorter, many of our ancestors were finishing up (or had finished) laying in stocks for the long, cold months. And around the world, people found clever ways to preserve their harvests, including some truly amazing ways to preserve meats.
Meats may be dry-cured or wet, smoked or not, ground, stuffed, sliced, you name it.
Final entries will gain points in part based on showing us what you did, whether that's a curing process or one of transforming a cured product into a final, plated dish (or both).
And don't be shy: a really well-executed sausage-on-a-bun is a thing of beauty!
The Rules
The challenge begins on the 1st of every month. The last entry must be made by the last day of the month.
You may post multiple entries.
All entries must be cooked during the month of the challenge.
If you use a documented recipe, please cite your source.
Entries should include the name of your dish and a picture of the final product. Sharing personal recipes and pictures of the process are not mandatory but extremely helpful.
The winner is chosen by the person who posted the challenge, and is announced after the last day of submissions. The decision is final and falls entirely at the discretion of the challenger.
Submitting an entry makes you eligible to win. If you do not wish to be considered for the win you may still participate in the challenge, but make your wishes known to the challenger.
The winner's bounty includes praise, virtual high-fives, and the responsibility of posting the next month's challenge. That entails choosing a theme, posting a Challenge thread that includes the guidelines, checking in on the submissions regularly during the month, and promptly choosing a winner at the end of the challenge.
I'll have to put on my thinking cap for this one.
I'm in the process of breaking up/moving my place, so most of my stuff is packed or being packed, but I think I still have a gammon (bought) and a piece of szechuan streaky bacon (home cured) in the freezer.
I should be able to do something
I'm drooling already. Three things to love: (1) Home-cured (2) Sichuan (3) streaky bacon. I really hope you find the time to make something with that, because I want to see it (and imagine eating it)!
Hmmm I already ate all the sausages, saucissons, caillettes and boudin I made from my own pigs.
Still have a bag of the sheep sausage I made earlier this year (a friend of mine had bought sheep to handle the lawn mowing duties on the land he'd borrowed for his organic chicken farm and later gave up so we turned all the sheep into sausage).
I have more photos I could share but I'm worried they may be a bit too gory for a food forum.
FF - nice pictures! People should know and understand where their food really comes from. That view, mixer, and set up are drool worthy.
We just bought pork chops from a farmer up the road because we are out of our own. I think we still have some ground pork to make sausages though, I need to check.
I absolutely agree, @fatcook : people should know where their food comes from and be ethically comfortable with the procedures, even if they don't do it themselves. That's actually one of the reasons I like this challenge: if you're at all serious about cured meat, even if you just eat it, you pretty much have to know where it comes from. And if you cure it yourself, you're going to be something of an expert!
I've been putting off making sausage long enough. It looks like I'll have to bit the bullet this month. I have goose breast and venison in the freezer. When pork shoulder goes on sale I'll make a batch of kielbasa.
I just noticed you mentioned gravlax in the intro. So... my question is, does the challenge include fish as well as meat? I'm assuming so. The great thing about curing fish is that its a relatively fast process; easily done within a few days.
Not my cured products, but with it being soup and stew season I made a favorite - Squid and Chorizo Stew. Onion, garlic (lots), fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, white wine, squid tubes, Spanish chorizo, small potatoes. & {because I can) some wild boar and venison sausage.
The recipe came from Raymond Blanc's Slow Cooking series and I've been making it for a several years now. This dish is all about texture - from the onions (large pieces) to the sausage to the squid. The squid develops a flavor and texture unlike flash fried calamari. I really like it better this slow cooked version.
Just did this as a special this morning. I don't have pics of the process, but the cured item on here is Finocchiona, fennel infused salami from Tuscany. It is a play on eggs bene. Squashbrowns - Spaghetti squash, roasted fennel, garlic and parmesan, grilled and topped with Finocchiona, and egg over easy, a rosemary infused white bean hollandaise, and a roasted red pepper agro dolce. Garnished with green onions and a parmesan crisp.
Just did this as a special this morning. I don't have pics of the process, but the cured item on here is Finocchiona, fennel infused salami from Tuscany. It is a play on eggs bene. Squashbrowns - Spaghetti squash, roasted fennel, garlic and parmesan, grilled and topped with Finocchiona, and egg over easy, a rosemary infused white bean hollandaise, and a roasted red pepper agro dolce. Garnished with green onions and a parmesan crisp.
I actually work for a hospital. That's why everything is so affordable. We don't have to mark things up 3 or 4 times to cover food cost and labor. We do a 1 - 1.5x mark up. Food and labor are covered under budgets and not measured by %. We also get special pricing and don't pay tax, so that helps keep costs down. We are part of a large buying group. I compared my prices once to a local restaurant, and on many items I pay 1/2 or 1/3 of what they do.
I had every ingredient I needed to make Ghicken Gumbo including Gaspar's Andouille and being a rainy day gumbo was the perfect dish.
Half way through a "two beer" roux
Everybody is in the pot just added my okra and letting it reduce
Served over some Basmati brown rice cooked in stock, garlic and parsley
Gaspar's is a little spicier than D'Artagnon and is a very good product IMO. The okra is frozen and the chicken was from a leftover spatchcocked from the other night. I rendered the skin in drippings for my roux and added some schmaltz to fill out the fat requirement + the saved pan fond from the chicken as well. What a flavor burst!!
Did you mean this to be in the challenge thread? As it happens I've been learning to cook Gumbo and have made three this month - seafood, chicken and gumbo z'herbes. I'd be happy to see a Gumbo thread but I'm not sure they qualify as cured meats, charcuterie etc.
I used my bacon that was made a while ago. I found a piece in the freezer, took it out and let it sit (wrapped in tea towel) in the fridge for a bit to dry out somewhat.
This bacon was roughly based on the recipe here: https://honest-food.net/sichuan-bacon/
I cold smoked with beech in the proQ cold smoke generator (old pics)
So, yesterday I decided to cook with it and to keep it more or less szechuan style (or however you want to spell it)
I used black beans (taotjo) and black bean paste, chili, garlic, leek, and glutinous black rice wine (no idea what that normally is used for, but I had a bottle. Think I thought it was shaoxing rice wine when I bought it). And I used my bacon, off course
Fried the bacon
Added the other ingredients, first the leek, then garlic and chili's, then the sauces
And served with rice.
The rice is yellow, more for photographic purposes than anything else. I seem to be unable to make a picture with white rice that is not over-exposed.
It was definitely tasty!
I had a bit of left-over that I made into fried rice with a couple of fried eggs and that was tasty as well
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