Cocktoberfest

This whole year has been spent curing meats. I made bacon for the first time last christmas and it has progressed from there. Pancetta is my favorite to make since it is expensive in stores yet is so easy and requires no special equipment. Plus it keeps for months in the fridge. Perfect for winter pasta carbonaras at a moment's notice.

But then came Batali's meat class/seminar. And the taste test. Both convinced me that I needed to try more things. Enter Jafo and Natascha. My meat nerd counterparts. They went to the Batali class with me and became hooked, too. And so began "Meat Club" and our first event in honor of "sausage".... Cocktoberfest.

We decided to have a two part event. Class 1 was the quick salami that Batali taught us in class. We started at noon. I made apricot mimosas and had some cheese; Jafo (aka Jason) brought two kinds of awesome meat -- a parmesan crusted coppa and a spicy soppressata (I think). Both were awesome. Here are Natascha and Jason enjoying meat and mimosas before getting started:


First we measured out the meat and fat, cutting everything into chunks before sending it through the food grinder. Here are Jafo and Natascha teaming up to prep and grind the meat on ice:



Tobriah takes a turn mixing in the spices:


And here are Kathy and Jason stuffing the meat into the casing. The meat is supposed to be stuffed into fibrous casings, which you can order online. Jafo insisted on the camouflage ones:


A little later in the stuffing process. 5 lbs of meat produced two giant salamis:



We put the meat in the oven to cook (Batali said a low oven for 30 minutes or until it gets to a certain temp -- but after 45 minutes at 250, it was barely warm, so we kept turning up the temp until the time seemed about right. 300-325 seemed to work. Good to know). While the meat was cooking, we began the first step in making pancetta (curing the pork belly). We mixed up the spices and here is Natascha rubbing it over the meat:


She flips it over and I realize that I forgot to cut off the pork skin:


So I get to work removing the skin: (Sidenote: Marsha, I made that cajeta recipe you sent me. It worked really well in a crock pot. It was used for an ice cream topping -- I had a lot leftover and when I told Natascha about it, she wanted to taste it. We devoured it (see white gravy boat dripping with goodness). We learned that cajeta tastes really, really good on sliced granny smith apples with gorgonzola crumbled on top. Yum)


Meanwhile, Tobriah loved the smell of the pancetta spices (bay leaves, juniper, thyme, brown sugar, etc.) on her hands:


We finally get the pork skin off, finish coating the meat with spices and put it in a gallon sized bag to cure for 7-10 days before hanging to dry. As we get finished, the salami comes out of the oven. Jason thinks it's good enough to eat:



In all, we had a great time. It would have only taken 90 minutes or so, if not for that blasted oven. Oh well, a few more mimosas on a Saturday afternoon never hurt anyone.