NOTE: 

The weekend was educational the thought-provoking.  Over the next couple of days I’ll be publishing a series of posts highlighting the weekend.  My plan is to end the series with a serious post about what I learned about hog farming along with a call to action for my readers.

Niman Ranch Weekend (Part 1): La Quercia

Since most participants were  not scheduled to arrive until later Friday morning, a few of us that arrived late the night before met for breakfast.  We had a fantastic breakfast and with the prospect of spending a quiet morning in my hotel room I jumped at the chance to tour one of the most famous charcuteries in the United States, La Quercia.

La Quercia (The Oak) was started by Herb and Kathy Eckhouse in Norwalk, Iowa in 2002 and since their humble beginning in the basement of their home they have become one of the most respected charcuteries in the United States, if not the world.  Jeffery Steingarten said their’s was the best prosciutto found in the US… domestic or imported.  And after getting the chance to tour their facility and spend some time talking with Herb and Kathy it’s no wonder they have found such wonderful success on the plains of Iowa.  (Learn more about Herb, Kathy and La Quercia here.)

 Above you will see Coppa Americana getting ready for the drying stage of the curing process.  At this point the loin from above the hog’s shoulder has already been cured with sea salt (and no nitrates).  Traditionally  Coppa is made with a garlic and pepper seasoning but La Quercia has made this “American” version with smoked pimenton and little organic cocoa.

As Herb walked us through the facility it was clear he and Kathy, and all their workers, had a passion for what they were doing.  The attention to detail was incredible.  Everything was done with a meticulousness that is not clear in mass-produced food stuffs.  This was, indeed, food for eating…not just food for selling.

As I walked among the 30,000 or so dry cured hams hanging in different rooms in the various stages of the process I couldn’t help but feel as though, instead of meat plant, I was walking through an art museum.  If ever there was an example of food as art it was at La Quercia.

As some of my earlier readers will remember I once tried my hand at curing pancetta.  After spending some time at La Quercia I’m inspired to try it again.  This is what artisian meat products is all about. 

There is a reason Herb and Kathy Eckhouse has had the praises of food critics/journalists heaped upon them, including the Bon Appetit 2007 Food Artisans of the Year Award.  Their respect for the finished product starts with a deep seeded respect for the farmers and the animals they raise.  Their mission statement sums it up:

“We believe that the food we eat can delight us each day.  It is our mission to help you make that happen.  With each product we strive to offer a memorable eating experience.  Seeking out the best possible ingredients, produced responsibly, we craft them by hand into something that expresses our appreciation for the bounty and beauty of Iowa.”–Herb & Kathy Eckhouse

Here are a few more pictures from my trip to La Quercia

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Getting ready for the brine

A few years ago Celeste and I visited the wonderful city of Vancouver, Canada.  During out stay we stopped by Granville Island and came across a smokehouse selling Salmon Candy, I’m don’t remember what they called it, but it reminded me a Pig Candy, so I called it Salmon Candy.  A few days ago I was in the store and for some reason when I saw the salmon I thought of that trip and decided it was time to recreate that wonderful taste.

I checked out the internet for recipes and there appears to be just one recipe for for Salmon Candy.  And if there’s only one recipe out there on the world wide web then it must be what I’m looking for.  Well, it wasn’t as good as the Granville Island Salmon Candy so I’ll have to keep trying.

The final product was a little too salty and didn’t have the sweetness that I was hoping for.  The saltiness I think I can get rid of by rinsing and soaking a little longer after the brine.  Or maybe a shorter brine.  Instead of 24 hours maybe cut it down to 12 hours.  As for the sweetness.  It just didn’t come out.  I even put a layer of brown sugar on at the end just to try and get some more sweetness.  Just didn’t work.

Any suggestions?

Salmon Candy

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon water
• 1 cup pickling salt
• 2 cups dark dark brown sugar
• 1 cup real maple syrup
• salmon, cleaned
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup water

Directions:

Put half the water in in a bowl in the freezer.  Add remaining water to a pan on the stove and heat slightly.  You want the water warm, not hot.  When the water is warm add the salt, sugar and syrup and stir to dissolve.  Let it sit for a couple minutes to make sure all the solids are dissolved.  Then add the water from the freezer.  This should get your water back to almost room temperature.  If the water is still warm to the touch at all let it cool.

Put your salmon in a large bowl or dish and cover with your brine liquid.  Let the salmon brine for 24 hours.  Remove from brine and rinse completely.  You want to get as much salt off the fish as possible.

Cold smoke until done.  Not like jerky, but firm and flaky.  I used apple wood.  The last half the smoke baste with the honey mixed with water.  This will give you the candy texture.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

I’ve not had great results with my charcuterie efforts lately.  The bacon and panchetta cures last years were good but did not yield the results I was hoping for.  I decided to give it a try again this week with something that would yield a better potential for success.   And the end result was fantastic and I can’t wait to cook up a batch of jambalaya or red beans and rice.  The tasso is going to be a great seasoning in several dishes.

Tasso ham is a specialty of Cajun cuisine. It is a spicy, peppery version of smoked pork made from the shoulder butt. In this case, “ham” is a misnomer, since tasso is not made from the hind leg of a pig. This cut is typically fatty and, because the muscle is constantly used by the animal, has a great deal of flavor. The butt, which will weigh 7 to 8 pounds, is sliced across the grain into pieces about 3 in / 7.5 cm thick. These are dredged in a salt cure, which usually includes nitrates and sugar. The meat is left to cure briefly, only three or four hours, then rinsed, rubbed with a spice mixture containing Cayenne pepper and garlic, and hot-smoked until cooked through.

Tasso is not eaten on its own, but is used as part of a flavor base for stews or braised vegetables. It is used in dishes ranging from pasta to crab cakes, soup to gravy. Appropriate to its roots, tasso is most often found in recipes of southern or Cajun/Creole origin, such as jambalaya. –Wikipedia

I am a huge fan of Michael Ruhlman’s book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing.  At my house this book isn’t a cookbook, it’s more like a coffee table book.    Reading this book is my inspiration for wanting to learn more about this cooking craft.  There are thousands of Tasso recipes on the web and they all have a few things in common, but none of them are exactly the same.  This recipe was inspired by Ruhlman’s book but adapted just a little to fit my families tastes.

I started with a nine pound bone in pork shoulder.  All I needed was five pounds so I removed the end that didn’t contain the bone and then cut it into slices.   Most of the fat was left off, I only removed the “hard” fat.

The pork slices were dredged in the curing mixture.  It’s very important to make sure all sides of the meat is covered in the curing mixture.  Once the pork was covered in the curing mixture I placed the pork into a plastic zip lock bag and put them in the refrigerator.

This is the first place I had to deviate from Ruhlman’s instructions.  In “Charcuterie” Ruhlman says to only cure the meat for 4 hours.  After reading 15 to 20 recipes I just wasn’t sure this was enough to give it the “ham” flavor this was going to need.  I decided to cure the pork for three days.  I rotated the bag of pork every 12 hours or so.

After the 3 days I removed the pork from the bag and rinsed it to remove as much of the salt as possible.  After the rinse the pork was placed on a rack and as much water was removed with paper towels as possible.  I’ve always made it a point to let meat come up to room temperature before putting it on the smoker, so the meat was allowed to air dry until it was completely dry.  When the meat was dry the slices were dredged in the seasoning mixture.

The seasoning mixture is mostly ground peppers so when dredging you want to do it slowly because it does create a little pepper dust cloud that will cause a cough fit it breathed to deeply.  (Trust me I know this for a fact).   

Again, just like the curring mixture, you want to make sure that every bit of surface area is covered with the seasoning mixture.  This will insure, when smoked, that you get all the flavors through out the meat.  Since Tasso is not normally eaten alone, and is used primarily as a seasoning in other foods, you don’t want any unseasoned meat in your jambalaya or beans.

The pork slices were smoked with hickory wood in my Masterbuilt Electric Smoker at 180 degrees until the internal temperature of the pork was 165 degrees.  Most of the pork had a nice “bark” on it.

After cooling I chopped the Tasso into large cubes and vacuumed sealed them.  The Tasso will keep for a week in the refrigerator and several months in the freezer.  I doubt it will last a month here, but we’ll see.

The flavor of the Tasso was incredible.  It will complement all sorts of dishes and I can’t wait to cook up some Red Beans & Rice.

As you read through the recipe below you’ll notice that Ruhlman used weights for many items.  This technique allows for difference weights of different products and provides for a better ability to recreate recipes.  If you’d like to learn more about cooking with ratios may I suggest the book  Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking by Michael Ruhlman.

Tasso Ham

Inspired by Michael Ruhlman in “Charcuterie”

Ingredients for Cure Mixture:

• 5 pounds pork shoulder, sliced into 5 seven slabs
• 1 pound kosher salt (I used Morton’s)
• 8 ounces granulated sugar (I used Sugar In The Raw)
• 2 ounces pink salt (I used Morton’s Tender Quik)

Ingredients for Seasoning Mixture:

3 tablespoons ground white pepper

• 1 1/2 tablespoons cayenne pepper (I use chipotle because I prefer the flavor and heat level)
• 3 tablespoons dried marjoram
• 3 tablespoons ground all spice

Directions are above with the pictures.

After only three days the pancetta is starting to take shape. The aroma is amazing. Compare this picture with the first day of drying and you’ll be able to see quite a change already.

Here’s a shot of the pancetta when it first came out of the refrigerator.

A close up of the pancetta cure before it was all rinsed off.

After rinsing off the cure the pancetta is dried and allowed to air dry a little.

The pancetta is then rolled and tied. It’s important to make sure there are no air pockets when you roll it up. I hope I managed that.

And last find a cool, dark place to hang the pancetta for two weeks. Update in 3 days.