I purchased a 6 pound piece of fresh skin on pork belly earlier in the week. The first step in the pancetta curing process is removing the skin. You need a very sharp boning knife to accomplish this. Start in one of the corners with a little slice under the skin.

By slowly pulling up and back on the skin and making small slices along the base of the skin you can slowly peel it back. It’s time consuming because you need to take care not to cut away to much mean and fat.

Once the skin has been removed you can start preparing the cure.

The cure calls for kosher salt, “pink salt,” Juniper Berries, peppercorns, Thyme, Rosemary, bay leaves and brown sugar. Use a skillet or sauce pan to break up the juniper berries and peppercorns before mixing them into all the other dry cures.

At the recent Winter Fancy Food Show I received some sample of different Billington’s sugars. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to try out the dark brown sugar. It has a flavor unlike any other brown sugar I’ve every used. Can’t wait to see what difference it makes.

Spread the cure on all sides of pork belly. It’s important to make sure you get the cure even all over.

The pork belly goes into a 2 gallon zip lock back and placed into a 9 X 13 dish.

A plastic cutting board and some weight keeps the pork belly flat. The weight also helps to force some of the moisture out of the meat during the curing process.

The pork belly will remain in the cure of 10 days. Every other day the pork belly will be turned over. I’ll take a picture or two during the process for updates.

The recipe I used can be found at Chow.

I love kitchen gadgets more than any other gadgets types.  For years I’ve wanted a hamburger press.  Don’t ask me why, I just want one.  But for the life of me I can’t bring myself to spending $25 to $30 for a decent one.  Maybe because I’m getting older and wiser I just can’t cost justify it.

But I want those perfectly formed hamburger patties when I grill burgers.  Some people just make hand formed patties but most of the time they just seem to fall apart on the grill.  So I use what I call the “plate burger press.”

Most salad plates have a ridged circle on the bottom that is roughly the same size as a quality hamburger bun.

After forming the hamburger into a firm ball, place it in the center of the circle on the bottom of the plate.

Using another plate centered on the bottom one gently start pressing the ball of hamburger into a patty.

With some practice, not much this ain't rocket science, you can form some great hamburger patties.

There you go a simple, easy to use hamburger patty press with “gadgets” you already have.

One of the challenges for me when cooking with rubber gloves on is handling smaller measuring spoons and getting the right amount of spice out of the container easily. With the long handles it can be accomplished without much difficulty.

The long handles make it very easy to reach down inside some of the larger spice bottles without having to tip the bottles to measure out small amounts.

The Zak Designs multi-color measuring spoons are not a gimmick but are a great addition to any kitchen. The set of 5: 1/8 teaspoon, teaspoon, teaspoon, 1 teaspoon, and 1 tablespoon is made from durable, dishwasher safe Melamie.

The problem was so bad that after three smokes I put the darn thing in the corner and went back to my old reliable smokers. After reading some newer threads on temp control I made some changes and what an improvement.

I LOVE my new and improved UDS. The problem was that I just got to fancy. Simplicity is the key to the UDS. On the first build I had two “stacks” on the lid. It looked great but it wouldn’t draw right. All I had to do was buy a new lid with a 2 inch bung hole and it worked like a charm.

Yesterday I cooked two racks of ribs, a five pound chuckie and four fatties all with about 8 pounds of charcoal. Once it got to temp it maintained it without two much problem. I’ll be using the UDS more often now.