CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #6: THIS LITTLE PIGGY AVOIDED THE GRINDER (THIS TIME)
Charcutepalooza’s June challenge brings us to stuffing. Which, if you’re used to making encased sausages, shouldn’t be that much of a challenge. But for myself, the stickier part of the assignment was to build a poultry forcemeat to stuff into it. In other words, a bird sausage. Now, I realize that chicken sausages ...
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CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #5: SALSICCE, BY ANY OTHER NAME
There’s a picture of my grandfather, I think it’s probably taken in the 1970s, standing in a friend’s basement, smiling with a sausage grinder by his side and many, many links of tubed meat hanging from the rafters around him. I’ve always loved this picture of him, and when he died my mother found his old sausage ...
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CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #4: THE PIGANATOR HAS LANDED
For Charcutepalooza challenge #4 we confronted hot smoking, and I got to spend some time with an old friend, my New Braunfels style vertical smoker. When my wife gave it to me as birthday present years ago, I can’t imagine she realized the Faustian bargain she had entered into. Sure she enjoys the quality eats with ...
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CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #3 ADDENDUM: A PASTRAMI SANDWICH
Staring into the waiting arms of death, Warren Zevon dished out one of life’s more salient pieces of advice: “Enjoy every sandwich.” This is one for Warren: homemade pastrami on rye with imported Swiss, spicy okra pickles and Stadium Mustard. It goes best with “The French Inhaler” played at inappropriately high ...
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CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #3: CORNED BEEF, PASTRAMI, AND ONE OF LIFE’S GREAT BARS
The March Charcutepalooza challenge brings us to brining. Which for me meant corned beef, pastrami and a stinky, stinky attempt at sauerkraut. The process of making corned beef started with a very nice looking locally raised, grass fed brisket. Brisket being the national steak of Texas, this one wasn’t very difficult to ...
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CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #2: SIZZLIN’ BACON, A LATE WINTER DALLIANCE
If anybody ever tells you they love bacon, your answer should be something like this: “No shit.” Everybody likes bacon. Saying how much you like bacon is sort of like going on and on about how much you like smelling things that smell good or how funny things make you laugh or how rat poison is just something that ...
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DUCK PROSCIUTTO AND THE GRAND PLAN: REASSEMBLING ONE DUCK INTO ONE MEAL. OR, FRANKENDUCK: THE RESSURECTION. OR. SON OF FRANKENDUCK: THE LIQUID BONES.
So my last post was part of the 1st challenge for Charcutepalooza, at least the duck prosciutto part of it (as is this one). After feeling pretty good about dissecting the critter, I said something along the lines of “Meat plus salt equals good.” Which I probably should have worded more thoroughly, something like ...
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