Tag:

The Yummy Mummy

cooking

Charcutepalooza December: Thank You

by David Dadekian December 6, 2011

written by David Dadekian

Charcuterie Board (see lower photo for descriptions)

And so it goes. Our year of meat has come to a close. For the final Charcutepalooza challenge we were told to show what we learned all year. In Cathy’s own words, do some “showing off” with a celebration. Personally, I think a lot of the Charcutepalooza participants have been showing off all year long—and I mean that in a very positive way. I’ve had an immense amount of fun, a little frustration and a minor failure, but mostly huge fun.

The final challenge for me involved my family and the weekend after Thanksgiving, a leisurely weekend of chopping down a Christmas tree and putting up lights and decorations, all while enjoying the meats and cheeses you see on the big board above. The bresaola I had made for the previous challenge, all the rest of the charcuterie I slowly assembled over the month of November in preparation for the bittersweet end.

As I said, it was the weekend after Thanksgiving. My parents were visiting us from their home in Florida. My wife had four days off from work. My daughters were constantly excited from all the grandparent attention and all these Christmas decorations coming out—there’s a tree in the house! I knew I wasn’t going to want to cook too much after the multi-day extravaganza that is Thanksgiving, but I knew we’d want to eat something else besides leftovers so thought, what’s better than a spread of charcuterie that we can pick at as we work and play?

I made all these photographs and then we proceeded to clear the board over the weekend, cooking up the sausage and some of the lamb bacon, steaming the pastrami until it was moist and tender. My mother loved the pâté, something she doesn’t get that often, and I avoided mentioning to her that using Jacques Pépin’s very classical recipe calls for half a pound of livers with 3/8 of a pound of butter as the base. As much as I would love to see my girls eat everything on the board, they’re not there yet, though Brigid did sample all the Farmstead cheeses at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market and helped pick out two of them.

When I was making the pâté the day before I had taken out a bottle of Armenian “cognac.” I use quotes because it’s obviously not made in the French region of Cognac, but that’s what Armenian brandies have been called for many years. Supposedly Armenian cognac was Winston Churchill’s drink of choice. My dad hadn’t seen a bottle in years and wanted to try it so my wife, in perhaps a bit of whimsy, took out a couple of shot glasses with shamrocks on them for us to have a drink. The bottle from Armenia alongside the Irish shot glass kind of summed up our whole family so I made a photo, but this being a Charcutepalooza feast I had to stick the pâté in the photo too.

So with that memory and image of all my now eaten charcuterie (there’s a little lamb bacon left, but won’t be for long) I close my year of meat. But I certainly can’t end without a huge thank you to Cathy Barrow and Kim Foster for coming up with all this fun. I’ve been making charcuterie for years, but never as regularly or as focused as I did for the last year. Also, for me, the best part was expanding how I would photograph these things. I started with some different ways with the duck prosciutto, became really happy with my style as I got to the pancetta and the last three months of meat pie, galantine and bresaola have been very satisfying for me. I appreciate all the kind comments and Kim’s choosing a few of my photos for her monthly wrap-ups. I can’t thank her and especially Cathy’s inspiring challenges and tweets enough.

Special thanks also to Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, authors of our manual for the year Charcuterie. I eagerly await their salumi book. Finally, I can’t possibly think of a way to say thank you enough to all the wonderful Charcutepalooza participants. I can’t say enough about the joy of “conversing” with all of you on Twitter. If I begin to try and list everyone’s Twitter name I know I’ll miss someone, so check out this great archive of every tweet with the #charcutepalooza tag and follow them all.

Thank you again, Cathy @MrsWheelbarrow and Kim @KimFosterNYC!

Turkey & chicken liver pâté with Armenian brandy ("cognac")

Charcuterie Board

Turkey & Chicken Liver Pâté

Bresaola

Lamb Bacon

Pastrami

December 6, 2011 0 comment

cooking

Charcutepalooza November: Curing: Bresaola

by David Dadekian December 1, 2011

written by David Dadekian

slice of bresaola

So we come to the end (almost), the final Charcutepalooza challenge, curing a whole cut of meat. Arguably, as long as you have your curing formula right and a place to hang the cut to dry at the right temperature and humidity, this was one of the least challenging challenges. Or maybe that’s the end result of eleven months of preparing charcuterie, it’s not easy by any means, but it becomes less sweat and toil and more of another well-known tool in the cooking toolbox. I’ve been doing random charcuterie over the last ten years, and while I was mostly pleased with the results, it was usually the former experience and not a well-known tool by any means.

But 2011 changed that (with the exception of stuffing sausage, though I’m convinced that has to do with a KitchenAid mixer being my sole sausage device). Compare something as basic as my trussing on the beef eye of round below with the pork belly I turned into pancetta back in January. I tied and untied that pancetta a few times and I never managed to make a straight line with the twine. I’ve made a couple more pancettas between January and November and now I can tie and hang meat in no time flat. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s not a chore any more.

I don’t really have a story when it comes to making bresaola. To be honest, I don’t have much memory of making it, even though it was only about five weeks ago that I started the process. I remember taking a few minutes to clean and trim a beautiful eye of round from, where else—Blackbird Farm, one night while I was making dinner for my family. I quickly put together the cure, split it in two, put half in a bag with the beef and stuck it in the basement fridge. I really don’t recall cleaning it and rubbing in the second half after a week, though I know I did, probably in between writing something or editing photos or taking my daughters to a class or the museum.

The point is, before 2011 if I wanted bresaola I most likely would have paid $20 a pound for a few ounces. Let’s be honest, I’m sure I would have bought it, and there’s truly nothing wrong with that, but there’s a few dollars I can save to spend elsewhere (probably on yet another sea salt or something like that).

Like I said, I’ve always loved doing charcuterie, but it wasn’t a necessity to my eating or feeding my family, like many of the other cooking skills I can say I’ve mastered. I’m a freelancer. I have been for most of my working life. As a freelancer (and a bit of a wandering creative mind at times as well) I work best to deadlines so it took these past eleven assignments to get me to focus on creating charcuterie. I won’t go so far as to say I’ve mastered the craft, but I’ve definitely become much more proficient.

Next week, a letter and toast to the people I have to thank for it all. For now, bresaola photos, and yes, please tell my wife I really do need a commercial meat slicer at home.

cured and trussed beef eye of the round

Cured beef hanging in the basement to dry. Yes that's a whiteboard on the freezer listing all it's contents, and for some reason I keep our RI Philharmonic tickets tacked there as well.

Good white mold on the outside of the bresaola

Close-up of the end and the white mold

Cross-section of the bresaola

December 1, 2011 0 comment

cooking

Charcutepalooza October: Stretching: Galantine

by David Dadekian October 15, 2011

written by David Dadekian

Galantine

Another month has passed and we’re sadly that much closer to the end of The Year of Meat. There’s no way I’m going to stop making any of these Charcutepalooza treats, but I don’t think I’ll be documenting them in quite as much detail. Usually when I’m cooking there’s fourteen other things (or just two little girls) vying for my attention and I don’t get a chance to make notes or pick up my camera—or make sure when I do pick up my camera I’m not getting schmaltz on it. However, this month’s challenge, as complicated as it was, was a huge amount of fun and I found myself constantly washing my hands (or pulling off the non-latex gloves) and taking a photo. I would go so far as to say, while I’ve enjoyed mostly all of the Charcutepalooza challenges, this one ranks up there as one of my favorites.

While many of the challenges are easily recognizable to the non-meat-obsessed, I’m willing to bet the photo above and even the caption “galantine” may not be as commonly known as say bacon, corned beef or even terrine. What you’re looking at there and in the many photos below is, from the center out, a boneless, skinless chicken breast encased within a chicken thigh & liver forcemeat (remember blended ground meat and fat), wrapped in chicken skin, poached in chicken stock and then chilled.

Now, you may be thinking, as I did, I love chicken skin and all, but I like it nicely roasted or fried crispy, not poached and then served cold. But trust me, the galantine is a thing of beauty. The key is to make very thin slices when cutting the final product. Don’t just take my word for it, here’s the conversation I had with my brother Andy when I unwrapped and served the galantine last week.

Andy: What is this you’re serving?

Me: A galantine. It’s chicken breast inside ground chicken meat wrapped in chicken skin.

Andy: What?

Me: Trust me.

Andy: What the heck is this? (eyes the slice, picks it up and pops it in his mouth) Oh wow, this is goooooooood.

So there you have it, third party proof. And if there’s anyone who likes to give another person trouble and not let them think they did something right, you know it’s a little brother.

One of the reasons galantines may not be as common as a terrine or pate is because it is a bit of complex, time-consuming process to create. First you have to take the skin off a whole chicken, intact in one piece, something I had done several times in the past (did I mention I liked fried crispy chicken skin?). It’s not super difficult once you learn how to do it, it’s more a matter of time and patience. It was a plus having this challenge in October because some of the more gruesome horror movies can come to mind when doing it (Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs anyone?). Then you have to freeze the skin, scrape off the fat from the skin, butcher the chicken, sear the breasts, make the forcemeat (which is a whole Charcutepalooza challenge in itself), roll the whole thing up and tie off the ends, wrap it in cheesecloth and tie that, poach it in the stock to the proper temperature and chill it. On second thought, did I really mean this was one of my favorite challenges?

Truly it was, plus I had a good amount of forcemeat leftover that I put a delicious terrine together too. Before I close with the many photos of this process a mention should be given to Blackbird Farm (one of the many places I work with). We’ve begun raising chickens at Blackbird Farm. They’re Cornish Rocks, raised on pasture and supplemented with organic feed if they so desire. The birds are really beautiful to butcher and I couldn’t be happier cooking with them. So thank you Blackbird Farm for the chickens to do things with them that the folks at the farm never heard of, and, as usual, thank you to Cathy Barrow a.k.a. Mrs. Wheelbarrow and Kim Foster a.k.a.not The Yummy Mummy anymore for all the #charcutepalooza fun.

Skin removed from a whole chicken in one piece

Skinless bird

Searing the breast meat

Chicken fond, shallots, garlic & Madeira—wonderfully fragrant

Skin with seared breast meat inside forcemeat

Wrapped and tied galantine

Wrapped in cheesecloth and poaching in chicken stock (floating in photo, but submerged to poach)

First slices of galantine

Galantine (thick slice for photo purposes only)

Galantine slice 1

Galantine slice 2

October 15, 2011 0 comment

cooking

Charcutepalooza September: Packing: English Meat Pie

by David Dadekian September 15, 2011

written by David Dadekian

Preparing English meat pie

Some of these Charcutepalooza posts have been short because of frustration (see stuffing sausage). In this case, this post is on the short side because everything worked out so well and was so darn easy. Either I’m learning to deal with meat mess much better (none in my daughter’s hair this time!) or I’m getting better at running various animal parts through both ends of my Kitchenaid mixer. Even the dough making part of this month’s challenge went smoothly, and I don’t have the best record of dealing with doughs (caused by more of my finely-tuned-lack-of-coordination—there’s been flour all over my children in the past too). I won’t go so far as to say my dough work was a huge success, but this was definitely a very smooth challenge for me. Which is good because Mrs. Wheelbarrow is already teasing us via #charcutepalooza on Twitter with a super difficult challenge for October.

As you can see from the photos on this page, I decided to make an English Pork Pie, and in a rare moment for me, I decided to exactly stick to the recipe in Ruhlman & Polcyn’s Charcuterie. Well, sort of. In sorting one of our freezers after a blackout (thanks, Hurricane Irene!) I noticed that I had a little over a pound of venison left from earlier this year. I grabbed a few ounces of pork fat to round it up to a pound and a half, and ground it all as a substitute for the pork in the recipe for English Pork Pie. That’s the ground venison in the photo above, along with some herbs and spices in the bowl, waiting for the addition of the sauteed onions and garlic to the right and the cup of chicken stock to the upper left. It all came together quickly and easily, and now I had the insides for English Venison Pie.

Leaving that to chill, I tackled the dough. Maybe I had just the right atmospheric conditions, or I was just plain lucky, but the dough came together as easily too. I’m not saying it was pretty, and as you can see in my four-step process photos below it could’ve used a bit more finesse, but it was good dough and I didn’t make a huge mess. Note regarding photos: powdery substances like flour and my camera & lenses do not mix. That brings us to the four-step photos below, and I know I sound like a broken record (ask your parents), but laying out the dough and the meat and sealing it all up, came together easily too.

A few notes: I made an aspic with chicken stock to pour inside. I’m not sure if it would’ve worked as it didn’t look like much space, but I was going to try. That is until I wisely asked my wife if she would eat the Venison Pie if I encased it in meat jelly. She said she’d pass so I passed on adding the aspic. Also, while I thought I was being clever baking on a Silpat for easy removal from the pan, in retrospect, I wouldn’t use it again. The bottom of the pie was rather soggy. I’m not sure the Silpat contributed to that, but I’ll try it without next time. One last note, this was not the most attractive dish once I sliced into it. I was going to get out a different lens and play around with the slices, but then I tasted it. As much as I love making photos of food, I really love eating great food better. We devoured this pie. The ground venison with pork fat was moist and very flavorful and the crust tasted fantastic. I know I strayed with the meat, but Ruhlman & Polcyn’s recipe was perfect.

It’s hard to believe another month has passed in The Year of Meat and now we’re three-quarters of the way through Charcutepalooza. As I do every month, and I will continue to do so even when Charcutepalooza is over, I send many thanks to Cathy Barrow a.k.a. Mrs. Wheelbarrow and Kim Foster a.k.a. The Yummy Mummy. Also, the community that’s sprung up around these monthly challenges is very fun, warm and constructive. So if you’ve been reading along but not playing along, pick up the Twitter and find #charcutepalooza.

Four stages of making the pie

The finished English Venison Pie

September 15, 2011 0 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts