The Half Pig - Cured
No, not 'cured' as in running around again! But, what I've done with the half-pig I got a couple of weeks ago.
Well sad to say, the 4kg of Everyday Sausage I made from the shoulder is in the dustbin following a freezer failure. As are a variety of other items.
What I'm left with is 2kg of pork and herb (haslet style) slicing sausage and potted ham that I wrote about previously.
Along with this the 4kg of dry cured back bacon and smoked back bacon have survived, these were both made using the bacon cure previously posted. For a tutorial, and down-loadable cure calculator for a similar cure, see my tutorial on the sausagemaking.org forum. I was really pleased with the smoked bacon, given that it's the first thing I've smoked in my, much altered, smoker.
Most of the 3.2kg of Everyday Ham's also survived. That reminds me I must take some decent pictures of these things next time.
The 1kg of polony I made tastes just about OK, but the recipe needs a lot more work. Will I bother to make it again? I don't know yet.
That leaves a couple of pieces of pancetta, that are still drying in my curing fridge, another new, and somewhat costly addition that has separate temperature control, and within the next month or so will have full humidity control as well. The flat piece (stesa) is the same recipe as the previously posted pancetta, but the rolled (arrotolata) pancetta is to a completely different recipe from my American curing chum 'Larbo', it's flavoured with orange so should be interesting. I'll write about this one later.
I still have some pork and liver frozen to make pâté and faggots when I get around to them. All in all not to bad, If it wasn't for that flamin' 'frost free' freezer.
Great to see the orange and fennel pancetta hanging in your fridge! You should be in for a right treat when it’s dried out a little. I’ve got two saved up that I plan to break out for my birthday bash in a couple weeks. I’ll slice it thin and serve it up with a the first of this year’s vin d’orangeÂ…