Grub Hacker

Peach Smoked Madison Maple and Guava/Agave Bacon

Its been too long since my last post... I have been cooking a lot but find it hard at times to get the proper lighting needed to get good looking photos.  Today was a beutiful fall day and my cured bacon had just finished up its week long magical curing jorney.

I made two different types of bacon today, one was a Madion maple and the other was Guava/Agave.  Both of these were smoked on some peach wood that my freind had cut for me earlier in the spring.

 

Bacon Cure

1 Poud Kosher Salt

8 Ounces of Sugar

2 ounces pink salt

Rub each pork belly with 1/4 cup of cure

 

Madison Maple bacon

1/2 Cup maple syrup added during cure

  Mix and add to slab when you add the cure 

 

Guava/Agave bacon

1/2 C Guava Necter

1/3 2 TBS Dark Agave Nectre

 Mix and add to slab when you add the cure

 

Cure each bacon slab for 7 days with 1/4 cup of cure and select sweatner

 

Smoke at 200 degrees over your choice of fruit wood until bacon hits 162 internal temprature

 

 

Cool, slice and enjoy

 

 

Anyone have any other interesting bacon flavoring ideas? 

Seth

Fresh Pastrami

I've been waiting to make something that I considered to be appropriate for my first blog post here, on Grub Hacker.  Surprisingly, none of the imaginative wild game dishes created in my kitchen seemed to be able to make the cut, and I ended up choosing this! 

Inspired by the most recent episode of No Reservations, and an appealing recipe in Charcuterie, I decided to make fresh pastrami. There's nothing quite like getting fresh, hot pastrami on rye bread from a hole in the wall deli; the results of the following foray into recipes from the aforementioned book are just as fulfilling. 

The recipe is very easy, just brine, smoke, steam and serve.  Pardon all of the pictures, I'm just becoming more comfortable with my camera and starting to get good pictures.  My only regret is that I am unable to stop time and passing by clouds in order to have the sunlight right for pictures.

Salami, Saucisson Sec and Guanciale Update

The curing closet in the basement has been working out great.  At this point I have Salami, Saucisson Sec and Guanciale in the closet and I am just about ready to take the small Salami links down at about 3 weeks hang time.  

The curing closet has been holding a steady 56-58 degrees Fahrenheit and 67-71% humidity and I have been amazed at just how well my humidifier has held these humidity levels. I think the humidifier was purchased at home depot some years ago and has a simple LCD screen read out with twin tanks.  I would imagine that this setup could run my curing closet for a good month and a half on full tanks.  

  

Build: Sausage Fermentation Box

We had a big dilemma while making salami over the weekend.  How to keep the sausages at both 85 degrees Fahrenheit and high humidity?  Seeing as my basement is always at 55 degrees and my upstairs never gets above 65 I realized we needed to get a bit creative.

Digital temperature controller from my Sous Vide machine, old heat lamp from when I had my ducks and an old wood box in my basement and we had a nicely controlled sausage fermentation chamber.

 
Sausage Fermentation Box

Large Box
Ranco or similar digital temperature controller
Cheap Clamp on Light
Heat Lamp
String

You could make this in any type of large box that can safely hold water pans, lights and sausages.  I happened to have a pretty big old wood box that worked perfectly for this purpose.

Sausage box setup with Salamis, running at 85 degrees Fahrenheit

 

 Close up of probe and Sausage-  Sausages are wrapped in paper towels and sprayed down with distilled water twice a day to maintain high humidity levels.

   

Weekend Charcuterie Part 1

We kind of went crazy with all things cured this past weekend.  Some things I have pictures of, some things I don't... :/  I do not want to violate any copyright laws so I am limited with the recipes that I can post.  I will post the recipes that I have created or modified far enough from their original state.

Things that were made:

Sauerkraut
Duck Prosciutto
Fennel and Coriander Cured Copper River Salmon
Gravlax Cured Wild Salmon
Vanilla Maple Cured Bacon
Guanciale
Saucisson of Pork Tenderloin
Saucisson Sec Dry Cured Sausage
Tuscan Salami