With the warmer weather (leaving aside the inconvenient truth that it snowed today) comes the urge to light fires and char large pieces of animal on them, or at least let said slabs of flesh languish in hot proximity to the fire, bathing in the fragrant smoke until tender and orgiastically satisfying.
So this month’s Charcutepalooza process was brining. The day they announced it was the day I finished off a lovely pastrami, and the week before we had eaten the last of a tongue pastrami. So that was bad timing. But it did give me an excuse to make something else.
Various forms of grilled sandwiches with home-cured meat played a big part in getting me through this winter. Versions of the reuben in particular really spoke to me, and I’ve been missing them since the last pastrami ran out. (Here’s an account of my from-scratch reuben, and here’s the post about the recent tongue pastrami). I love Moroccan flavors, and in general I prefer lamb to beef, so I thought I’d make lamb pastrami. It’s logical if you think about it; both the brine and the crust can be easily tweaked towards the Maghreb, and lamb takes smoke and strong spices really well. The Reubenesque aspects of the final sandwich all got similar modifications, and the result was a hell of a sandwich.
I’ve always been a fan of mistakes as the metaphorical equivalent of mutations in genetic code. Most of them result in failure, but once in a while they make for dramatic improvements that could not have occurred otherwise. It’s true in my studio, and it’s most definitely true in the kitchen, where a recent mistake made for a pretty wonderful discovery. This post is supposed to be about duck prosciutto–the first of the Charcutepalooza assignments, which I joined too late to get done in time–but I honestly don’t have much to say about it that I haven’t already. I’ve been making it for several years, and try to never be without it. Here’s a post about it and other goodies from a few years ago. And since it was a hard heel of cured duck that gave me the idea that turned this pwn upside dwn, it seemed like a legitimate jumping-off point for this post.
You know how Coldplay sounds like diet Radiohead? That’s how regular bacon tastes compared to the miso-cured version; miso bacon is deeper, tangier, creamier, and has much more umami. The enzymes in the miso soften the meat while the salt and sugar firm it up; the result has a different density and is more sensual. The profound flavors of the miso add overtones to the meat, giving it a haunting complexity. It’s so very good.