The Day of Pigs II continues to provide us with porky goodness. Yesterday we sampled all the sausage the we made, starting appropriately enough with the breakfast sausage in the morning.
The breakfast sausage was great. The maple syrup in it added just a hint of smoky sweetness. The day was off to a great start!
The bacon had been curing for 5 days and was ready to be smoked.
 |
 |
 |
We fired up the Big Stone Cooking Area with some apple and hickory logs, and put the bacon in to smoke. 7 hours later we took it out. It looked great and tasted even better.
By now it was getting on to evening. We decided to build up a big fire and have the rest of the sausage with Raclette cheese outside.
 |
 |
 |
In the first picture we have sausage browning over the fire, and cheese melting on a carefully scrubbed rock. The sausage is andouille, chorizo, and italian. All were splendid, we got a really good job on the sausage this year.
In the middle picture we’re all huddled around the fire, wondering how our ancestors lived before central heating.
And finally, as if it was putting on a show just for us, the International Space Station crossed majestically across the sky. It’s the tiny white dot in the upper 1/3 of the last picture. We waved to the astronauts as it went over.
We wrapped up that day cold and smoky and happy.
Today we awoke with pork hangovers from the vast amount of pork we consumed yesterday, but there was one more task before us: pancetta.
I’d split the pork belly in half and cured and smoked the one half as traditional bacon. The other half I’m making into unsmoked bacon, or pancetta. The cure is similar, but contains garlic, thyme, other herbs, and pink salt. Today I rinsed off the cure and it looked pretty much like regular bacon.
Then I rolled it up tightly.
If you’ve bought pancetta in the store, this is starting to look familiar. You usually get a slice of a roll like this.
The pancetta will hang for a couple weeks in the basement to dry and age. Then it will be ready to eat! The idea of hanging meat to dry and age is being met with great skepticism around here. Check back in two weeks for either a tale of pancetta glory or a tale of food poisoning!
Leave a Reply