First Fail - Duck Prosciutto

The second attempt at making anything closely resembling real-world charcuterie came in the form of duck prosciutto. I aimed for the duck for two reasons. Firstly, it seemed simple and needed little more than a square of muslin and a piece of string, with regards to equipment. Oh, and a bowl, which I also had knocking around in the kitchen. Secondly, I had some duck. A few months ago a leading supermarket that has ideas above its station, with a name that begins with W and ends with aitrose, was doing a special on Greshingham duck crowns. I bought a bunch of them, but didn't eat them as I tend to prefer Mallard. I knew there would be one in the freezer, so I dug it out and whipped off the breasts (ooh, err, Matron - yes, I am still about ten years old in my head).

The recipe was a direct lift from the aforementioned 'Charcuterie book', so I covered the breasts in salt and waited the prescribed 48 hours. I can't be sure whether the breasts were big (oh, stop it), whether the process was slower than described, or whether I just panicked a bit, but they didn't seem to have firmed up. The breasts felt a bit wobbly to me (right, stop sniggering) so I popped them back in the salt for another 24 hours.

Once cured, I rinsed them off, dried them and dusted with ground white pepper. In truth, I find white pepper a bit too floral for my palate. Give me the rougher assault of black pepper any day. On the subject of black pepper, the king has to be Kampot Pepper. Whenever I'm in Cambodia I always pick some up; I've yet to find anyone in the UK that sells it. Some pretend to, but that first taste gives away their lies!

Anyway, once dusted, I wrapped the breasts in Muslin and set about finding somewhere to hang them. The recommended temperature is between 8 and 15 degrees C, with high humidity. There are a lot of theories about this; some threaten pestilence and poisoning if the temperatures are out by even a tiny amount, whilst others say it doesn't really matter so long as you don't hang the duck in the heart of the sun. I figured that old Italian peasants (other peasants are available) had neither regulated temperatures nor humidity, so I first hung them in the outhouse. This can be cool at times, but with the boiler running it reached around 25 degrees C, so I moved them to the shed. Overnight, the temperature fell to 1 degree C, so in the end I moved them under the stairs. I don't know what the temperature was, as I broke the thermometer (details in the next post), but I thought, 'what the hell' and left them there.

Seven days later came the unveiling. They looked okay, which was promising. However, there were a few issues. Firstly, the skin was very tough, a bit like perished rubber in places. Secondly, there was a slightly salty undertone; not pleasantly salty, but almost over-salted. This is probably due to the additional day. Finally, and most importantly, the white pepper totally overpowered them. Admittedly, the recipe did call for 1.5g of pepper, and I probably used 15g. You see the white pepper crust in the photograph!

Still, a lesson learned, as they say. The process worked well, but the end result could have (should have) been better. My next attempt will use five spice rather than pepper.

A simple start - Cured Salmon

If I was to be brutally honest, I'd have to say that salmon is one of the few fish that don't really get me excited. Don't get me wrong, I eat it, and on occasions I enjoy it, but all too often, it's just dull. I don't dislike salmon, but the tediousness which it delivers often leaves me searching elsewhere on a menu. There are exceptions; the Blue Elephant's Salmon Laab - a spicy fresh Thai salad - is highly recommended, as is a good salmon tartare with capers.

It therefore stands to reason that when I made my very first step into charcuterie, is was not with salmon. Well, actually it was! Here's why. Many of the other dishes (do you call charcuterie items dishes, or do they have some other designation?) took timescales of six or seven days minimum (or required equipment I didn't, at the time, have), but the salmon only took three days and needed a glass dish (well, two dishes). Also, Mrs IG - like most ladies - likes the salmon, and when Mrs IG is happy, my world is a quieter place with less resistance to my moments of insanity.

For anyone reading this who hasn't read my other tome of idiocy, the Idiot Gardener, the reason that my other half is referred to as Mrs IG (rather than Mrs IC) is because of frequent references to her in that blog. I don't want people thinking I've adopted polygamy!

So, back to the salmon. I went to see Jimmy the Fish, but all of his salmon fillets were scrappy small bits, and I wanted a large fillet. That's the problem with going to see a fishmonger late in the day! All he had in a decent size was a salmon loin. I figured that would do, so purchased a piece of around 1 kilo in weight. It was a bit thicker than I had expected, but I couldn't be bothered to fanny around and slice it in two so worked with it as it came!

I based my process on the fennel-cured salmon in 'Charcuterie' by Micheal Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. I say based, because I wasn't really prepared, and didn't have the right ingredients! With regard to the book, I'll write my thoughts on it once I've finished reading it and trying out some of the methods. I will say that whilst it has seemingly developed a bit of a fan base - a point I was unaware of when I originally bought it - I have found that it skimps on some vital information. Anyway, that's for another day.

I mixed up 135g of coarse sea salt, 200g of brown sugar, 10g of ground black pepper and 120ml of Pastis. It's a sure sign of getting old when you use Pastis for cooking. As a lad, we favoured Pastis for its ability to get you raging at night, then after a sleep you'd awake sober, until that first cup of coffee, when you'd be pissed out of your head again.

Anyhow, I spread half the mixture in a glass dish, laid on the salmon, and covered it with the remainder of the mixture. Then I put some clingfilm over the top, and added another dish of the same size to press down on the loin. I weighted this with a few 1 litre bottles of vodka, and left it for 24 hours. When I went to turn it over, there was a thick stodge in the bottom of the dish. I stirred this up into a semi-liquid form with my fingers (saves on the washing up), flipped the salmon, and redistributed the goo. Then it went back in for another 24 hours.

After 48 hours it was supposed to come out, but it still felt a bit soft, probably due to its thickness, so I restirred the stodge, turned the salmon once more, and back in it went for 24 hours. Once the time was up I rinsed it off, dried it, and it went on a rack in the fridge for another 24 hours to dry.

Then it was time. Thinly slice with some rocket and tomato, and a few beads of balsamic vinegar, it was - quite frankly - delicious. It had a full-on salmon taste, with a slight background of aniseed from the Pastis, and a little heat from the black pepper. The texture was firm, but not dry or hard, and it had no saltiness above and beyond what you'd expect.

With shop-bought smoked salmon being bloody expensive, bland and often greasy, I think the IG household will no longer be purchasing such products. The ability to add flavours (I'm going for juniper next) makes this simple cured salmon a breeze and more flexible than a Chinese contortionist. More importantly, Mrs IG loved it!

Also, I am now looking at the salmon through very different eyes!