I seem to have gone a little crazy on the Charcuterie front of late.
I have wanted to try my hand at smoking sausages, bacon and all manner of meats for sometime; but have refrained from lack of knowledge, equipment and any number of other reasons including fear of failure and botulism.
I had a fab conversation with a young chef from what is to be a new restaurant BUCA, back in June, (the new restaurant associated with Jakobs Steak House and Brassai) as they fed us at the annual Set Sail for Hope Charity event on Toronto Island, one of my top if not my foremost event of the year. I asked the young chef if it would be possible for me to possibly use a wine fridge for curing as a more sanitary condition rather than the open area in one of the spare rooms in my basement, which while keeping a fairly consistent temperature, still had me concerned and worried about the sanitary nature of the environment. (The room is is primarily used to store dry and tin goods, extra clothes thats been packaged away, wine beer, a dusty rowing machine and any other types of stuff not in use that needs to be stored)
After quite a bit of dialogue and in particular probing on my part, I was 90% convinced that it could be done; the question was then some more research to get comfortable on exactly how I would go about this.
Luck and circumstance would seem to have delivered a path to me filled with knowledge, trials, experience success and failure and lots of pikkies through an exceptional blog if you are a "foodie" (general term) called Menu in Progress.
I say exceptional only because the writing is great, the pikkies excellent, the food very scrummy and not only are recipes provided; but there is wonderful detailing of the experiences.
So over the Simcoe Day holiday weekend I had the opportunity to visit the site a number of times and leave some comments, which were responded to by Mike who writes the blog.
This has led me to do a ton of research on what one might require to get going, for my initial attempts, which I suspect will be pancetta and bacon (start slowly).
This will provide me with the requisite time to get hold of the various equipment that I require from myriad sources. As I mentioned I may start off with bacon and pancetta; but i see a variety of sausages smoked, dried and fresh in my future as I try and advance my knowledge in this area.
