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I’ve spent the past few weeks working my way through the recipes in Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie. To date, I’ve made the following items:

• Fresh Bacon (sweet, smoked over maple)
• Fresh Bacon (savory, smoked over pecan)
• Beef Jerky
• Breakfast Sausage with Garlic
• Breakfast Sausage with Ginger and Sage
• Mexican Chorizo
• Smoked Andouille
• Smoked Chicken and Roasted Garlic Sausage

When picking which recipe to try next I’m always trying to improve not just my skills, but also the flavor and texture of the final product. I’ve moved up from basic fresh ground things, to fully stuffed smoked sausages. I’m in love with the last thing I made, the Smoken Chicken sausage, not just because it tastes soooo good, but it’s a sign that I’m getting better at this and the whole learning process hasn’t been one giant waste of time.

The current recipe I’m making is bresaola, or air-dried beef. You cure a 3 pound eye of round roast in a salt/spice mixture for a week. Repeat for another week. Then hang it up to dry for three weeks. That’s it. I’m scared by the idea of hanging up a piece of raw meat in my basement for three weeks, but I figure people have done this for a few hundred years, and they probably know better than me. Here’s a picture of the bresaola now, after it has been curing for 12 days.

This weekend, I’ll take it out, rinse it off, wrap it in twine, and then hang it up to dry. Wish me luck. If all goes well, maybe I’ll try sopressata next (though I can’t do that until I get a new sausage stuffer. The one with the KitchenAid mixer completely sucks and is useless, so I’m currently looking at the 3lb. cast iron or stainless steel ones at Cabela’s).

Once it’s ready, we’ll have a tasting, so sign up now if you want to come. Hopefully, we’ll have our first garden tomatoes by then too.