Where has the Time Gone?

It has been a while since our last update. We apologize for that, but it has been pretty busy around here. This is the holiday season, and down in the Red Centre, that means it is also barbecue season. In the last few weeks, Steff has been hired to do about 3 whole pigs and a lamb. She recently broke her personal record carving a pig in under 12 minutes! This is in addition to her hours at the butcher shop, which has also seen an increase coinciding with the holiday season.

Not to worry we are still finding time to get some meat hanging, and I have used my idle time trying to work my way into the pickle business! American Steve’s Magic Pickles (this name is under debate) have found their way to the stomachs of friends and coworkers all over Alice Springs, and are being received well. I am doing mostly spicy dill at the moment, but I am working on a good bread and butter recipe.

Pickles

There will be plenty more to come. The goat leg is finished curing, and we recently used our first natural beef casing to make another, large finocchiona. That product from Florence is still fresh on our minds; our white whale, so be sure to stick around and see how we go!

Wishing you all the best these holidays and good fortunes next year!

-Steve and Steff

Bxmas

Chorizo

After about six weeks the Chorizo is ready to take out of the box. It will be interesting to see what our Australian friends think of it because it is a bit spicy. The recipe we used came from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn. If you are interested in anything that has to do with making sausage, or curing meats, this book is a must have.

Steff brought home the pork butt from Milner Meat. We mixed it with the salt and the Insta Cure2 before grinding it into a mixing bowl. We dissolved our bactoferm in water and mixed it with the spices and the rest of the ingredients. Then it was time to stuff them into the casings. We used Fibrous sausage casings. After tying them off and making sure there were no air pockets we hung them in the curing chamber. After a while we started to get a nice, white mold. We actually pulled it out and tasted it about two weeks ago and decided that it needed some more time.

The coolest thing about this batch of chorizo was that it was our first time using the Hakka; our new stuffer.

Chorizo can be used in many dishes. It can spice up a pasta dish, a pizza, or even in eggs (huevos ranchero), but it is also great tapas style with a sharp cheese and a bold glass (or bottle) of red.

It is summer down here in Australia, so only fitting that we enjoy a nice light tapas featuring our chorizo, with some old school surf rock. “The Ventures Play Telstar” was released in 1963 and features all covers of famous instrumentals from the late ‘50s.

Steff Misquoted by the Paper…..Again

By now, everyone has heard something about the World Health Organization, funded report that classes processed meats a carcinogenic. Depending on where you get your news, you were probably left with the idea that eating sausage and bacon will either kill you eventually, kill you tomorrow, or somewhere in between.

I started writing something about how the media takes studies they don’t understand, and writes stories with words they can’t define and shares them with a population that trusts them too much. I compared it to the five minutes everybody cared about the Higgs Boson, when it was referred to as the “God Particle.” For at least two days “God Particle” was all over every headline, and on every Facebook feed. Here are a few I found for the WHO report:

This next one is my favorite because they accuse the WHO report of making the false claim and then come out against it, and it’s from the ACHS, “Science. Not Hype.”

I dropped the idea because I ended up sounding like a rambling asshole over something that was going to die off, and sure enough, a few days later, nobody really cares about the WHO report anymore; it was just filler before the next Republican debate.

It is only coming up now because today our local newspaper, the Advocate, came out with a story where Steff was interviewed and asked to give her thoughts on the report. For those who don’t know Steff is a butcher in town and it was in that capacity that she was asked her opinion.

Steff gave out all the polite responses to indicate that she did not think the report was a big deal, things like, “moderation is important no matter what you’re talking about,” and she even mentioned that most dietary nitrite comes from converted nitrates in plant based food, not from cured meat consumption.

Pretty straightforward right? You can imagine her surprise when she saw in the paper that she was quoted as saying, “Eating bacon won’t give you cancer.” Yeah, Steff is now on record telling everyone in town, from the soapbox of the local butcher, that cured meats do not cause cancer.

I think this is hilarious, but this could really upset some people. If my house gets egged by a bunch of upset citizens, that newspaper is going to get a sternly written email!

-Steve

(Steff read this and wants to point out that she did not say anything they claimed she did.)

Finocchiona

(Not ours. This finocchiona was made by a beautiful, salumi making wizard in Florence; seriously this is one of the best things I have ever eaten. -Steve)

(This one is ours. It was pretty amazing too…)

We realize that those who were nearby are thinking, “We totally ate this finocchiona a month ago, why are they writing about it like it just came out yesterday?” but we are better at cooking and eating than we are blogging.

Essentially, finocchiona is a fennel infused salami, popular in the Tuscan countryside. We chose this to be our first batch for a few reasons: it seemed least likely to kill us and our friends, it wasn’t going to take long to make, and it wasn’t too much of a stretch to those who are used to the taste of salami; the people we wanted to introduce Salumi too.

It turns out, that not too many people are familiar with Salumi. In fact nearly everyone that we mentioned making Salumi to, tried to corrected us and say, “Why are you guys making Salami?” Then we get into the discussion about how salt curing and air drying meat was one of the earliest and most effective ways people had to preserve it, making salumi, in addition to being delicious, is a time honored craft and a worthy pursuit. Then we explain, “Salami is only one type of Salumi in fact there are other types of SALAMIS; try this Finocchiona…”

So the major difference between ordinary salami and finocchiona is the fennel, which as you could imagine, gives finocchiona its name. Some stories suggest that during the renaissance, fennel was a substitute for its more expensive cousin…black pepper. Fennel has always been abundant in the Tuscan countryside while black pepper is native to India. (Steff just yelled “nerd alert” and told me to get on with it.)

So we found the batch of finocchiona that we made to be very nice! We put it all together and it was in the Box by late August.

We’ll talk more later about our Europe trip, but that finocchiona pictured above was seriously a little slice of heaven. It is the reason why we will continue to make finocchiona, in hopes that someday we can share that flavor and texture with everyone.

Seriously though, ours was really quite good. Steff thought there was maybe too much air inside causing the texture to be too firm, it sort of compressed a bit, but the flavor was amazing. We had it with a South Australian Cab Sav and a really nice Brie she picked up from the butcher shop where she works. As always we enjoyed it with a pretty cool record. Steff really digs Chicago Blues so among others throughout the night, the choice for the tasting was B.B. King “In London.”

A few days after the initial taste I surprised Steff with some homemade pizzas, using the Salumi.

I don’t really have a recipe. It has been so long since I have cooked professionally so now when Steff isn’t around I just throw stuff together. I got the recipe for the dough from one of my favorite websites Epicurious.com (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/homemade-pizza-dough-108197). To make pizza sauce get a can or two of diced tomatoes, some tomato paste, onions, garlic, basil, thyme, oregano and mix them up a bit until it all looks and tastes like pizza sauce! I used spinach, cheese, tomatoes, and finocchiona on mine. I think the take away here is that if you want to make an awesome pizza, and you want to surprise someone with something different, go to your local butcher and ask for some finocchiona or something to feature on your pie. Free yourself from the typical, boring pepperoni pizza!

*I realize this wasn’t an actual recipe, and if you want some tips feel free to comment below. If it turns out, you guys reading want more specifics we will oblige, in the meantime go forth and experiment, and let us know what you come up with.

The Fridge

Steff has a few years of sausage making experience and we’ve done plenty at home. The butcher shop she works at also has a hanging room, but if we are going to do this we intend to do it ourselves.

Three basic variables we considering while making Salumi, so we don’t kill ourselves or our loved ones are temperature, air flow, and humidity. We found everything we needed to control those factors on the internet for a relatively cheap price. While we waited, we bought a beer fridge off of a girl who, ironically, is a vegetarian (She is also a serious distance runner who has represented Australia in International competition…but that is unrelated). She was not excited to hear about what we were doing with the fridge but I told her all about it none the less.

We spent the entire day and night priming the fridge and painting it so that that we could begin our Salumi making adventure. It took a couple of weeks for the rest of our stuff to arrive, but when it did we were ready.

Steff will probably want to take credit for this (mainly because she was completely responsible for it),

But the same night we got the fridge, we had an excellent Goat osso bucco for dinner.

We took:

4 hind quarter goat shanks

*Ask your butcher to cut them 2” thick

1 large brown onion small dice

2 medium carrots small dice

2 celery stalks small dice

4 cloves garlic rough chop

2T tomato paste

1C red wine (we always cook with wine we’d drink)

1.5C of goat stock (Let’s be honest, who has goat stock…use beef stock)

2 sprigs of Rosemary (stemmed)

1tsp oregano

S+P

olive oil

flour

Season the goat with salt and pepper pretty liberally, and then dust it with flour. Heat a heavy bottom Dutch oven to med-high heat with 1/4C of oil (we’ll add more as we go.) Place the goat into the pan 3-4 pieces at a time. Leave plenty of space between pieces to avoid steaming; we are just trying to sear the goat. Sear all of the goat until it has a nice dark, brown crust and place it in a tray or dish. Replace the used oil with 1/4C of fresh oil. Add the veggies to the pan and cook at a medium heat stirring occasionally and season lightly with s+p as the veggies begin to sweat down, add the garlic and cook for another 3 or so minutes. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for another 5 minutes. Add the herbs, and pour in the wine letting it reduce by 3/4. Next add the meat and the stock. Bring this to a simmer, and then cover it and place in an oven pre-heated to 300F for 1.5 hours. After the meat is fork tender move it to a platter and cover it. Bring the sauce to a simmer on the stove and skim some of the fat off the top. Check for seasoning adding s+p to taste, while reducing the sauce by 1/3.

When this is almost done get your polenta going. You’ll need to heat up equal parts milk and water, stir in the polenta seasoning with s+p, finish with parmesan cheese and some butter. The quantities will depend on how many people you are feeding. Polenta is great with many dishes, so grab a bag and experiment!

We enjoyed this meal with a Shiraz from Adelaide called Starve Dog, and the entertainment for the evening as always was provided by our vinyl collection; this was a delta blues night which included the late Bill Williams, “Blues, Rags, and Ballads.”

As always, comment below with any questions you have about the projects, the recipes, the wine, music, anything.

The Beginning

We, Steff and Steve, have always been passionate about food, wine and fun. We met in the kitchen at

Pineda Crossing in 2005; Steve the sous chef and Steff, the sauté chef. After falling in love and getting married Steve joined the Army. Since then we have traveled the World cooking, eating and partying in places like Australia, Thailand, Dubai, Italy and France.

In addition to her culinary degree Steff earned a certification in whole beast butchery from Charles Darwin University. She has designed menus, catered dozens of functions and won many awards along the way.

It is with this experience that we’ve decided to set off into the world of meat smoking and curing.

We love nothing more than hanging out with good mates, enjoying good food, good drinks, and good music. The ultimate goal of the gastro lab is to maximize the pleasure of everyone involved; so get involved and let’s party!

	blackdogsalumi on The Beginning
	Steve Bussey, Sr. on The Beginning
	blackdogsalumi on The Fridge
	blackdogsalumi on The Fridge
	Cathy on The Fridge

Black Dog Gastro Lab

All things cured.