Why? Because you can! And pickle, and jam, or otherwise celebrate the resurgence of the domestic arts our forebears held so dear. Put on your best apron and step into our kitchen, won't you?
Prepping spices, packing in salt, rinsing, and tying in casings. Two lamb legs of local origin, salted, weighted, then rinsed and tied in laminated hog casings for drying.
This is the second part of the culatello process, as described in Salumi, where I took the salted meat and sewed it into the laminated casing, and created the "net" for hanging and curing in a wine fridge.
This describes my first steps in making culatello, using the recipe in Ruhlman & Polcyn's Salumi. This is my first attempt at curing hams this size, but I'm optimistic.
There are a few forms of salumi that require nothing more than meat, salt, spices and time. Case in point is one of the simplest, and yet most delicious, meats you can make: Pancetta. Basically, it’s Italian bacon.
