It took me quite awhile to get into the swing for Charcutepalooza mostly because I had to obtain the raw materials — and for February, that meant “pork belly”, which is actually the sides of a hog. While many of the participants seem to have several hogs each in their backyards just roaming around, locating truffles, and ripe for the picking for a project like this, I had to actually FIND some pork belly. Although this is Iowa, it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Finally, I posted an ad on Craigslist and a local farmer responded, saying he was taking a hog to the locker at the end of the week. Long story short, what went from asking to purchase a part of said hog resulted in me obtaining the ENTIRE pig, in large pieces, a week and a half later. I finally had my belly to work with.
Below is the picture gallery of the experience. Although I whizzed RIGHT by the Feb 15th deadline to be considered for participation in the contest, I nonetheless am having a great time with it and will keep it up, and am starting to reap the benefits of my efforts.
-
- One of two pork bellies, frozen in a light plastic wrapper.
-
- I carried the huge chunks of hog home in a few plastic tubs. Here is one of them full of pork.
-
- I’m out of freezer space so, for a bit, there is one tub buried in a snowbank.
-
- I needed at least one artsy-fartsy photo.
-
- Weighing out Salt – Kosher only, please.
-
- Nestled within the hills of sodium chloride, sodium nitrate makes his home.
-
- Belly Edge – The edge of half a belly; look at those lines!
-
- Belly Surface – The lines of meat and fat are just wonderful.
-
- Whole Thawed Belly – One whole, thawed belly, ready to start. One half will become bacon, the other, pancetta.
-
- The dry cure plus some spices I chose for this project; bay leaves, pepper, brown sugar, thyme, coriander.
-
- Rubbing this belly was pretty fun, getting the spices worked in.
-
- All rubbed in, the cure is ready to do its magic.
-
- The bellies were bagged and tossed into the fridge, flipped every couple of days, for about 8 days or so.
-
- One half is being roasted here to make fresh bacon; I do not have a smoker, so I’ve resorted to the other method of preparation, which was simply to roast slowly to 150F and then cool.
-
- Here I am, slicing the fresh bacon. Shortly after this, I fried it up and tried it. It was warm and lovely, melted in the mouth, had a great balance of meat vs. fat. It was awesome.
-
- The other half I tied up into a very tight roll with butcher’s string to make pancetta.
-
- It was really tough to roll it tightly and evenly; I got my father (hi Dad!) to help tie it while I held so it would stay tight.
-
- The pancetta is now hanging from the floor joists in an unheated basement room, around 52F or so, over a pan of water to help with the humidity. It will hang for about 2 weeks until it dries a bit and gains flavor.
