Max, Ernie and I have been busy today, re-loading the deli case, as well as adding some new stuff. So, without any further ado…
Cotechino – This one was really popular, probably given its relative rarity in SD. It’s a partially cured sausage of Northern Italian origin, consisting of Berkshire pork and pork fat, pancetta, and pork skin. The skin lends a certain amount of gelatin to the link that makes it really pop when eaten, and the fat and pancetta make it especially rich. Makes a great garnish on soups and such.
Goat Prosciutto – The lamb prosciutto was very popular, so we decided to make some with the goat legs we got from BN Ranch, the sustainable farm owned by Bill and Nicolette Niman, up in Bolinas.
Beef Bacon – For those folks that don’t dig on swine, but still like to fill their homes with the delicious smell of smoked meats in the morning, we’ve got house cured beef bacon, made with beef from Tallgrass Beef and Open Space Meats.
City Ham – I get this question all the time, “What the heck is City ham?” Well, it’s basically the opposite of Country Ham, a term which most folk recognize. Unlike country ham, the citified version is wet-cured, or cured in brine. After the curing period, it’s hot smoked (cooked) to the specified internal temperature of “done”, or about 145 degrees. As a result, it doesn’t require the months of waiting that country ham does to be ready to eat. Ours is made with Kelly Biensen’s Berkshire hams, and heavily smoked, then glazed with a honey-mustard-brown sugar glaze. We’ve got sliced packs of the ham, which makes a great lunch meat, or you can order a larger portion, unsliced. Just email me off the Meat Co. website.
Hot Capicola – We’ve been waiting for this to be finished for a long time. Capicola, or coppa, or “cabba-gall” as we used to call it in my Jewish-Italian neighborhood of Cleveland (yes, I was the token Irishman in my circle of friends), is basically a cured whole muscle of pork, usually the shoulder, neck, or loin. So we took two whole loins of one of the Hampshire pigs that Jim Neville raised for us and put it into cure. After a few weeks, we took one loin and put it into a spicy rub, and the other into a sweet rub. In Italian sausage terms, “sweet” really just means “not spicy”. Both loins were then dry-cured for two months, and in that time they developed those intricate flavors that only time can bring about. In any event, Max and I tasted them today and declared the spicy coppa “RTG”. The sweet one is lagging behind, but only by a little bit. We put some slices of the spicy in the meat case today. Enjoy.
Alton Brown has an episode where he goes over the fine points of city vs. country ham.
Comment: On Martha Stewart this morning they showed sandwiches being made with Capicola from Iowa. Where in Iowa can I get some?
Just south of Des Moines is La Quercia. See http://www.laquercia.us ! Tell Herb we said hi.