[Sca-cooks] Brains [I hope] over brawn...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Hullo, the list!

And given what's going on in some of the other threads I started or  
helped start recently, I wouldn't blame anyone for misinterpeting  
this post as anything _but_ a set of preliminary notes on the making  
of salted pork for brawn. However, that's what this is.

I find myself cooking for an event in mid-May, in a kitchen whose  
facilities and equipment I am still not completely sure (but expect  
to find out more about soon), and I wanted to serve some hot and some  
cold foods, in an attempt to make life easier on myself and the other  
cooks, while still having some hot foods in the event that it's cold  
and wet on the day in question. We're also trying to pay pretty close  
attention to seasonal foods, and where meats are concerned, a meat  
preserved from the previous slaughtering season, supplemented by  
small game (a.k.a. rabbit and duck) and possibly some lamb, seems  
like the way we're going.

To that end, I'm producing some petit sale, which is a French salt- 
pork variant, dry-rubbed with curing stuff and allowed to form a  
brine, generally in a crock or barrel, in which the meat pickles. I  
had a couple of what I thought were pretty neat ideas, and over the  
next few weeks I'll be revisiting this topic to discuss which ideas  
were in fact good, and which crummy.

Looking at a chunk or two of corned beef in the freezer, it occurred  
to me that I might save some room and generally make things a little  
more flexible if I vacuum-sealed plastic packets of the pork and the  
pickling salt, sugar, and spices, to get individually-wrapped, brine- 
packed pork roasts, which I can boil/simmer a day or two in advance  
of the event, chill, and serve sliced with compost and Lombard mustard.

One of the local markets had whole, boneless pork loins for sale this  
week for $2.49/lb, which is not as good a price as I can sometimes  
get, but for the boneless ones, not bad at all, given that my budget  
is fairly high. Since they're boneless and will be salt-cured, I'm  
figuring two or three little slices per person should be more than  
enough, especially with another meat in the same course, and I  
believe I can feed up to ~100 or more people with three whole loins,  
which is about 27 pounds.

My cure mixture for that amount of meat is about 4 pounds of salt, 4  
Tbs sugar, 4 tsp black peppercorns, 4 tsp coriander seed, 2 Tbs of  
crushed, dried bay leaf, 2 Tbs white mustard seed, and about a tsp of  
whole cloves. I thought about adding some saltpeter to keep the meat  
pink, but decided in the end not to bother with it this time.

I cut each piece of meat in half to get a total of six large pork  
loin "roasts", each over four pounds. I divided the salt mixture into  
six, and rubbed a little of the salt mixture into each chunk of meat,  
then packed it into each of six prepared, large (about 16" x 11")  
plastic bags off a roll that came with one of those Foodsaver vacuum  
sealer gizmos. Each bag got a chunk of meat, a heaping cup of  
additional salt mixture thrown over it, and each was carefully vacuum- 
sealed to remove air and give any liquid no place to go but someplace  
where there was salt to mix with.

My plan is that by morning, the basis for a nice brine will have  
formed in each pouch, and with a little effort at redistributing salt  
and brine in each, by the time I'm done I'll have meat as evenly and  
fully pickled as I would if I used a crock, a lid and a weight to  
hold the meat down.

Currently, the roasts are in the fridge, but if we get some weather  
warmer than a fridge but not over 60 degrees F., I may park the meat  
outside on the balcony for a few hours at a time, on the theory that  
warmer temperatures (within reason; I will be taking temperatures)  
will allow the brine to penetrate the meat faster and more completely  
than it would in the fridge.

I'll let the list know how things progress, and will gladly answer  
any questions as best I can; I just figured that if this method  
works, it might prove useful somewhere along the line.

Adamantius








"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04