Mamaliga

Home Cured Pancetta

Pancetta or pork belly (aka bacon for us in the West), is the easiest meat that can be cured at home even without the need of a curing chamber. Inspired by Jason Molinari’s Cured Meats blog, I mustered enough courage to get this project running along with the others ones that are still sitting in the curing chamber.

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The Fermentation & Curing Chamber

Ok, I have to tell you about my latest bug.  Growing up in Eastern Europe where EVERYTHING is cured, smoked, with prosciutto and sausages hanging in the pantry, I couldn’t help but try to reproduce the same delicacies here on US soil.

But I was faced with a couple obstacles like I had to keep my basement smell free, and keep my neighbors happy if I was to build a smoke house to cold smoke the meat outside for 10+ hours.

Here’s the first task for my charcuterie adventures in curing meat – the fermentation and curing chamber.

What is Meat Curing??

Without going into much detail and chemistry, (if you wish, you can read Wikipedia’s entry on curing meats) curing is the process of preserving and flavoring (sometimes cold smoking) using salts, sugars, nitrites, nitrates and/or a combination of these. It’s being done since time began and it became a craft in itself called gracefully by the French – charcuterie.

A Word Of Caution

Curing meat involves of course raw meat handling, which can become (if not careful) a source of all sorts of disease, not to speak about contaminated meat, etc. I cannot stress enough the need of proper sanitation, both, of your precious hands and the tools that get in touch with the raw meat. I will most likely write a whole post dedicated solely to safety on meat handling, since it is the most important ingredient of the charcuterie. You’ve been warned!

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