In the middle of a warm November weekend I and about 15 other people gathered at New Jersey's Møsefund Farm for a celebration (i.e. slaughter, butchery and culinary enjoyment) of the Mangalitsa (or -tza) Pig. This immersive course was being taught by Christoph and Isabel Wiesner, president of the Austrian Mangalitsa Breeders' Association, and would focus on the best practices of all aspects of butchery, fully respecting the pig and its glories. One of the attendees is in the process of writing a very informative multi-part posting on the weekend, and not to undercut her I may do the same in some time, but I will pass over most of the details here to just say that the pork from which I am making the bacon and guanciale are from one of the pigs that we slaughtered and butchered during this weekend.
One of the Mangalitsa pigs that we slaughtered.
Shown here it has already been trimmed of all of its fur. Do a Google search
for Mangalitsa pigs and you'll know that it's nickname of "Woolly Pig" is not a misnomer.
Just one more aside - the week after I finished the course I went over to a friends house for dinner. We brought a few chops from the Mangalitsa to be grilled and while they were getting a nice sear to them, our friend told us about the most recent episode of So You Want To Be The Next Food Network Top Iron Chef, America which featured Mangalitsa - "the Kobe beef of pork". Together we watched the show and it was pretty laughable, actually. No disrespect to the pigs (which are amazing, both live and dead), and certainly none to the farmers (certainly more exposure can only be a good thing - hopefully), but it put into stark relief the dis-congruity between the marketing of an "idea" to the public and the reality of it. Not days before I was standing ankle deep in mud slaughtering and cleaning a Mangalitsa pig (while there was plenty of things to be in awe of while doing it, not least of which being thankful to the pig himself), now I was watching a television show that was putting the pig on an unreachable pedestal for the general public. Knowing the fine farmers and raisers at Møsefund, and knowing that they make the trek to NYC to sell their meat at farmers' markets, this PR push was a bit insane. But I digress...
One last note about this craziness, however, to say that no matter the hype, the meat is superior in every way to almost any other pork breed that I have ever tried. I say "almost" only because I haven't actually tried the bacon yet and will withhold final judgment until that happens (though I'm sure I won't be disappointed).
Which is a perfect segueway to begin discussing my bacon. I have now made half-a-dozen different types of bacon over the past year or so, all to very good ends, though some better than others, none were terrible. It is, indeed, one of the easiest things to do in the home kitchen if you don't mind spending a little bit of time waiting for it. I hesitate to say this because I would very much like everyone to think that bacon is some mystifying thing that takes hours, days, weeks even (it does, but not constant work), and can only be done by trained professionals. I say this only because I aspire to be one in the not too distant future and would like your business. The honest truth of the matter, however, is that making bacon couldn't be simpler.
The best place to start is with Michael Ruhlman and Brian Plcyn's now canonical book Charcuterie. While there are some techniques in the book that I have come to question (specifically on sausage-making, but we'll save that for later), its basic dry cure and section on bacon is the perfect beginning.
If you desire to play it safe, there is one special ingredient that you need to purchase: Pink Salt (aka sodium nitrite). There is some hoopla surrounding nitrites and nitrates with foodies and the more left you go the more bile about these two ingredients arise. I won't get into a political debate at the moment save to say that for bacon you can really choose to use them or not as you see fit. If you use nitrites, you will be insuring that your meat will not attract any harmful bacteria as well as keeping the meat a nice red color. If you do not use the nitrites you are playing wild with life and probably enjoy your meat raw as well. I hold no grudges. I use them, though I will most likely begin playing with not using them as well at some point. [big asterisk here: I am not a scientist or otherwise do not claim to know anything beyond what has come to me by direct experience with food borne bacteria. You should not try this at home.]
The other thing about pink salt is that the amount that is used for any given slab of meat is minuscule, and one can probably create the same amount of nitrites (if not more) by using celery or other leafy greens that naturally contain these chemicals.
The first step is to create a large quantity of dry cure for future use. Take 1 lb (450g) kosher salt and mix it with 8oz (225g) sugar and 2oz (50g) pink salt. Put in an air tight container and shake to fully combine everything. Label it carefully so that no little people or unthinking adults grab it instead of the sugar or regular salt, and place in a location where it will not get mixed in with the other granular ingredients. I have mine in my sauce cupboard next to my oversize (and overstock) soy sauce on the top shelf labeled: DO NOT EAT - DRY CURE MIX.
You will generally be using about 50g of dry cure per 5 lbs (2.25kg) of meat (the size of a large pork belly), so a little will end up going a long way.
Trim off any overhang and weigh your meat (ideally the skin will still be on the belly, but I know when I was in LA it was near impossible to find good quality pork with the skin still on. No matter where I asked it was never an option), measure out the appropriate amount of dry cure and rub it all over the meat, reserving some for the skin side. Flip it over and cut some striations in the skin, just deep enough to expose the white fat, and rub the rest of the cure in the slits. It's best to do this rubbing in the container in which you will be keeping the meat (a larger plastic tupperware or pyrex container with a lid works perfectly, though you can also do it in a ziplock bag - if you use one, first put all of the ingredients into the bag then put in your meat and try to message the rub into the meat; it's a little on the trickier side). Now you can add pretty much anything that you would like to flavor the meat with. Rhulman & Polcyn give these as beginning suggestions: "For sweeter bacon, add 1/2 cup/125ml maple syrup or 1/2 cup/125g maple sugar or packed dark brown sugar; for more savory bacon, add 5 smashed cloves of garlic, 3 crushed bay leaves, and 1T/10g black peppercorns, partially cracked with the bottom of a heavy pan or side of a knife". Juniper berries are also an appropriate addition along with bay leaves, rosemary - basically any pungent herb or strong flavor is good. Have fun. I have done Indian-curried bacons, hot-Asian spices (hot chili oil and soy sauce), even a hot dog flavored one with pickles.
This time around, because I want to try to keep the Mangalitsa the central flavor I am going to make a large one with just peppercorns and the smaller trim will be the hot dog flavorings, which includes pickled garlic, pickled dill, pickled hot pepper.
This is the "straight" bacon - weighing in at 3lbs
(btw, one of the most amazing aspects of the Mangalitsa is the intense red coloration of the meat - much more akin to lamb than to what we know as pork. The color in this photo is accurate)
This is the "hot dog" bacon - weighing in at 1 1/2lbs
(the jar in the upper left of the picture is our wild yeast
starter - "Bram Stoker" - more about that in another post)
Once you have the rub and flavorings added, set meat-side-down (aka skin-side-up), cover and place in the fridge. Every other day overhaul the meat - which means to remove from the fridge and if it's in a container flip it and re-rub anything that has fallen off. There should be an amount of liquid in the bottom of the container, this is normal and is supposed to happen. The salt is drawing out the excess water from the meat and turning it into a natural brine. (If you are doing the ziplock method, shake everything around and place it back in the fridge upside-down of how it was initially.) Do this for 7-14 days depending on the thickness of the meat. The meat will shrink a little bit as it looses water and will get less supple. When it is fairly stiff (meaning that by holding on to one edge it will not droop under its own weight, or even that you have to coax it to bend) it should be ready for the next step: rinsing, drying and cooking.
Rinse the meat thoroughly to remove all salt and debris that remains attached to the meat and pat dry. You can now do one of two things with this cut: smoke it or oven cook it.
If you want to smoke the belly: after you have rinsed the meat, place it in a container or on a plate and leave UN-covered in the fridge for 12-24 hours to get a pellicle (basically the exterior of the meat will get a little tacky - you want it to so that the smoke has something to grab hold of). Set up your grill or smoker to hot smoke (180-200º) over whatever desired wood chips you want to use (think of how you flavored your meat - this should speak towards what type of wood you smoke with). You want the internal temperature of the meat to be at 150º. This will take about 3 hours or more.
If you don't have access to a smoker or want to leave the belly with a cleaner taste of just the meat: slow cook the belly in an oven at 200º for about 2 hours (or until the meat reaches the 150º internal temp). With this method you do not need to leave the meat uncovered to get the pellicle, you can just cook it straight after rinsing and drying.
In either case after it is cooked, you can decide to leave the skin on or take it off as you see fit. If you decide to take it off, it is easiest to do right off of the heat. Watch that you don't burn yourself too badly, but you want the fat to still be soft enough to be able to cut easily. A good boning knife works well here.
Now you can use your meat as you would any bacon, frying it up in a pan for a great breakfast, cubing for some nice beans or a stew, etc. You can even save the skin for flavoring (freeze it, but if it's smoked, remember that it will be bringing the smoke flavor with it to whatever you put it into, so black beans is a good option) or turning into cracklin.
Guanciale is a cured, air dried jowl (the fatty cheek of the pig). It is a similar set-up to bacon except instead of the dry cure you just use salt. For 1 lb of jowl, I used 1/4c (35g) kosher salt, the same amount of sugar, 2 cloves smashed garlic, 10 (or so) cracked peppercorns. You can add thyme to this as well if you have any on hand, but I didn't so it is left out. Because the jowl is usually much smaller than the belly it only needs about 4-6 days in the cure, but mine is almost as thick as the belly (which, too, is quite thicker than other pigs' bellies that I've used in the past because of all of the great Mangalitsa fat) so I am leaving it in the cure for longer.
Once you rinse the jowl and pat it dry, you hang it in a cool dry place for 1-3 weeks (you want to make sure that sunlight doesn't hit it as it will discolor the fat (and this cut is mostly fat!)). This is my first attempt at guanciale, so I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I'm definitely looking forward to it in a few weeks!
That's all for the moment. Again please comment if you have any suggestions, question, et cetera. Coming soon: some notes about cheese!
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