So I went in to
Bud's Meat's and ordered up 10lbs of pork belly. I have been wanting to try curing meat and the blog I read said pancetta is the easiest place to start. I brought the yummy pork tummy home and got to work.
I decided to go three ways with it. I will do a post on each.
First off was the pancetta. I took the recipe from
The Cured Meat Blog (thanks Jason, your an inspiration), and got started. I cut the belly in to 3 about equal pieces of about 3 pounds each. I ground all the spices and rubbed them into the belly (the pig, not mine).
Once the spices were rubbed in the belly and all the remaining spices were placed in a ziplock and put in the fridge for 2 weeks.
I will be pulling in from it's resting spot in the ziplock in a day or two and starting the air drying process. I am working on building a curing fridge, but don't think I will be done in time for this panchetta, so it will be placed on a cake rack in the regular fridge to finish drying. I will post more pictures as this progresses.
Stay tuned for the next two blogs in the Pork Belly saga, Bacon!!!, and Momofuku Roasted Pork Belly
. This is the bible of curing meat. I took the recipe for bacon and got started. This one is very simple. Put a salt/sugar rub on the pork belly. Place it in a ziplock for a week, wash it off, and put it in the smoker at 200 deg for about 2 hrs, to an internal temp of 150. I forgot to take a picture of it in the smoker, but here is it sliced and ready to eat.
