Desire to get into meat curing and sausage making

Can't help you with that exact recipe, but here are a couple of good books that will give you a start. Both books are more geared towards the home cook or restaurant chef that wants to dabble rather than someone who wants to really get into sausage making seriously, but they are a start.

"Home Sausage Making" by Susan Mahnke Peery & Charles Reavis
"Charcuterie" by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn

Another good book to check out would be "Mastering the Craft of Smoking Food" by Warren Anderson

This is a good book for a beginner #71200 Great Sausage<br>Recipes and Meat Curing<br>by Rytek Kutas - 71200 ther recipes are simple and many can use extra spices but it will give you baseline starting points. Their supplies are a bit on the expensive side though.

I've been wanting to get more into charcuterie myself, RealSoonNow. I do enjoy fresh sausage, grinding my own meat and making bratwurst, kielbasa, and such. One goal for the near future is making a killer batch of Texas hot links for the smoker.

On another thread someone was asking about smoking a raw pig leg, and I was thinking how nice it would be to have one and turn it into something like Jamon Iberica - but that ain't gonna happen in my lifetime! I would also like to turn a pork belly into pancetta someday, we shall see.

Welcome to the Chef Talk forums, good luck with your meat curing endeavors.

mjb.

I make homemade cottage bacon quite often. It is pork butt sliced into strips about 2 inches wide then cured in your favorite bacon brine recipe. Cold smoke, slice thin and fry for sandwiches. Much leaner than regular bacon and very tasty. :lips: I really should order a case of pork bellies and make some regular bacon too.

I hear that "Charcuterie" by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn is a good one.

I plan on making Duck prosciutto real soon, as soon as I head over the the farm and pick up a duck. I plan on making confit with the legs, seat a breast, cure another breast and stock from the rest.

Try these links (pardon the pun :look:)
www.sausagemaking.org :: View topic - new guy/intoduction

www.sausagemaking.org :: View topic - I have looked for the thread about Sopressata for 2 hrs

Aidells

Have done the buy-a-charcuterie-book-then-try-it-yourself-route. Suggest you skip this step. I live in the SF/Bay ARea. There are several places that successfully and to much media acclaim do their own charcuterie. Suggest you move here and apprentice yourself to one (note: apprentice = wages = $zero). The only way, AFAIF, to properly learn the craft. A book ain't gonna do 'it.

The only way to fly. You betcha! :crazy: :lol::rolleyes:

BDL

If I follow that logic then I can't make decent BBQ because I am from Minnesota and not the south :lol: I have friends from Texas that claim my brisket is better than anything they have bought back home :D