Anyone ever tried this? It looks interesting but I'd like to hear about results and your personal weather/curing conditions to know if it might work for me in my conditions.
I was naughty and peeked. They're shrinking and drying. I'm kind of wondering about the timing of 5-6 weeks where my local humidity is low so often. It's still a little tender, about like well done meat so it's not hard enough yet. And I used rosemary, thyme and sage as I just wasn't up for the lavender in the herbes de provence.
FWIW, in France, herbes de Provence don't contain lavender, they only add lavender to Herbes de Provence that are destined to the American market. Maybe you can find some of the real stuff imported?
It's pretty good. The salt level is quite high to my taste where I cook with a sodium restriction. I'm glad I rinsed them after the curing rather than just wiping them as Pepin recommended.
Things I'd do differently. I'd tie them so it stays rounder instead of collapsing into a rectangle. I'd try to increase the humidity in my refrigerator, so the flavor can develop over the 5-6 weeks instead of just 4. The average humidity for March in Salt Lake City was around 50% or a little less. And in my house with forced air heating, the humidity would be even lower; then refrigerate that air and the humidity is lower still in the refrigerator.
Hahaha when pork tenderloin is on sale at my local supermarket it's $6.99 (down from $9.99). Still a great deal IMO, I can feed my entirely family for $7!
I started one today - 1/4 cup alder smoked salt, a pinch of Prague powder, tablespoon of celery salt and enough Kosher salt to make a cup + 2 tablespoons of brown sugar.
Cool! Keep us posted. I'm still a bit leery of only 12 hours on the salt before drying as the original recipe says. Maybe I should try it myself and see.
I was reading a blog about drying by weight loss and this got me thinking. 5 weeks is a long time to dry cure a small piece of meat. Duck breast prosciutto only took two weeks - what does the think tank think about this?
It will vary by your local conditions I would suspect and what you're looking for in results. The first one I did was pretty solid at 4 weeks. Prosciutto is moister(?) than hard salamis and such, which is what I interpret this to be more like. One thing I'd read was about a 66% weight reduction being a target of such drying which is about what mine was a year ago. I couldn't quote that source again though. I think it was Teamfat's Lomo link up there, but that's a dead link now.
Shucks. It is a month later and we are looking at just over 50% weight loss. That's too much, very dry and hard. But those thin slivers are quite tasty. Will certainly try round 2 and check it at about 30 - 35% loss.
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