Getting Cheeky

Part 2

I am not really sure what I was expecting, but the jowls were much bigger than I had anticipated. They were superbly fresh (a benefit of buying from a local farm that raises it's own animals) and had almost no odor. The skin was still on - which besides raising the question of whether or not I should remove it, made it visually obvious what this piece of meat was. Now what's the big deal about eating pig cheeks? It's meat, isn't it? Not to gross out any of you who don't like to think of these things, but all meat comes from animals. So what difference does it make if it's the leg, the shoulder, or the cheeks?

No matter, I had all the supplies I needed to get started and I was more than ready to go. I had decided to follow the Mario Batali recipe referenced in Friedland's article - after all, he is an Iron Chef. Plus, he serves his homemade guanciale in his restaurant, so you know it's gotta be okay. What should I do about the skin? None of the articles I read seemed to offer any help. I also took a cursory look through some forums at egullet, but no luck there either. The skin is very thick, so it would make it a little harder for the salt to penetrate through to the center of the meat. But Prosciutto di Parma is made with the skin on... Screw it - I'll just leave it on.

The cure is simple - equal parts salt and sugar, with a few peppercorns and some fresh thyme. Just cover the meat, making sure to rub the cure on every exposed surface. There should be plenty of cure, and the meat should be almost completely covered. A week in the fridge and it would be time to hang.

Yup, it's pig face. Get over it.

That's gonna make a lot of bacon!

Applying the cure

At this point, I checked on the progress every day. After a couple of days, it seemed like a lot of liquid had been released and there were some exposed sections of meat. I thought that it was probably okay, but just to be sure, I whipped up some more cure and reapplied.

Halfway through the in-fridge curing time

After a weeks' time, it was ready to hang the meat to dry for about 5 weeks. Then, it would be ready to taste the fruits of my labor.

Now fully cured, time to start the drying

Once again, the waiting began...

Part 1 - In Pursuit of Guanciale
Part 3 - The Tasting