Bacon diary- plus plus

[montjoye]

here is my first pancettaesque object. This is the smaller piece. It has been in the previously described dry curing mixtures for 12days. Possibly too long? It is quite hard. The larger piece was still pretty squashy at the thick end- I've put that back in the cure with a weight on for a few more days. Anyway, this smaller bit- I scraped most of the cure off, wiped it down with white wine vinegar, dried on a cloth, sprinkled a spice mix* over and wrapped in clean cotton cloth, hurrah the scrap box. There were a few salt crystals still left on the meat.  I gather this now can hang to mature for some random number of months. Direct sun is not good for it and this window faces west so a better hanging spot would be a good idea. This was set up rapidly with a left over bit of curtain rod supported on the window frame and the kitchen cubboard, handily at similar heights, and some blue tack to assist in it not rolling off :-)



also today in the preserving department I've:
-finished off and bottled the raspberry vinegar
-made two tiny bottles of a sweet raspberry sauce
-been to the brew shop, bought gear for two beers. A black munich lager (more complex method than the last one) and a wheat beer (well it looked interesting and doushkasmum has got me thinking about wheat beers). I also scored 500 cute bottle tops with crowned heads on, not their normal stock, and even better, cheaper than the standard gold ones.
-washed the crown bottles that doushkasmum kindly returned to me

that hasn't left me much day. now I need to make dinner decisions. I'm a bit over the kitchen just now. A little book first I think.


* approx 2t fresh ground black pepper, 1/4t cinnamon, 1/8t cloves. A traditional mix from the italian book of sjkasbi- I didn't make that part up. Chilli could have been part of this but I didn't feel like it.