Tonight I made seven pounds of saucisson sec using the recipe in Charcuterie (Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn, WW Norton & Company, 2005, p. 193).
This is a delightfully simple dried sausage that could easily have been made in medieval France, with the exception of Instacure #2, because I prefer to use a modern preservative for health and safety. It is made with pork, kosher salt, black pepper, sugar and garlic. The sausage needs to be hung, ideally in temperatures slightly cooler than my basement store-room, so I am leaving it in my refrigerator for tonight. I’ll move it to my hanging rack tomorrow, as the weather is expected to cool dramatically. It will hang for about 18-20 days, until the sausages are completely stiff and have lost about 30 percent of their weight.
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