So here are the pictures that I promised in the last entry. This is a exciting moment for me to have all eight of these meat works on the plate at once and get a snap shot of them. Its been a lot fun studying and learning about these various types of curing, smoking taking rough cuts and turning them into something really cool. To describe them let me start from the topand go clockwise. The first two are the Coppas; Spicy and Sweet versions. The Coppa is made using large chunks of pork shoulder that are put into a nonreactive metal hotel pan and cured for eighteen days adding another round of salt after nine days. After the full eighteen days I rinse and dry them and rub the different types of spice on each of them. The spicy is pronounced by pimenton (smoked paprika) and cayenne. The sweet has sugar, coriander, black pepper and allspice which were ingredients that I was unsure of how they were going to come out. I broke into that one two days ago and was excited to find it really delicious. I would like to try these two again in bigger casings to slice them bigger. Next is the cured duck breast which has been the specialty of one of the cooks in the Bar. It has juniper and nutmeg along with some brown sugar. The fat cap on that melts together with the lean to be tasty. The next one is Black-strap Molasses (Sorghum) "Lamb Ham". This one was out of the gates early and was the first of the curing experiments. It is made with local Petit Jean Farm Lamb Hams and is cured with Dark Rum, Brown Sugar and Sorghum Molasses. It is then cold smoked for ten hours and hung to cure for eight weeks depending on how full the cure box is at the moment. Its slices up like a Prosciutto or Serrano and goes great with some Extra Virgin Olive Oil and some fresh cracked Black Pepper. The Saucisson Sec was next in the cure box, and has steadily evolved into a great salami. It is a basic cured meat, with ground pork shoulder, fat, black pepper and garlic. Next is another recent adventure; Head Cheese. This one I had made before at Culinary School watching over the chefs shoulder. So I really hadn't made it on my own, but its really very simple just time consuming. I boil (simmer really) the head, tongues and trotters for an hour then pull the tongues and continue the head and trotters for another two hours give or take a few minutes. I pull the head when its falling apart, I go through and clean it all up and pick the meat from the trotters. The tongues get diced up to add a different level of visual and texturalness to the terrine. I then test the liquid for whether or not to add more gelatin. I did add more gelatin and herbs and spices, then folded all together and into a terrine mold. Chilled overnight and sliced it up. The flavors are unlike any of the others, having a deeper richer flavor. The Country Pate has been on the menu since the beginning, but has also taken on an evolution of its own. It started simply with the pork shoulder and duck liver, but since has had pistachios and an exterior bacon garnish added. Last is the Mortadella style fresh sausage. Its an emulsified sausage that also has pistachios, fat garnish and sweet spices mixed in and is poached. I have put an entire entry showing the procedure on this one earlier down the page. I was very happy with the way this came out. So all in all I'm excited and privileged to be able to play and experiment with these meats. So EVERYBODY should come and enjoy them and make sure you ask for me and I"ll come out and talk your ear off about them. Oh also these are served with whole grain mustard, our house made pickles and baquette bread. 
