Experiments in Charcuterie - Part 3: Duck Tasting & Goat Prosciutto Day 1

The duck is ready! And goodness is it amazing!

Surprisingly delicious (okay, not a surprise)

I overdid it on the white pepper a bit, but overall it's excellent stuff. I particularly like it wrapped around melon, on cucumbers, and in the omelets I'm eating as I write this. All in all, VERY worth my time, I'll absolutely be doing it again.

Given my success with the duck prosciutto, I've decided to continue my experimentation but didn't really want to invest a lot into the various ingredients required for working with larger cuts of meat. Thankfully A neighbor was kind enough to gift me with a few 'extras' after seeing my earlier charcuterie posts. What did he gift me, you ask?


Instacure #2 (a mix of 90% sodium chloride [regular table salt] and 10% sodium nitrate/nitrite) and the starter cultures used to age and ferment salami, pepperoni and other aged sausages. Hooray!

It's pink!

A quick note about nitrates. Yes, there are a million studies about the evils of our consuming them. And I agree that in massive amounts (like some lower-end store bought cured meats) it's not the best idea. And sure, there are 'naturally cured' products out there. But the amount of nitrates in this recipe, as with most traditional meat-preservation techniques, is comparable to the nitrates you get eating a bowl of celery and an uncured steak. Turns out most of our foods - particularly the green ones - contain quite a bit of naturally-occurring nitrates. And these serve to kill nasty little buggers like botulism. So I'm going with it. I'm keeping the nitrates well within the ranges my ancestors used, well below what I'd consume if I used celery juice (still nitrates) to cure the meat, and yet high enough to keep botulism out of the picture.

Given our farm, I happen to have an abundance of goat meat and have long heard of the wonders of violino di capra (or goat prosciutto). It's a much longer, more involved process than the goat prociutto, but I think the final product will be more than worth it.

To start, I needed a goat leg. I've chosen a hind leg from a 1-year-old wether, just over 1 kg bone-in. Nothing too big, but large enough to make the 3-5 months. Before actually doing any curing or anything, I trimmed a bit of the silverskin, made sure the tendon is pulled, and made sure there were no errant hairs on the leg. It's from the very first goat I butchered, so there are a few nicks, but with the cure I should be fine.

A nice whole leg. From the

Once I've got the leg the way I want it, it's time to prep the curing mix. For my 1kg goat leg, I'm using:
Juniper - 1 g or 0.1% of the mass of the leg
Salt - 30 g or 3% of the mass of the leg
Black Pepper - 3.5 g or 0.35% of the mass of the leg
Garlic Powder - 1 g or 0.1% of the mass of the leg
Rosemary - 2.5 g or 0.25 % of the mass of the leg
Instacure #2 - 2.5 g or 0.25% of the mass of the leg (meaning I have .25g of nitrates in the entire leg)

Some folks have a lot more seasoning in their cured meats, but for my first go-round I want to keep the flavor of the goat as in tact as possible while still getting a good prosciutto flavor as well. Then I pop all my cure ingredients into an old coffee grinder and blitz 'em up!

The smell is alluring - YUM

Once I've got the cure mixed, it's time to rub it into the meat, making sure to get it into every nook and cranny and to work all of the cure into the muscle.

All dressed up and nowhere to go

Once I've got everything coated, it's time to allow the cure to set. I pop the leg, along with any straggling cure, into a vacuum-seal bag and seal it tight.

Here goes nothing.

This will ensure everything really sets into the meat before I move it to age & dry. So, step one complete, now it's off to the fridge for 20 day or so. Goodbye leg, I'll see you in August!