Charcuterie Party

Duck prosciutto

Our last two pekin duck breasts, ready to be sliced. These are dusted with white pepper and have been drying for 7 days at this point.

Shredded Chicken Necks

8 chicken necks were simmered in soy sauce, worchestershire sauce and water for 5 hours and then shredded. These were dressed with a home made teriyaki sauce and put into bite-sized pie crust cups.

Teriyaki sauce

Soy sauce, sugar, lemon, ginger, garlic, onion... simmered down to a thick syrup. Kind of a lot of effort just to drizzle two tablespoons on a pot of chicken neck meat, but it's easy and delicious, so whatever.

Rabbit legs marinating

The rabbit legs for the cacciatore marinated in garlic, thyme, and savory for 24 hours prior to being seared and slow cooked. I believe 6 of our california rabbits bit the dust for this dish.

Black Truffles

We got a jar of black truffles in brine and drained/dried them out so we could grate them into a couple of spreads.

Truffle butter

Home made butter with grated black truffle and a sprinkle of sea salt. It's in our butter bell (great for keeping room temperature butter fresh).

Truffled Crema di Lardo

Fresh ground pork fat whipped with honey chestnut vinegar, black truffle, salt and pepper. Pig butter.

Duck fat pesto

It's a little firmer in this pic

Rabbit sausages

I forgot to get a pic of this after it was cooked. This is super simple sausage, though. Rabbit meat, a bit of pork fat, salt, white pepper, and caraway seed (ground). This puts the "cute" in charcuterie.

Appetizer Close

Duck slider with caramelized onion and brie cheese on sweet Hawaiian bread in the foreground. Teriyaki chicken neck pie cup in the back. Baguette with home made ricotta and roasted grape tomatoes. The duck burger is Rouen duck leg quarters ground with orange juice and cinnamon. I also cured two duck breasts as if they were going to be prosciutto, but then soaked them in water to reduce the salinity and ground them into the fresh duck.

Appetizer plates

My wife and I put together 12 of these in less than 5 minutes. Efficient!

Cheese board

From top left, clockwise: 60% cream brie, 5 counties cheddar, mimolette, Shropshire blue, garrotxa. Plus, a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds and grapes. Nothing on this board was home made. Such posers.

Cold board

Man, this turned out great. Starting at the pig's ass on the left and going clockwise: Lardo, duck breast prosciutto, coppa secca, cacciatorini down by the front trotter, and tuscan salami in the middle. Garnished with a sprig of fennel. The lardo is back fat just at the point where the back fat merges into the top of the belly, hence the thin ribbon of red belly meat that made a pretty striking contrast. The salami is a bit young and as such, it's a little crumbly, but it has a great flavor. The coppa was the star of the show, but the duck breast came in a close second.

Lardo Close up

Beautiful cured pork fat with just a sliver of ruby red belly meat. If I recall correctly, this fat is from Sticks, one of our Hampshire cross pigs.

Coppa and salami

Close up of the Coppa and the Salami on the cold board.

Pickle Board

Use the lime as a starting point and go clockwise: Pickled pork tongue (Bricksy-baby-piggy's tongue), duck fat pesto, spicy-sweet pickled peppers/onion/cucumber, pickled habanero, bread and butter pickles, and pickled jalapeño, aka "cowboy candy." In the background, there's the truffled crema di lardo with grated truffle on top.

Terrine board

There are little head cheese loaves and a duck liver pate. I had made the pate in a scalloped tea cup also, but I couldn't get it to come out, so I went with the backup brick. The head cheese is brine-cured pork head, white wine, lemon zest and juice, parsley, and the gelatin from the simmered head and 5 trotters. The one on the left has a fennel sprig embedded in the gelatin and the one on the right has two parsley leaves. The pate is duck liver sautéed in butter with onion, capers, and brandy. It's then put in the food processor with butter and heavy cream. I've made pate a few times before, but this was my first head cheese. The board is a round of maple I cut last week while working on next year's firewood. We rubbed it with a puck of beeswax from our hives.

Hot board

This wasn't as pretty as the cold board, but it was very tasty. A big pile of jowl bacon, andouille sausage, and fresh sausage balls. The sausage balls are predominantly sage, garlic, and ginger. The andouille is from our pig Straw, while the bacon and sausage is from Bricks, the biggest of the three Hampshire Cross pigs we raised this year.

Coniglio Cacciatori

Slow cooked rabbit leg in a rustic sauce of morel mushrooms, carrot, celery, pepper, tomato, white wine and rabbit stock. The major herbal flavors are thyme and savory.

Duck fat pesto

Rendered duck fat is whipped with basil and celery greens.

Tonno di maiale, cold

Pork leg meat is cured in salt and then simmered in white wine, water, and bay leaf. It's then packed in olive oil. The slow simmering and oil preservation gives it a texture similar to tuna and the bay leaf and white wine make it taste bright and citrusy. I made a mayonnaise from one of our chicken eggs to toss this in. Celery greens and red onion round out this salad/spread.

Tonno di maiale

After this warmed up closer to room temperature and the oil started to pool.

Truffle butter

Grated black truffle on top to turn the fancy up to 11.

Truffled crema di lardo

Grated black truffle on top. This is delicious. Can't recommend enough.

Butternut squash pie

Lard-based crust, butternut squash filling, pig ornament. My wife is one with the oven.

Dessert

Butternut squash pie and roll. We grew a decent amount of butternut squash this year and my wife is straight killing it with the desserts. The roll filling is a cream cheese icing. We make a chai tea powder with cinnamon, allspice, clove, cardamom, ginger, anise, and black pepper. The cream cheese filling has that chai powder mixed in. The whipped cream (which is drooping in this pic) has cinnamon mixed in.