The road is long and twisted and at times there is darkness and as one could/can imagine.. no light at the seemingly end of the tunnel.
And thus it seems with curing’s cloaked in shrouds and where great mysteries abound it seems akin to medieval sorcery and witchcraft that the thought of what can be and is classed as ‘old school’ is frowned upon by modem day cures for speed and simplicity of the large manufactures who mass produce in such a quantity they need all the help to cut the corners to get there products to market cheaply and as fast as possibly that Joe public has now forgotten the taste of what good quality products.
It seems that if one has the will plus the knowhow (within curing) one can attain just about anything and thus this is a journey of such.
I have taken duck thigh meat which has been taken off the bone as well as being skinned most of the fat also has been removed. Most of this thigh meat has been cut into what I would class as bite size pieces with just over 1/3rd being left on the larger size to (hopefully) give the finished product some robust texture.
It has been mixed/blended with the salt/cure mix; covered and placed into to cooler for 48 hours. It is lucky that I am using the EQ curing method as being the sole producer where I was working did mean that some of the projects got put onto the side while paying jobs took priority.
This being the case with the duck salame
As time got shorter (work wise) I managed to free up some precious time to make this Duck Salame fly (pun intended
)
First things first; spices had to be finalized and one major (to my way of thinking) hurdle was over come by my good friend Peter Stafford in the UK for getting me a bottle of KWV - Van Der Hum - South African Tangerine Liqueur (KWV Van Der Hum Liqueur has a complex citrus flavour enhanced by fragrant, mild spicy notes. Mellow and sweet with a lingering spicy aftertaste. A unique tangerine flavoured liqueur)
Spicing was kept quite simple as I am hoping that ‘all’ flavours shin through…..
Corse ground black pepper; Chinese five spice; Cardamom; Mace; Corn Syrup Solids; Cognac was the first thoughts for liquids (for kick starting fermentation) but having tasted the Van Der Hun some years ago I knew the pairing od the duck and tangerine would be classic
I took 1/3rd of the weight of the duck in pork (shoulder) which I made sure was free from gristle and excess fat and ground with coarse plate. I then took about half of the cured duck and incorporated that into the course ground pork after which I ground again with the coarse plate
All of this I now placed in a large bowl so that I could incorporate the remainder of the cured duck pieces into the coarse ground pork and duck. To this mixture I added the KWV - Van Der Hum along with the finely cubed back fat before stuffing it into 60cm x 40cm synthetic casings
Fermentation was fun as I preceded doing ‘old school’ which was taught to me by my mentor Günther Pfeiffer. As I did not have a large 450kg capacity cooking tank like he had I reverted to the pot on the stove, which in a sense is the same thing, but on a smaller scale.
Three days later (just over seventy two hours) with the temperature and humidity holding closely to the desired settings (75 degrees F temperature and 80% humidity) the duck salame are ready for the drying stage
I relize that this has been long (winded
) but hope that some have found it interesting, I have followed old school so that people could see that with the simplest things this could/can be done at home
by BriCan » Sun May 25, 2014 9:49 pm 
-- that's just my very humble opinion 
