beef jerky

Today I started my second salted cured ham after building a piece of ikea furniture. Almost all european countries have their own version of a salt cured ham but here in america it is not so common. I am only aware of one small producer in les iles-de-la-madeleine. While working in England at a famous jazz club, I cured meats in the soho basement for the selection of British meat board because we found ourselves sometimes short due to the scarcity and availability of British charcuterie and sometimes I had to resolve to this problem by using french meats. I used to go to Bourough market to buy Cumberland speck from Silfield Farm witch was delicious but they were not allowed to sell me the whole ham because of special European safety laws that specified that the ham had to be cut in two to make sure the inside was good, so i would cure duck breasts and pieces of beef fillets to make soho bresaola and Westminster duck prosciutto seasoned with Montreal steak spice that my sister would send me in the post. In exchange I would send here rare breed pork English bacon, wild boar prosciutto and dry cured Herdwick lamb from farmer Sharp. While waiting for the ham to dry, I made a little batch of beef jerky for my next fishing trip.

the second ham

This is the second ham, it is called piano seminterrato. It will be cured in a basement in St- Leonard. After being washed with cognac, it will spend four weeks curing in salt in a maple box and then hung to dry for three to six months.

naan bread and curry

Being to lazy to trek in the rain to little Dacca, my girlfriend and I decided to make naan bread and curry ourselves. Molly who is a talented bread master had no problem following carefully manjula's directions. Yogurt is the key ingredient in naan bread. I made the curry and coriander shrimp as i remembered it from my london days on the curry mile... late nights on brick lane eating firery prawns madras at the preem balti house drinking tall bottles of kingfisher. The habs lost and i feel asleep watching snl.