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While another printing is always encouraging, it’s not necessarily worth mentioning, but this one is. The fifth printing of Charcuterie, a love song to fat and salt and preserving food because it tastes so good that way, has two new recipes in it.
I don’t know how often this happens in cookbook writing, but Maria Guarnaschelli, our brilliant, controversial editor, really wanted a guanciale recipe in there. She didn’t want Mario to corner the market on curing pork jowl. It’s so easy you can use just about any cure you want or the pancetta cure in the book (as we mentioned), but she wanted an official recipe, so there it is.
Second recipe. I was never happy with the hot dog recipe, which I’ve taken as kind of a personal challenge to get right. The original recipe is not satisfactory unless you use industrial machinery (which I don’t own). After I did the hot dog article for Gourmet, they asked could we do a recipe for the home. Knowing the one in the book didn’t quite cut it, I revised it to make it more easy for the home cook, substituting soft pork fat for beef fat (which has a really great flavor) and generally trying to make it easier for the gourmet kitchen.
The recipe tester there, Maggie, had a nightmare of an experience, and Gourmet bagged any further thought of a recipe. Maggie wrote a funny story about it that went with my article.
Secretly, though, I seethed.
And then I returned to my notes on hot dogs, spent solitary nights in my fire-lit study shooting heroin and playing violin, and in this way figured it out.
I changed the cut of meat to beef rib meat, softer fat, and maybe 40-60 fat-meat ratio; then I ground the meat and added salt and water, a kind of brine, that would begin to work on the salt-soluable proteins. The problem with emulsified forcemeats done with home equipment is they end up too soft, almost mousseline-like. I wanted a solid dog. Finally, in part because of this salt technique and a slow cooking method, I got it. I’m very proud and wish I could claim it as my own innovation but I stole the idea from the Vienna Beef company, which makes the best hot dogs in the United States and where I’d just been, reporting it for Gourmet.
Anyway, it’s all in the new edition. How do you get it? I don’t know! How do you know which printing it is? Go to the copyright page. At the bottom is a series of numbers. If you got the fourth printing it will read, “4 5 6 7 8 9 10.”
The guanciale and hot dog are in the book with the series that begins with 5.
A final holiday note to those who have a guy in their life who loves to cook: this is a great book for him. Seriously, guys are not normally the huge cookbook buyers. They’ve bought Charcuterie, though, in disproportionate numbers. I’d like to believe they respond to the intelligent, manly prose and recipes for cooking meat over smoke, but really, half the book is about sausages. Go figure.
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Welcome to Ruhlman.com where I write about food, cooking, recipes and technique, because the world is better when we cook for ourselves. Thanks for visiting—hope you’ll join the conversation.
Congrats on the fifth printing Michael! That is a true testament to you as a writer. Fantastic work!
5 printings is very good indeed. On it’s face it means that you’ve sold a lot of books and -even better- that the book has legs.
I also really liked the skinny on how you tweaked the hot dog recipe. I wonder though: is the reason that the homemade dogs end up too soft is that it’s hard to assure that the meat doesn’t get too warm during grinding? (And so your ingredients tweaks are designed to compensate for something that cannot be avoided with non-industrial equipment.)
Any chance we perhaps-too-eager buyers could get the updates as a PDF?
I was talking about your hot dog recipe with a friend this evening at dinner, and she asked if it would be possible to make a hot dog using lamb. I told her I didn’t know, especially since the recipe had been rather tricky for you in the first place, I wouldn’t know how to tweak it (once I could track down a fifth edition, which I certainly hope to do). Any thoughts on the possibility of lamb hot dogs?
Rebecca you didn’t ask me but I think
No to lamb dogs yes to sheep dogs. :-O!
Congratulations, Michael! And kudos for being your usual conscientious self and re-working the dog recipe until you were truly satisfied with it – just what both a good journalist and cook would do. I was just thinking about guanciale the other day in DiPalo’s latteria (dairy), because they had some in fresh – which then led me to thinking about heading to Bsbbo’s fotr my birthday and putting myself into Batali’s meaty hands. But now – hey? Why not cure some at home? (Once my sister picks up all the poultry carcasses for stock and soup and the game birds I’ve been holding for her from D’Artagnan, of course.)
I’ll bet people don’t know that bobdg does standup in connecticut.
bob, the tweaks in the recipe are to compensate for a lack of industrial power. to make a really solid emulsified meat, you need really powerful blades. by adding the salt early to begin breaking down the proteins, and hold the dog at 120 degrees F. for an hour (it’s presumed this helps to help set the protein matrix), you ensure a sturdy texture.
A low temp, ideally below 40 degrees, is ensured by partially freezing the meat between each step.
alkalai, i’ll work on the pdf, i’m still technically challenged here.
Rebecca, there’s no reason you couldn’t use lamb. You might need to add additional fat. And coriander, a seasoning I like in hot dogs, goes well with lamb, so i don’t see why not. It may not taste like a hot dog, but it should taste like a sheep dog.
thanks claudia. you should definitely cure your own. let me know how it goes if you do!
The Detroit News recently wrote about Markowycz’s European Home Style Sausage on Michigan Avenue – not too far west of the old Tiger Stadium. They have been making and curing old style sausage, ham, lunch meats, hot dogs, etc. etc. for 53 years. Their chunk Kielbasa is excellent. Mother Anna, as seen in the photo http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061123/BIZ/611230382
told me that their hotdogs are made with veal and a little beef with no preservatives. She said that they have customers from as far off as Florida who come in just for the dogs. It’s a real old timey shop with a smoke house out back. You might like it!
Detroit’s only 3 hours from the Land of Cleve so come on over and give the Gang of Pour a jingle. We’ll meet you at Markowycz’s and show you a few other places of delight.
Kim Adams
GangOfPour.com
P.S. I have the first edition of your book signed by Brian at his All Pig Dinner last fall and vote for a PDF of the new recipes in the 5th edition.
http://www.gangofpour.com/underground/2006/pig/index.html
Michael, “Bobby D” also does standup in New York – by e-mail (!!) We’ve been killing each for the past few days by e- on the stupidity of the foie ban, but since a fork has already been stuck in THAT topic . . .
I’m heading towards guanciale. After I finish the Buche Noel – I’ve got stacks of rolled genoise in my near future . . .
Michael, I had to comment because I am a huge fan of yours. Today is the first time I’ve checked your page in a few months and was thrilled to see you have a blog(this is cooler than waiting for your next book to come out!) Your comment about guys getting the book was funny and spot on. I LOVE Charcuterie, I recieved it as a gift last year for Christmas-the meat grinder came in May for my birthday.
Keep on writing!
Michael and Claudia:
Thanks for the comments about my comedic skills but the truth is that I retired my stand-up routine when I retired from the CIA. (read: “When I was run out of Hyde Park by a hoard of knife-wielding students who did not appreciate my sense of humor.”)
So anyway…I’m still wondering about the equipment issue. Is this a shear-pressure problem we’re dealing with? In other words, are the smaller appliances not up to the job of shearing the tissue cleanly or do they just turn at too many rpm/blade surface area and so generate too much friction?
That mousse-like texture that you get with the smaller machines could be a function of ragged fibers trapping air or fats that have been liquefied (by friction) then over-emulsified -or both.
Michael,
Which issue of Gourmet is the hot dog article in? I’d like to try and track down a copy.
jason, it was in last august.
bob, i don’t know what the actual protein-fat-water construction is that makes the mousselline texture or why it happens. it’s almost as if there’s too much air in it.
i do think it has to do with temperature, motor power, and sharpness of blades.
the cia’s recommendations to use milk powder and all those temperature requirements are unnecessary–the were adapted from commercial makers who used additives for cost reasons, i presume.
the keys are to keep the meat as near 32 degrees as possible, to salt meat for at least 24 hours. and to let the dog cook at 120 degrees for an hour or so.
you tell me why it’s got a firmer bite.
Michael you wrote:
“it’s almost as if there’s too much air in it.”
I’ll bet that’s a big part of it.
If the finished dog had too much air in it then it may be that the basic problem with the non-commercial machines is that the blades have to spin too many times to cut the meat thus allowing too much time for the incorporation of air. And because with more rotation there is more friction and more heat. Heated air is going to expand and produce larger air cells and a spongier texture.
And I think that by keeping the mixture at 32 you stiffen the fibers and reduce the cutting time (and the amount of time for air incorporation). Moreover, the lower temps will reduce the volume of the air cells and probably reduce the attraction of air for the meat to boot.
Blade sharpness is definitely relevant: less sharp blades produce more friction. Same for the motor: weak motors produce less torque taking longer to cut and so producing more friction. I think it’s a good idea to chill the blades and other parts to create a heat sink so that the heat from friction goes there and not into the meat (but I’ll bet you do this already).
Your lower mixing temps will diminish the likelihood that the fats will turn to oil and become emulsified as liquid which might then leak out during the cooking and leave empty (spongy) cells. And the lower cooking temp will reduce the expansion of air cells and liquefaction of the fats.
I’m not sure how the salt plays into this but I’ll bet it’s got something to do with making it easier for the blades to cut the fibers as well as some other effects.
In any case it sounds like you licked the problem and hey: you will be hot dog king, I promise!
I’ve now gifted four copies of the 5th edition.