Waste Not, Want Not Squirrel Rillettes {Charcutepalooza}

When you think of squirrel, what comes to mind? Do you picture a cute fluffy tailed animal, some backyard wildlife? Or  is your vision something more sinister? Are your squirrels tomato thieves, bird feeder destroyers, and dog taunters?

Is anyone thinking savory and delectable? I am.

About Squirrel Meat

While squirrels are ubiquitous in most American neighborhoods, they are almost never on the dinner table. Why? It has nothing to do with the outstanding dark meat, smooth textured, rich taste.

Squirrels are tiny animals when skinned, about 3/4 of a pound including bones. Though 'tree rats' are more numerous than HRC stickers in my liberal neighborhood, harvesting and processing enough to feed a crowd would be arduous.

Speaking of the bones, they are numerous. Wine braised squirrel is every bit as tasty as duck (I swear) but eating around the needle thin skeleton is a royal pain.

Then there's the concern about safety. Could something that runs around alleys, tree lines, and lawns be good to eat? I myself wouldn't touch the first few squirrel Alex made.

After a whole summer witnessing the beasts steal my garden produce and hang off bird feeders, it hit me: squirrels eat very well. They are not rats eating trash at all - they scavenge abundant wild nuts, seeds, and veggies. Most of what they eat is as untouched from chemicals as the pasture ranged meats I pay so much for at local markets.

Stretching

The October Charcutepalooza challenge was to make an appetizer of rillette, confit, gallentine or roulade, to stretch a single cut of meat into a dish that would feed many. I extended the stretching theme to include my food budget. What delicious small bite could I create without purchasing ingredients?

I immediately thought of squirrel because 1) we had one in the freezer and 2) making it into confit and then rillette would be the perfect way to enjoy the meat without the annoyance of the bones.

Alex flavored a backyard harvested squirrel overnight with garden herbs and garlic. Next, I put the squirrel in goose lard from last year's Xmas Eve roast with a few end bits of pork belly leftover from making bacon for a long warm bath. Alex picked the meat, pulsed it quickly in a food processor, and packed it into containers. He capped the rillette with excess goose fat.

To serve the rillette,  I continued with the waste not, want not theme. I made homemade crackers with the amount of sourdough starter I would have discarded when feeding the fermented goodstuff this morning. Home grown, home canned cornichons and homemade cranberry sauce completed the platter.

Would you try a bite?

Pork Pie Photo Journal {Charcutepalooza}

Click any picture to view full size.

1. Butter, homemade lamb lard, and flour. 2. Fats cut into flour. 3. Chopping homegrown onions. 4. Mixing egg and water for pastry. 5. Pastry dough on plastic, ready to chill. 6. Pastry dough chilling in fridge. 7. Grinder cooling in freezer. 8. Onions sweating in olive oil. 9. Chopping pork butt. 10. Lil picking fresh thyme. 11. Herb, salt, and pepper mix. 12. Bowls ready to grind. 13. Meat grinding. 14. Tattoo and ground meat. 15. Adding onions. 16. Aromatics and onions. 17. Binding. 18. Adding homemade chicken stock to bind. 19. Sausage complete. 20. Rolling set up. 21. Cutting dough. 22. Rolling pastry. 23. Getting ready to place meat. 24. Shaping meat on dough. 25. Meat on pastry. 26. Pastry trimmed. 27. Edges folded up. 28. Top on. 29. Egg washing. 30. Dirty dishes. 31. Cutting crackers from scrap. 32. Dog bone scrap crackers. 33. In oven after 10 minutes. 34. In oven after 30 minutes. 35. Temping. 36. Cooling behind pot barricade. 37. Transferring to plate. 38. Hound shaped top. 39. Hound sniffing. 40. Cooling in fridge. 41. Evening snack with pub ale. 42. Reluctant child. 43. Breakfast slicing. 44. Flaky crust. An epic 7 animal products from 4 species, 3 cooks, 6 hours.

This photo journal is our entry in the September Charcutepalooza challenge: packing. We used the recipe from Michael Ruhlman's book Charcuterie, substituting a small portion of home cured bacon for the ham and omitting aspic. We found the flavor and method to be spot on but the dough recipe made at least 30% more than necessary.

Additional Charcutepalooza posts:

Almost All-Ohio Mouselline

How to Make Hot Dogs Like a Girl

Mint Lamb Sausage Inspired by Jorgensen Farms

Taco Truck Chorizo Sopito

Red's Canadian Bacon or Why I Had to Kill a Pig To Eat Meat Again

The Story of the Rachel

Salt Cure Old and New

Cider Syrup Bacon

Almost All-Ohio Mousseline {Charcutepalooza}

It's hard to be a native Ohioan and have an appreciation for seafood. I rarely ate fresh fish as a child and when I did, it wasn't very good. It wasn't that my parents were poor cooks; twenty years ago it was hard to find seafood worth cooking.

These days, life is different. Fish is flown in from all over the world to several places in the city. Seafood can be great here now but my old biases remain: my palate isn't trained to love seafood.

I cannot fault Ohio for my anti-pescetarian ways. My heartland state is doing everything it can to create world-class ingredients of all sorts. When tasked with the Charcutepalooza binding challenge, I wanted to tackle a fish mousseline featuring Ohio ingredients.

My daughter Lillian, exchange student Anna and I set our sights on a little spot that raises shrimp amidst ubiquitous tracts of corn fields near Urbana Ohio, population 11,600.

We started our visit to Freshwater Farms of Ohio with a self guided tour. We saw thousands of trout raised in indoor and outdoor tanks but the star attraction was the sturgeon. These dino-fish are over a decade old and tame to humans. After the requisite petting of the sturgeon, we made our way into the store.

I saw no shrimp in the cases. I asked the monger and was disappointed to learn that this year's shrimp would not be ready until the Shrimp Festival held in mid-September. (Y'all come! My dad's bluegrassy band is playing Saturday and if the last two years are any indication it will be a fun time.)

we came away with some smoked farm-raised trout for the mousseline. I had to substitute far-away shrimp for the emulsion but all other ingredients were raised by my family or my friends at Snowville Creamery. Fresh backyard pimentos (roasted, skin removed) and kale studded the shrimp mousseline and it bound together with a city chicken egg white.

We un-molded and sliced the mousseline at a family dinner. Anna and Alex ate a quarter of the shrimp and trout creation alone. Alex's parents enjoyed it as well. Lil and I only tolerated our bites. I guess we're still Ohioans not quite ready for treasures of the (aquaculture) sea.

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Trout and Shrimp Mousseline an interpretation of the Shrimp and Salmon Terrine with spinach and mushrooms in Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie

1/2 pound raw shrimp, peeled and deveined 1 medium egg white 1/2 cup heavy cream twist of freshly ground white pepper 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt 1/2 cup fresh kale, stems removed and chiffonade 1/2 fresh pimento pepper, flame roasted and skin removed, diced 3 ounces smoked trout

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Have roasting pan ready to fit your terrine mold. 2. Put shrimp and egg white into food processor bowl with freezer chilled blade. Process until pureed. 3. With food processor still running, pour in cream in a steady strem. Season with salt and white pepper. 4. Transfer shrimp to a freezer chilled bowl and gently stir in pimento pepper and kale. 5. Line chilled terrine mold with plastic wrap. Place one half of shrimp mixture into terrine pan. 6. Cover with smoked trout fillets. Cut one fillet in half to form two slim trianges and rearrange around a whole fillet as shown to fit a rectangular terrine. 7. Top with remaining shrimp mixture. 8. Pull plastic wrap over the top and place in ban marie pan. Fill with water to within an inch of the top of the terrine mold. Cover with mold lid or foil. 9. Place terrine in pre-heated oven and cook until the internal temperature measures 140 degrees F, approximately 30 minutes. 10. Remove terrine from oven and water bath. Cover with a weight on top. A board or other flat object weighted to two mason jars filled with water or two beer bottles works well. 11. Allow to cool to room temperature and then place in the fridge until thoroughly chilled, at least four hours. 12. Unmold gently. Serve in 1/4 inch slices on crackers, bread, or as part of a charcuterie plate.

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This post is my seventh in the Charcutepalooza challenge. Catch up on the whole series: Salt Cure, the Story of the Rachel, Why I Had to Kill a Pig to Eat Meat Again, Taco Truck Chorizo Sopito, Mint Lamb Sausage, and How to Make Hot Dogs like a Girl.

How To Make Hot Dogs Like A Girl {Charcutepalooza}

A story of a homesteader who meets her match in the common hot dog.

Go Girl!

Bone local beef with a sharp knife, grind it (standing on a stool because you're a short girl), and mix with salts. Feel so powerful that you go on to make cucumber relish.

The next day, you're ready to freeze, grind, freeze, puree, stuff, and smoke! There's a heat advisory, so shut the windows before you leave for morning errands and crank the A/C.

Hit a Snag

When you get home, it's hot inside. No noise from the air conditioner. It's ok, you are Super Homesteader!

Turn breakers on and off. Drive to the hardware store with fuses in hand, buy new ones, and replace them. Check the thermometer. Replace batteries here for good measure. Drink a beer.

Uh oh. It's still hot and you are out of your appliance repair ideas. Call husband, away on business, and complain. Call friend who was going to hot dog with you and cancel because it would be impossibly hard to keep meat cold in a house that is 85 degrees and rising. Call a repairman.

Cool Down

Repairman points out that the furnace fan isn't running because the idiot switch is disengaged. Turns out that the furnace fronts have been reversed the entire time you have lived at the house. Doh!

Drink a beer. Re-establish that you are a capable person by pickling and canning home grown cornichons.

Start Again

The next day, before even consuming coffee, start a fire in the charcoal chimney. Mix and freeze meat. Soak sheep casing. Grind and freeze again. Wash dishes. Stoke fire. Drink coffee.

Push sheep casing onto the stuffer tube. Struggle. Think about how condoms began with sheep or hog intestines. Find a hole. Curse. Cut it off and start again.

Struggle, finding more holes. Curse, cut, do over. Call husband and complain. Cry a little.

Finally get enough casing on the tube. Set aside.

Puree near-frozen meat in food processor. Curse at the damn safety measures that prevent you from using a spatula while the thing is running. Give in to Ruhlman's suggestion that you might need to split the batch. Puree and place in stuffer chamber. Stoke fire, add chips.

Almost There

Smile. You've done this part before. Start turning the stuffer handle that pushes meat into the casing. Oh no! Meat squirts everywhere!

Tie off a new end, turn again. Puree is still squirting out of pinholes in the casing. Curse. Cry. Pour bourbon creme liquor in the coffee.

Push meat into the stuffing chamber and place in fridge to stay cool. Pull out some hog casings and start them soaking in water.

Start calculating how many hours this process has taken you. Stoke the fire. Call husband and ask how to keep fire going with limited amount of charcoal left.

Start Again Again

Rinse hog casings and string them onto stuffer tube. Pull out meat and begin stuffing again. Take questions from audience of your daughter and her four year old friend. Convince your daughter to open doors so you can lay hot dogs on the grill.

Wash dishes. Add wood chips to fire. Lend stuffer to friend so she can make brats and dogs tonight. Turn links. Stoke fire. Shoot some limoncello straight from the freezer.

Wait

Two hours later, internal temperature of dogs is barely 100. Sigh. Add more charcoal. Move dogs a little closer to the fire. Snap at the five year old who wants attention and then apologize. It's really the meat that's making you mad.

Recall that you don't really like hot dogs. Maybe that's why this whole process feels like a chore.

Eventually, give up on the smoker and bring the dogs inside. Wonder why a bunch of juice squirts out when the thermometer goes in. Bake them in the oven until the temperature reaches 150 degrees.

Reward?

So fed up with the process that now cost you 1.5 days and hundreds of dishes, consider not even tasting the hot dogs. Remember that you are participating in this whole Charcutepalooza thing and you might as well at least take a picture. The dogs are wrinkly and misshapen but do taste ok with your cucumber relish.

Vow to never make hot dogs again. A girl knows when something is not worth the trouble.

Much thanks to Lillian, the five year old, who tolerated my inattentiveness and took pictures of me working.  She declares the hot dogs good enough to eat but wishes they were more greasy.

Mint Lamb Sausage Inspired by Jorgensen Farms {Charcutepalooza}

On a picturesque 65 acres in east central Ohio, there lies Jorgensen Farms, a biodynamic animal and vegetable operation. Proprietor Val (pictured below in blue) works the land guided by her distinguishing palette and eye for pleasing design. She builds vibrant soil through careful crop rotation and pasturing. Perhaps the most recognized crop is her mint grown especially for central Ohio based Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream's Backyard Mint flavor. You may click on pictures to enlarge them.

I attended the Ohio Lamb Chef's Day at Jorgensen Farms one cold and rainy day this May. The event included tours and tastings aimed at educating restaurant chefs. We walked through herb gardens near the farm houses and viewed sheep out to pasture on rolling hills. Two chilly day-old lambs visited in the arms of flower grower and livestock helper Roger Genter.

The meat of the event was a fascinating demonstration by Dr. Paul Kuber, associate professor of Animal Sciences at Ohio State University. He expertly butchered a lamb into cuts usable by restaurants and home cooks, sharing anatomy and culinary tidbits throughout. A six course sampling meal followed, using some of the cuts demonstrated.

At the end of the lamb cutting, a large bowl of scraps was left. Kuber shared that these could be used for sausage or other charcuterie. When the June Charcutepalooza challenge, stuffing, was announced, I knew what I had to make: mint lamb sausage, inspired by Jorgensen Farms.

Lamb mint sausage makes good use of the abundant mint and garlic scapes in our own backyard. We chose Ohio lamb and pork to keep the recipe local. The binding liquid included some of our own apple cider vinegar made last autumn.

As we have been stuffing sausage for a few years, the process runs quickly and smoothly now. Alex and Lil do most of the meat handling while I clean up behind them. From grind to bind to stuffing, a batch only takes about thirty minutes.

I served the sausage tonight with barley risotto and wilted homegrown greens. I highly recommend this hearty and healthy combination. It warmed us on a unseasonably cool evening, reminiscent of the chilly day I spent at the lovely Jorgensen Farms.

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Mint Lamb Sausage

Makes 10 7 inch links

2 pounds lamb shoulder, boned 1 pound pork shoulder, boned 0.9 oz kosher salt (a hair less than 2 tablespoons) 1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint 1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh young garlic scapes 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 1/4 cup water hog casings

1. Grind lamb and pork with a large die. 2. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Add salt, mint, and scapes. Mix with batter paddle to combine. 3. Slowly pour in apple cider vinegar and water while mixing on low speed. Continue mixing until sausage binds or becomes very sticky, approximately 5 minutes. 4. Stuff into hog casings and make links.

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Spring Before Summer June 13 {Locavore Meal Plan}

The heat had me down last week and then *poof* a front passed through on Saturday, transforming the weather into lovely low 70s during the day and 60s at night. This is my kind of weather, perfect for outdoor living and cooking!

Ingredients and Inspiration

• Produce ready to pick: garlic scapes, lettuces, chard, herbs, raspberries, strawberries
• In the fridge: local asparagus, spinach, lamb, pork
• Cool weather means we can cook and enjoy hot foods
• I really want to can something this week; I'm hoping for cherries at a farmer's market.

Meal Plan

Monday - left overs or sandwiches after a day trip to the Wilds

Tuesday - homemade chorizo mulitas and salad

Wednesday - homemade lamb sausages over barley risotto

Thursday - pasta with asparagus and garlic scape pesto

Friday - dinner with friends

Saturday - empanadas

Sunday - Father's Day dinner with both sides of the family. The menfolk have requested burgers. I'll serve them with homemade buns, backyard salad, and deviled eggs.

What are you eating this week?

PS. If you weren't at the Ohio Blogging Association event on Sunday, you missed out. Elena of Elena Photographers led a thorough session on basic DSLR blog photography including hands on practice for me and Tiffany. I learned so much and am now confident enough to shoot in Manual mode!

Read the write up on her blog featuring my mug because I volunteered to be a model.

Note to self: next time you go to a photography lesson, prepare to be photographed.

Taco Truck Chorizo Sopito

Often described as a 'cow town', Columbus, Ohio is actually full of cultural treasures. One such subculture is the taco truck scene. Food carts across the city highlight delicious specialties from the owners' regions of their home country. One of my favorite trucks, Taqueria Jalisco, serves a menu reflective of the Jalisco state of Mexico. Their meat is perfectly seasoned, service is prompt and attentive, and everything is clearly homemade.

My favorite menu item? The chorizo sopito, pictured above. A sopito is a small thick corn shell topped with beans, meat, lettuce, and crema, at a minimum. When the Charcutepalooza challenge for May was announced, bulk ground sausage, I knew I had to recreate a taco truck chorizo sopito at home.

I started by making the sopito shell. The dough is a simple mixture of 2 parts masa harina corn flour to 1 part water and a dash of salt. After it rested for about half an hour, I hand formed thick shell shapes out of the dough. Alex fried them in four inches of oil at 350 degrees F for four minutes, turning once during cooking.

While homemade chorizo browned in a skillet, we cooked down pinto beans with onion and green chili and blended them to a fairly smooth texture, ideal for topping. Shredded lettuce, grated queso blano cheese, and faux crema (sour cream mixed with a little milk) were the frosting on the sopito cakes. Had I remembered it in the fridge, I would have added chopped avocado ala another of our favorite trucks, The Eighth Taste.

I am, of course, biased, but I believe our homemade sopitos bested Taqueria Jalisco. The freshly fried shells were mouth-wateringly crisp on the outside and densely corn flavored inside. The cheese and crema cooled the slight heat chorizo. The only downside to making this dish is that after two hours of preparation, the sopitos were gobbled up in a matter of minutes!

[print_this] Chorizo Sopitos makes eight-twelve appetizer sized servings

3 cups masa harina 1 1/2 cups water 1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup homemade chorizo, browned ((I refer you to the book Charcuterie or Mrs. Wheelbarrow's tutorial for instructions on making bulk chorizo at home.)

1 teaspoon olive oil 1 yellow onion, diced 1 clove garlic, minced 1 4 oz can diced green chilis 1 can pinto beans 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon chili powder

oil for frying (1-2 quarts)

1 cup shredded lettuce

1/4 cup crema or 1/4 cup sour cream plus 2 teaspoons water

1/2 cup shredded queso blanco cheese

1/2 avocado, diced

your favorite hot sauce (optional)

1. Mix masa harina, water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Allow to rest for 20 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a medium sized pot over medium heat. Add onion and garlic and cook until translucent.

3. Add chilis, beans, chili powder, and salt to the pot. Cook until beans begin to break down.

4. Turn off the heat. Use an immersion blender, or carefully transfer to a stand blender, to blend until almost smooth. Set aside.

5. In a dutch oven or wide pot, heat oil to 350 degrees F. Oil should be at least 4 inches deep.

6. Form sopito shell shape by forming a disc with approximately 1/2 cup of the dough. Press it into your palm while raising the sides up.

7. Carefully fry two-three shells at a time, turning once during cooking. When they are golden brown all over (approximately 4 minutes total), remove to a paper towel lined plate.

8. Assemble the sopitos: Top each shell with blended beans, chorizo, cheese, lettuce, and crema. Allow guests to add hot sauce as they desire. Eat with gusto! [/print_this]

Red's Canadian Bacon Or Why I Had To Kill a Pig To Eat Meat Again

It was just over one year ago that my husband and I killed and butchered Red the pig. That single event informed my eating more than any other ever has. A Vegetarian Slaughters a Pig

At the time of the slaughter, I was a vegetarian, as I had been for a decade. I didn't eat meat for many reasons. Chief among them was that I didn't know how to assess the quality of the animal's life and I was uncomfortable with slaughter.

When I met Red, I could sense she was a happy animal. She had been given ample opportunity in her life to explore the land around her, eat like a pig, live with other creatures and roam with ample space.

The moment of her death was stunning in how very not dramatic it was. I expected horror for some reason, and the end of her life was anything but. Alex carefully aimed a rifle, shot once, and she knocked over dead. It was as simple as the pulling of a dandelion weed or plucking of basil leaves.

As soon as Red died, we went to work butchering the meat. There was an overwhelming sense that what was killed at our hands must be used completely and well.

Beginning to Eat Meat

After the slaughter my attitude towards eating meat began to change. I started to realize that the designation I had made, that eating plants was ok and animals was not, was totally arbitrary.

When my husband grilled Red's ribs for his birthday dinner, I couldn't help but try them. I had seen with my own eyes the kindness of Red's life and her honorable death. I had participated in saving every part of her body and I wanted to participate in the consumption. I began eating meat that I knew had lived a good life.

Everything is a Sacrifice

"It had a nice life and then you killed it?!" is the accusation I have heard more than once from incredulous vegan friends. I hear the point: who are we humans to decide the end of a life?

In contemplating all the foods we cook, I realized that this choice happens with every meal that we eat, indeed every decision we make.

The tomatoes I grow and harvest are hard wired for reproduction. Whether they have feelings or not, their leaves and stems clearly gather water, nutrients, and sunlight for one goal: to make flower to fruit to seed to new plant.

If I pluck a ripe Julia Child heirloom tomato to chop and eat, am I not choosing to break that life cycle?

When I yank spinach plants from the garden bed after the weather has turned hot and they begin to bolt, I am intentionally depriving them of setting seeds and reproducing. I totally control the end of their nice life.

When I buy strawberries out of season shipped across the country, even if they are organic, there is no way they can possibly set seed and start new strawberry plants. On a bigger scale, the contaminants released by long-hauling crops thousands of miles deprive many species of clean air and may introduce reproduction-intercepting chemicals. We are negatively affecting our own personal and species health when we choose to consume well-traveled foods.

Realignment

I realized, in the examination of my feelings following the slaughter of Red, that my line in the sand was wrong. Killing a pig has no less value than killing a lettuce by eating the whole plant. They are both interruptions of the life cycle, choices I make to feed myself.

I suppose someone could argue that given the right conditions a fruit could re-seed itself whereas a dead animal will never make new life. Indeed volunteer tomatoes do always show up around my compost bin. But the staples of most non-animal diets - grains, leafy greens, tree fruits, root vegetables - are 'dead' in that they can no longer grow or reproduce, just like Red.

It took killing a pig to match my values to my diet.  If all ingredients are dead, it is my belief that I must make sure their killing is humane and justified. I must use every part of the plants and animals I consume.

It is fitting that the last piece of Red left in the freezer, almost exactly a year after her death, was the loin, the subject of this month's Charcutepalooza Canadian bacon challenge.

As the smoke curled over the brined loin, I had time to reflect on Red's year-long journey. The act of knowing my food to the moment of its death transformed my thinking about what I eat and why. In the end I am left with gratitude that I have a chance to reflect and the opportunity to make choices about my food. Thank you, Red, and all edible plant and animal creatures, for feeding me.

Added to Fight Back Friday April 15 and Charcutepalooza April.