Hello all. I've been experimenting with different tasso recipes recently. I'm new to curing, so I have a lot of questions (of course). I figured the sausage sub-forum was the place to find experts on curing around here.
I'm using one-inch-thick strips of pork loin or pork shoulder for my tasso. The recipe instructions are to dredge the pork slices in cure, then rest them on a rack for four hours. You then rinse off the cure, apply a rub, and hot-smoke the meat for a few hours to 160 degrees internal temperature.
The short cure turns the meat pink throughout, and gives a nice ham flavor.
Two questions about using a dry cure for a short time, specifically Michael Ruhlman's recipe:
1) If the pork is pink throughout when it's cooked, does that mean it's fully cured? Or is there some point where the cure causes the chemical reaction for pink meat, but there's not enough cure to protect against botulism?
2) The Ruhlman dry cure looks like it uses too much Prague powder per the USDA ppm guidelines for nitrite. Will the meat absorb too much nitrite using a dry cure, even if you rinse it off after the time specified by the recipe? I've read conflicting reports on this, and also on how nitrite dissipates during cooking.
Background for context, though perhaps TL/DR:
My first attempt at tasso was guided by two recipes I found online. One was from Michael Ruhlman's book, Charcuterie. The other was from the link below to "Life's a Tomato." Both are dry cures using Prague powder, but they are very short --- three or four hours.
Ruhlman's dry cure: http://ruhlman.com/2011/02/the-forgi...ed-meat-bacon/
Home-made Tasso: http://www.lifesatomato.com/2015/06/15/homemade-tasso/
My question is about the cure process, not the spice rub from these recipes. I'm working on my own Tasso rub. Ruhlman's is garbage IMHO.
Since I was experimenting, I did one batch for four hours and one for twelve hours overnight in the cure. The four-hour cure was tasty, but a lighter pink than the twelve-hour cure. The twelve-hour cure was a darker pink, but too salty.
I then found Meathead's cure article on this site. His guidance about a wet cure makes sense from a food safety standpoint. Brine guarantees control over the PPM concentration. I tried a wet cure on some boneless pork chops as a test. I used some Cabela's sweet cure per the package directions, which said thin cuts should cure for 24 hours. But it didn't cure to the center of the chops, and the result was much less flavorful than the Ruhlman salt-box method.
My job requires that I travel 4 - 5 days a week. So I don't have the ability to do a two or three day brine cure, except on vacation weeks. I'd like to get the dry cure process right, but keep within nitrite safety guidelines. One frustration I have with Ruhlman's book is that it doesn't bother to explain that part of the process. It just gives recipes.
I also found Stan Marinski's "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages," which is free to borrow via Amazon Kindle Prime. His tasso recipe uses a dry cure for 12 hours, and then smokes the meat with the cure still on it! His recipe looks like the correct ratio for using Prague powder in "comminuted meat" such as sausage, but I'm still not crazy about the idea of keeping the curing salt on the outside of the meat when I smoke it.
I appreciate any help / comments from the community! I'll post my tasso recipe when I'm happy with it.
I'm using one-inch-thick strips of pork loin or pork shoulder for my tasso. The recipe instructions are to dredge the pork slices in cure, then rest them on a rack for four hours. You then rinse off the cure, apply a rub, and hot-smoke the meat for a few hours to 160 degrees internal temperature.
The short cure turns the meat pink throughout, and gives a nice ham flavor.
Two questions about using a dry cure for a short time, specifically Michael Ruhlman's recipe:
1) If the pork is pink throughout when it's cooked, does that mean it's fully cured? Or is there some point where the cure causes the chemical reaction for pink meat, but there's not enough cure to protect against botulism?
2) The Ruhlman dry cure looks like it uses too much Prague powder per the USDA ppm guidelines for nitrite. Will the meat absorb too much nitrite using a dry cure, even if you rinse it off after the time specified by the recipe? I've read conflicting reports on this, and also on how nitrite dissipates during cooking.
Background for context, though perhaps TL/DR:
My first attempt at tasso was guided by two recipes I found online. One was from Michael Ruhlman's book, Charcuterie. The other was from the link below to "Life's a Tomato." Both are dry cures using Prague powder, but they are very short --- three or four hours.
Ruhlman's dry cure: http://ruhlman.com/2011/02/the-forgi...ed-meat-bacon/
Home-made Tasso: http://www.lifesatomato.com/2015/06/15/homemade-tasso/
My question is about the cure process, not the spice rub from these recipes. I'm working on my own Tasso rub. Ruhlman's is garbage IMHO.
Since I was experimenting, I did one batch for four hours and one for twelve hours overnight in the cure. The four-hour cure was tasty, but a lighter pink than the twelve-hour cure. The twelve-hour cure was a darker pink, but too salty.
I then found Meathead's cure article on this site. His guidance about a wet cure makes sense from a food safety standpoint. Brine guarantees control over the PPM concentration. I tried a wet cure on some boneless pork chops as a test. I used some Cabela's sweet cure per the package directions, which said thin cuts should cure for 24 hours. But it didn't cure to the center of the chops, and the result was much less flavorful than the Ruhlman salt-box method.
My job requires that I travel 4 - 5 days a week. So I don't have the ability to do a two or three day brine cure, except on vacation weeks. I'd like to get the dry cure process right, but keep within nitrite safety guidelines. One frustration I have with Ruhlman's book is that it doesn't bother to explain that part of the process. It just gives recipes.
I also found Stan Marinski's "Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages," which is free to borrow via Amazon Kindle Prime. His tasso recipe uses a dry cure for 12 hours, and then smokes the meat with the cure still on it! His recipe looks like the correct ratio for using Prague powder in "comminuted meat" such as sausage, but I'm still not crazy about the idea of keeping the curing salt on the outside of the meat when I smoke it.
I appreciate any help / comments from the community! I'll post my tasso recipe when I'm happy with it.
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