Did you know that you can cure meat at home using nothing more than a wine refrigerator? 

This was my first attempt at meat curing, and I’d say it went fantastically well.  This project was inspired by Matt Wright and his insanely beautiful blog, WrightFood.  Matt has some serious curing experience under his belt, and offers detailed recipes and techniques for home curing.  For this project, I followed his recipe for Duck Prosciutto (recipe is towards the bottom of the post). 

The recipe calls for curing duck breasts in salt for 24 hours before hanging them up to cure at 55F with 60% relative humidity until they have lost 30% of their original mass. 

Although I’ve got big plans in my head for building a high-tech curing chamber (one day), I also remembered that I had an unused wine refrigerator sitting in the basement.  Nothing is sadder than an empty wine fridge, so I decided to repurpose it for a bold new mission.  The fridge has an adjustable temperature setting for champagne, whites, reds and long-term storage.  Luckily for me, one of those settings corresponds to 55F.  I didn’t bother measuring the humidity in the wine fridge, but I reasoned that it would have to maintain a reasonable humidity level to keep wine corks from drying out.  The fridge also has a small fan, which is great for circulating the air inside and a desirable condition for curing meat. 

I followed Matt’s directions, though I accidentally let the breasts sit for 48 hours in salt (instead of 24) before hanging.  I weighed the breasts and recorded their starting weight and the date on a piece of tape which I affixed to the door of the wine refrigerator.  I also skipped the step of wrapping the duck breasts in cheesecloth, which Matt said was OK.  I let the breasts hang  in the wine fridge and I checked on them every 5 days or so, inspecting them for signs of bacterial growth (bad) and giving them a squeeze test [with clean hands] to check for doneness.  After 25 days, they looked and felt about right, so I weighed them.  They had lost about 27% of their weight, which was all from moisture leaving the meat.  I called it “done” and carefully sliced off my first taste of home-cured meat.  It was fantastic, if a little on the salty side.  However, I’m really thrilled with the results of my first attempt and I can’t wait to start curing more and more meat! 

As it turns out, a wine refrigerator is reasonably ideal for this kind of curing.  Temperature settings range from 45-65F with relative humidity of 55-75%, which is just about the sweet spot for slowly dehydrating and aging meat.  Most models use a piezoelectric cooling element, which is quiet and barely sips electricity.  Plus, these days, they’re cheap: wine fridges range from under $100 for a no-frills model, to $150 for a model with decent capacity, and well on into the stratosphere from there.  Just remove all but the top rack and you’ve got space to hang tens of pounds of meat at once! 

I’m planning to investigate retrofitting my wine fridge with strips of ultraviolet LED lighting as a safeguard against possible mold or bacterial growth during the aging process.  I also bought a USB scale, which I’d like to add so I can monitor the weight loss of my meats remotely.  I’ll report back once the retrofit is complete, but in the meantime, I’m going to go enjoy a well-deserved charcuterie platter straight from my own home.

Further Reading: Check out Matt’s Home Cured Duck Prosciutto, and his other charcuterie recipes.  He’s also got a great step-by-step guide on building a proper curing chamber at home. 

Makes: 8 zen bowls
Total kitchen time: about 6 hours, depending…

Shopping list:

• 8 cups duck consommé, prepared
• 4 russet potatoes, fat and round
• 1 tbsp. rendered duck fat
• 8 laser-cut nori designs of a Japanese maze

Special equipment: laser cutter, 2” biscuit cutter, vacuum sealing machine, sous vide heating immersion circulator

1. Slice the potatoes into 1” thick discs.  Using the discs that are at least 2” in diameter, cut out 8 rounds with the 2” biscuit cutter. 
2. Place the potato circles in a vacuum bag and add rendered duck fat.  Vacuum seal.
3. Cook potatoes in an 85C water bath for 1 hour. 
4. To serve, place a potato slice in the bottom of a large bowl.  Blot the top of the potato with a paper towel to dry the surface.  Add 1bout 1 cup of consommé to the bowl.  Top with a piece of nori.

If you don’t have access to a laser cutter (a travesty!) you can try cutting shapes using a very sharp hobby knife. 

Total kitchen time: 2 hours
Makes: foul for four

Shopping list:

• 1 whole duck (or 4 duck breasts, if you prefer)
• zest of 1 orange
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 24 oz. (4 small cans) pineapple juice
• 1.5 cups basmati or jasmine rice
• 1/4 cup cream of coconut (from the drink mixers aisle of your supermarket)
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 2 tsp. yellow curry powder
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. red cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
• coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat your oven to 425° F and set the top rack in the middle position.  Rinse and thoroughly dry the duck, inside and out.  Salt and pepper the skin and inner cavity.
2. Blend together the orange zest and butter using a small food processor (or with the back of a fork if you’re Amish, in which case I don’t know how you’re viewing my blog right now).  Stuff half of the orange butter under the skin of the duck and rub the remaining half on the outside of the skin.
3. Truss the duck (it yields better results, but it isn’t absolutely necessary) and place it on a rack in a roasting pan, breast side up.  You can also place the duck directly onto a preheated heavy-bottom skillet, but a roasting pan will help the duck cook more evenly.  Whatever you’ve got around will work, so don’t fret.
4. Roast the duck for 45 minutes, then flip carefully and roast another 45 minutes with the breast side down.  Be sure to pour out any fat drippings from the body cavity when you flip the bird.  Let the duck rest at least 15 minutes before carving.
5. Meanwhile, boil the pineapple juice in a small saucepan over high heat until it has reduce to about 1/4 the quantity.  It should be shiny and a little syrupy.  Set aside.
6. Prepare the rice using your rice maker or stovetop, according to the directions on the package. 
7. In a small saucepan, combine the cream of coconut, coconut milk, curry powder, cinnamon, red cayenne pepper and crushed red pepper flakes.  Bring to a boil, and adjust to taste by adding more curry powder or red pepper flakes.  Fold the coconut mixture into the rice.
8. Plate the duck atop the coconut curry rice and spoon over some of the pineapple glaze.

If you’ve never cooked duck before, you’ll be surprised at the amount of fat that melts off the bird as it cooks.  Ducks have fatty skin because ducks need to float.  Wood also floats, and burns.  Witches burn because they are made of wood.  Therefore, if a woman ways the same as a duck, she is a witch.  Wow, a recipe and lesson in illogical justice?  What doesn’t this blog have!