Charcuterie

CHARCUTERIE

     Charcuterie is a cold meats that can be serve by slice. Those meats were preserved first before refrigerating it. This is a part of a Garde Manger's station. There are lots of methods of preserving meats.

Methods of Preserving Meats are: 

 - Curing
      Examples: Prosciutto, Culatello

 - Marinating
      Examples: Tandoori, Kabab

 - Smoking
     Examples:  Pastrami, Smoked Salmon

FORCEMEAT

     Forcemeat is a ground lean meat which emulsified with fat. This mixture is either be done working on  doing the grinding and/or puréeing. This forcemeat is usually used in charcuterie such as patés, terrines, and gelatines.

There are different types of Forcemeat:

    STRAIGHT
        - Straight is a process of a grinding equal part of a pork
         and its fat with one more ingredient that can be a pork
         as well or a different meat.

     COUNTRY-STYLE
        - Country-Style is a combination of pork and its fat with a
          pork liver.

     GRATIN
        - Gratin has browned protein.

     MOUSSELINE
        - Mousseline has lean cuts of meats and the texture of the
           results comes from the additive of eggs and cream.

PATÈ

     The Patè is a mixture of ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste. The flavour of it can enhance and develop more when it is chilled few days after.

TERRINE

     Terrine is similar to Patè. The difference is the Terrine is a mixture of fish, meat or vegetable. Both of it are served in slices.

RILLETTES

     Rillettes is also a preparation of meats. It is a chopped or a cubed salted pork that cooked slowly until the fat is tender enough to form a paste. 

GELATIN

     Gelatin is a colourless and unflavoured foodstuff. It an be used to make desserts such as cake, ice creams, yougurts and more. There are two different kinds of gelatin; the powdered gelatin, and the sheet gelatin or also knows as the leaf gelatin.

I did an experiment of two types of gelatin; powdered gelatin and gelatin sheet.

a. 1 teaspoon of powdered gelatin and 1/2 cup of water.

b. 1/2 cup of water with the gelatin sheet.

(a.Left; b.Right)

After an Hour : The results

(a.Left; b.Right)

       I am quite nervous about the results because I don't know if it's going to work or not. Both of the results was shown above. "A" and "B" were actually watery but "a" is way more watery than "b". I did put too much water on both of it. The "a" is just like a liquid or more likely just a water. The second one which is "b" is way better than the other because the gelatin sheet worked well.

     One alternative to gelatin is the Agar. Is is much likely a gelatin but it is thicker when it's done.