Chorizo, garlic and mushroom soup

Easy soup if you have left over chorizo, the kind that comes in a tube and is soft.
I had half a tube leftover.
This was going to be lunch so I did not have a lot of time. Still it was delightful starting at 9am and by 11am it was done.

Ingredients:
Soft chorizo
garlic sliced or crushed
mushrooms
puree tomatoes
chicken stock
paprika
salt and pepper
thyme
oregano
olive oil

I like this chorizo. Comes from Sunset Farms.

Put soup pot on the stove and turn up the heat. Add olive oil. Add chorizo and mix around a bit.
Add garlic slices, mix some more it should sizzle.
Add mushrooms. Mine were frozen leftover mushrooms so they were soggy. That was fine it will be a soup. I chopped them up before adding to pot.
More stirring.
Add chicken stock. Mine was frozen so I just added a bit at a time as it thawed. Once I had enough liquid I just put the rest in the fridge.
Add the herbs. Stir. Should be boiling by now. Turn the heat down.
Let it sit and simmer or turn it off and heat it up later.

Note:
There are no amounts here. I use what I have and I know what we like. If you like more mushrooms add them. Rather use veg. broth that will work. Want a thinner broth add more water or stock.
Prefer a soup that is not spicy, add another kind of sausage.

In the end you will have a delightful soup. Best part is you can add a small can of tomato paste to thicken it and use it as pasta sauce. I put the remainder in containers and freeze them for another day.

This soup is all about using left-overs and items that would normally go bad in fridge and have to be thrown away.

Homemade Flat Pancetta

I have no interest in rolled pancetta. I simply want a product that I can use on pizza and pasta. When you stop thinking about rolling you can easily create a perfect pancetta in about 2 weeks. All of that is just waiting for it to cure.

Porkbelly- This recipe calls for 3 to 5 lbs. But if you have less just measure accordingly.

Pork belly from Merchants.

The Cure Rub

4 garlic cloves, chopped and minced

¼ cup sea salt or kosher salt

2 tablespoons Dominican sugar I used a bit more

4 tablespoons cracked black pepper

4 bay leaves, crumbled

1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

4 or 5 sprigs fresh thyme

Optional, chose 1 or none:

1 teaspoon whole allspice, smashed

1 teaspoon fennel seeds

1 cinnamon stick broken

2 tablespoons juniper berries, smashed

mini food processor

Note: Since this is all an experiment to me, I tried this rub with Tamarind paste added. I found it did not change the flavor but I thought I would try it.

So blend this mix using a mini food processor or a mortar pestle, anything to grind everything together, it will be a crumbly mix but not a paste.

Pork belly comes with skin. It must be removed before you can make pancetta. You can use it for other things.
A really sharp knife works great, leave as much fat as possible. It takes time to do this but it is the only part of the process that is not pleasant.

Rub all over the pork belly.

Place in a plastic bag or a vacuum bag try to get air out. Place in fridge for 5 days turning it a couple of times during that time.

You will know when it is ready to come out of the bag. If you feel it before you start you will notice the fat is soft and so is the meat. Once it has been in the cure it will get firm.

Wash all the cure off but if it doesn't come off it doesn't hurt it. If you can eat it you can leave it on.

I use a bread cooling rack but anything where air can pass all around and place it back in fridge for 5 more days. The pork belly must be exposed to the cold air of the fridge.

Before putting it in the fridge sprinkle with black pepper. I just bought a big container of course ground black pepper, works great.

Once again you will notice when it is done. The meat changes color to dark red like bacon. the fat will be very firm like there is no more water in it. The fridge has sucked all the moisture out of the meat and fat. Now it is pancetta.

You can at this point use it. It will slice very easily. It will be dry and firm. It even smells good.

bag sucker

I have this device that sucks the air out of a bag. That is what I do to store it in the freezer. I also cut it into usable sizes. It also keeps better in fridge if the air is sucked out of the bag.

Note: The reason I do not roll it is because I don't see the point. We use the pancetta for pizza, pasta, this last batch I was able to slice like bacon but it tastes better. So for me the roll gets in the way.
Since this process is so easy and is just a matter of less than 2 weeks, I don't buy bacon anymore I just use this.
Buying pork belly. That is really the major issue with this product. I was buying the frozen porkbelly from BB but it is in small pieces. So I bought a porkbelly from Merchants. I bought it because I wanted to render lard. Aside from the fact that the people that produce it cut off all the fat, the actual pork belly is lovely. I did get some fat for lard but it is gigantic so I cut it is half, stored some in freezer and made two nice big pieces of pancetta.

One more thing. Most recipes call for the curing salt. It as nitrates. Many say that nitrates cause cancer but studies have proved that they don't they are actually in lots of food we eat. I did not use curing salt because it never leaves the fridge. Also I used the flaked salt from Anguilla Sand and Salt, it is nice salt.
Any salt will work and you can use the curing salt.

I scoured the internet for recipes and tips, I was looking for a simple way to make this without a bunch of stuff I don't have.

It is delightful, come over anytime to give it a try.

on the rack