Icarus's blog: "Hurts to watch."

*yawns*
Is been a while since we talked about food.
Let's talk about pig.

Let's talk about the spensive cerrano ham I ordered for lots of moneys

And I will probably order more.

It came in a 3lb case thin thin thin cut and cryovacced.

It's good plain
its good on leafy salad
its good fried on toad in the hole.
its good in fried rice

Salt and paprika cured.

Made me a believer in spanish paprika, I picked up a tin just to remind me of the flavor between packs.

Here's some of my favorite things:

Take some sheets, cube them into about 1/2 inch squares and add them to a bowl of cold couscous (with cranberries) and a handful of uncooked soybeans.
Tablespoon of balsalmic/olive oil/horseradish.
cracked pepper and sea salt to serve

Toad in the hole
Take some day old bread, cut a hole, drop an egg start frying
one side sets,flip it set it

add a disk of fried cerrano.

and it starts

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
specialty food
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
too expensive
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

...
SHUT UP!

Take some country ham, slice it thin thin THIN thin thin.
Any unprocessed dry cured ham (unsmoked)

and give it a smoothe layer of spanish paprika and salt.
let it cure on the surfaces for at least a day

Come on people
Why'd you think I bought it?
To crack the flavors.

Use the same application for your bacon.

It might be a very plush breed of pig, a very specific cure time with a specific spice mixture

but here's the flavor profile

cured ham/bacon (IE Prosciutto)
salt
region specific paprika

Now, cerrano is NOT as salty as other cured meats. Its not as smoky either.
The most remarkable quality about the whole thing?

It's cured and thin like crystalline sheets of butter flavored as bacon.

It just melts.
I know, I rhapsodized already, I probably already dropped the couscous salad thing

but heres the rub

pig loves paprika.

I've put it on my pork, my ham, and my bacon now.

It is the missing link.
My new favorite porcine spice.

Second is rosemary.

My plan now is a red chile, paprika, salt, brown sugar rub.

Big emphasis on paprika.

I used it on the remainder of my cubed pork butt, julianed onions, garlic braised and served on spinach greens, olives and

then I made some super thin croutons and threw them into the sauce the braise had made.

oho
damn it that was good.

That's right.
You can use braising liquids to make flavored croutons.
Just make sure you use rock hard bagguette and cut it as narrow as you can
it'll shatter into GIANT bread crumbs mostly.
That's just fine.

Even gave me an idea for flavored panko or baked pasta toppingses.

Man I really want some ceranno after talking about it...

If I had a sandwich slicer... or an electric knife I could probably cut my own ham nearly as thin as this cerrano.
...
or a V slicer?
Probably wouldn't work.
... unless it was chilled.