Guanciale #1

Guanciale is an Italian cured and dried pork jowl.  It is usually an ingredient in a dish but can be sliced and eaten "raw".  I decided this would be the easiest and cheapest practice item to test my curing chamber.  The jowl is an inexpensive cut ($7/lb from a quality butcher) and requires no grinding, mixing, or stuffing.  All you do is mix the curing rub, apply it to the jowl, cure it for a week or longer, and then hang it for up to two months.  Seems easy enough right?


On Friday, March 16, I purchased this beautiful 1.5lb pork jowl from The Butcher & Larder on Milwaukee in Chicago.

The butcher was very helpful.  I have never dealt with that cut of meat before, and I'd read that you need to remove any glands before you begin the cure.  The butcher pointed out a few glands and was happy to remove them for me (before he weighed the meat for purchase too!).  After that experience, I will definitely be back.

Later that night, I was relaxing, planning on starting the cure for the guanciale the next day.  I didn't have any fresh thyme, but the rest of the ingredients are pretty common cabinet staples (kosher salt, sugar, fresh garlic, and peppercorns-I also added 1 tsp of pink curing salt that was recommended by Ruhlman to maintain the pink color and firm texture, but this is optional).  It is important to follow the appropriate ratio of salt to meat to ensure proper curing.  At 9:30pm, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I ran to the local convenience store and bought some fresh thyme.  After my wife laughed at my craziness, I was ready to prepare my jowl for curing.

I mixed all the ingredients as suggested in Charcuterie.

I then placed the jowl in a freezer bag with the cure on top and mixed to distribute the cure evenly over jowl and slid it into the fridge for a one week cure.

A couple of question marks for me remain.  Ruhlman suggests a cure of 4-6 days, but I've read in other places that you should cure the jowl up to a month.  Also, the skin was left on the jowl.  Most cured slab bacon still has the skin on, so I decided to keep it on.  We'll just have to wait and see.