Spanish · Starter
Lomo Embuchado
- Advanced
- 45 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with wood-smoke running underneath, acid holding everything up to the light, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg pork loin, in one piece, silverskin removed
- 41 g fine salt, 2.75 percent of the meat
- 3.7 g curing salt number 2, 0.25 percent of the meat, weighed on a scale reading to 0.01 g
- 15 g sweet pimentón de la Vera
- 5 g hot pimentón
- 6 g dried oregano
- 4 g ground black pepper
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 30 ml dry white wine
- 1 beef middle casing, 60 mm, soaked and flushed
The skills inside
Brining & curingResting meat & slicing against the grain
The words inside
Lomo EmbuchadoCasings, Molds & the Curing Chamber
Allergen screen
Found: alcohol
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Weigh the loin and write the number on a label; every decision from here is a percentage of it, and the curing salt is weighed on a scale that reads to 0.01 g, not a kitchen scale. Rub the salt and curing salt over every surface, seal it in a bag, and cure it at 3C (37F) for 10 days, turning it daily.
- Rinse the loin, dry it, and paste it all over with the pimentón, oregano, pepper, garlic and wine. Leave it another 24 hours in the fridge. 600 min
- Slide the loin into the soaked casing, press the air out from one end, tie it at 4 cm intervals with a loop to hang by, and prick any bubbles you can still see.
- Hang it in a purpose built curing chamber, or a fridge fitted with a temperature controller and a humidifier, at 12C to 15C (54F to 59F) and 75 percent to 80 percent humidity until it has lost 35 percent of the weight on the label, 8 weeks to 12 weeks, weighing it once a week. A soft white bloom is normal and wipes off with a cloth dipped in vinegar; black, green or fuzzy growth, an ammoniacal or sour smell, or a soft spongy patch means the loin goes in the bin. If the loss stalls short of 35 percent, the humidity is too high.
- Slice it as thin as a coin across the grain and let the slices sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before eating, so the fat softens and releases its smell. 10 min
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Resting meat & slicing against the grain 56 recipes
- It came off the heat BEFORE the target temperature, measured with a probe rather than by time, because carryover keeps driving the inside up after it is out.
- The probe went into the coldest likely part rather than the easiest one to reach: the reading that matters is the lowest one, not the first one.
- Rested for a time matched to its size, somewhere warm, and not cut into partway through to see how it is doing.
- The board is nearly dry when it is finally cut. A spreading pool means it was cut too early, and that liquid should have stayed inside.
- The grain was found and the knife went ACROSS it, so the fibres are cut short, and the blade was sharp enough that the slices hold together rather than tearing.
Where it goes wrong It was cut straight off the heat, usually because everything else was ready. The muscle is still contracted and the juice still driven to the centre, so it runs out onto the board; the meat is drier than it ever needed to be, and the flavour that left it is sitting in a puddle under the knife.
Brining & curing 88 recipes
- Fully committed either way: in a wet brine nothing floats clear of the liquid, and in a dry cure every face carries salt, seams and cavities included.
- The time was measured against the weight and the thickness rather than the recipe’s convenience, and it stayed cold for all of it.
- The change is visible and can be felt: the flesh is firmer than raw and its colour has deepened or gone more translucent, rather than still being slack and pale.
- Rinsed and dried as the recipe asks, and anything meant to crisp afterwards has a surface dry and tacky to the touch before it goes near heat.
- Cooked and tasted, it is seasoned right through to the centre rather than merely salty at the surface, and not so salty that the dish cannot be eaten.
Where it goes wrong It sat in the brine well past its time because a few extra hours seemed harmless; the surface is over-salted and the texture has gone from firm to spongy and wet, and no cooking takes salt back out.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Zinfandel (old-vine)
- Also Right
- Shiraz or Malbec
- From the Taps
- Smoked porter
- Zero-Proof
- Cherry cola, honestly
Barbecue’s sweet-smoke wants jammy fruit that shakes hands with the sauce; dry austere reds argue with sugar and lose.
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