Corned Yak!

For the charcuterie challenge this month I made a corned Yak!

Yes, like corned beef only instead of beef I used Yak meat. I'm all about using what I have you know and yes.. I have Yak meat, so Yak it was.

The basic brining challenge for charcutepalooza this month was a chicken or pork, with the advanced challenge being a corned beef. In traditional form I broke rank and made mine Yak meat. As of writing this I have no idea how it was -- but it did smell good when I took it out of the brine and put it into a freezer bag.
:( sad face , sigh..
Yes freezer bag.
I know it's only three short days till the quintessential holiday intimately associated with corned critters of the beef kind. And in my delirium I mistakenly believed my adventurous family would be all about corned yak this year instead of corned beef. Alas.... I was mistaken.
Imagine my dismay as my family responded with sad sighs to my delightful cries that the Yak would be finished brining just in time for St. Patty's Day..so sad.
So tomorrow it's off to the grocery store I go to (gasp) purchase a commercially made "traditional" corned beef to serve for our St. Patty's Day.

Yes -- I have had my balloon deflated. My bubble has burst. I have no desire to photograph my beautiful piece of meat this month. I rinsed it, stuck it in the freezer bag and plunked it in the freezer. At a later date -- not perfectly suited for corned critters I will bring it out and wow them with it. They didn't reject it completely -- just insisted on eating boring old beef for St. Patty's Day. Horrified at the almost sacrilege of not serving beef, they insisted and I didn't want to not "ruin" the holiday meal, so I caved. If only I had known, I might have purchased a brisket a week and a half ago.

Here is how I did it in case you were wondering..

I dissolved 1 cup of kosher salt in 4 quarts of boiling water in a pan on the stove.
I stirred and waited for the salt to completely dissolve and then added all the spices.
I used my regular, usual homemade secret mix of pickling spices (3T.),
12 cloves of garlic, crushed,
and 8 bay leaves.
I also threw in a good sized sprig of fresh rosemary I had knocking around in my fridge and of course a lovely piece of about 3 pounds of Yak meat, all marbled and tasty looking.
Once the brine was cooled, I put everything in a 2 gallon Ziploc style bag inside my Kitchen Aid mixer bowl. (no problem that it won't be able to be used for about 2 weeks since the kitchen aid mixer is now a $300+ paperweight arranged decoratively on my counter top at the moment, we aren't talking about that.. ) and the bowl, bag and meat found a nice cool home in the extra garage fridge for about a week and a half.

Hmmm.. sounds easy doesn't it? -- yep it was! No nitrates, No MSG, no mystery spices.. just my style!

Honestly, I was extremely happy when I found out the challenge was brining because it's something I've never tried. Despite hearing often about other's wonderful brined turkey, and the virtues of brining lovely little chickens and such. I had hoped to be truly ambitious and brine a chicken and a pork product of my choosing, but I simply didn't get around to it. So hopefully after reading all the other posts and getting back my steam I will finally try my hand at brining a bird-like critter too! Oh how I love the change of pace and all the new things I"m learning to do on my own.

***Oh, and a special thanks to my good buddy Laura who on her bi-annual trek to my house the other day gifted me with her presence and the beautiful Charcuterie book that started this whole business of Charcutepalooza! Ah.. such good friends should be treasured .. So now I can charcutepalooza the right way!

Yakkety, Yak, Don't Talk Back!

Wanna see my Yak? I bet you do!

I'm land locked -- planted squarely in the middle of the United States, not a Yak in sight. And yet, somehow I have fifty pounds of Yak meat in my garage. Odd, yes! I recently joined up for the challenge over at Charcutepalooza (curing and smoking meats on a monthly basis). Make your own meat! Well heck yeah, I'm there I'm up for a new challenge and learning some new ways to feed my family healthier foods, ones where I've been in control of the ingredients!

I'm a rule breaker-- I don't play by the rules all the time. The challenge has some rules-- which of course I've already broken. I may not always play by the rules, but I am honest so I'm just putting it right out there... Yak meat is not local. The rules I have thus far broken are as listed:

1. Buy the book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman :
I've already broken that one-- we are completely broke, especially now that I spent all that money on the yak- and I've heard that Amazon is sold out of it. I still hope to acquire it but it may have to wait till my birthday or I can find it some other way.

2. Post about your experiences on the 15th of the month.
Breaking more rules! I missed the month of January-- Duck prosciutto. And... February is bacon--which I'm sad to report I may miss as well because, ahemmm... I couldn't pass on the yak meat. Can you blame me? Well, that and hubby looked at me like I was positively insane when I said I wanted to buy a pork belly on pay day. Thank goodness someone is there to rein me in! I know, he's right--- (shh, don't tell him I said so...) I could post about salt curing cabbage-- sauerkraut! But that's old news I just did that. There I go again, breakin' the rules...

I can’t wait-- I was so excited I had to blog about it-the yak that is. (The kids are getting tired of the yak jokes, happy snoopy dancing, and random high fives around here! - Yeah mom, its sooo cool that you have yak meat, no, I'm sure my friends don't wanna see it.

Let the rolling of eyes ensue.

3. “Let’s agree to use humanely raised meat, sourced as close to home as possible”:

You got me again! Yaks aren't native to Colorado nor are they farmed in CO to my knowledge. In fairness while Yak are not local to me, I do think I should get points for the way I got the meat. Its part of a sponsorship program for a local food charity that provides food to thousands of Coloradans every year. I got it for a great price as a way of raising funds for the charity. So while the meat isn't locally produced (It's from Canada- and I’m not!), it is benefiting the local community. And as to how humanely it was raised I can only imagine that yak's aren't farmed like cattle raised in tiny pens, and all hopped up on hormones to make them bigger, and antibiotics to keep them from getting sick despite their terrible living conditions. I don't know this for a fact -- because I'm certain that the person responsible for running this massive charity has more important work to do than be interrogated about the source of the meat. So that said-- I'm breakin' the rules but I'm ok with it, and there is my rationale.

Yep, I’m breakin’ rules right and left, but... I think I should get extra points because -- how cool is it to have Yak meat, I mean it just sounds fun to say. Yak Meat, Yak, Yak Yak, Yak Steaks, Yak Roasts, Canned Yak, Yak Jerky, Corned Yak?(after all St. Patty's day is coming!)

Do I HAVE to take a picture of the yak meat with my IPOD, Mom?

Poor dears they should be used to it by now....

The B girl affectionately says I have OCD, (Obsessive Canning Disorder) that’s me! I have fifty pounds of Yak meat in my garage. Now how many folks can say that! I'm a trend setter for sure! And the sheer rarity of it-- Yak Meat! Can you tell I'm excited? Did I ever tell you I'm one of those people who- when I do something I get tunnel vision and think of only one thing to the exclusion of most other things. You could say I'm prone to doing things obsessively. Oh and that I tend towards doing things in excess. (200 pounds of apples, 20 gallons of chokecherries, 6 kids, over 400 jars of home canned jars in our basement, hundreds of houseplants, "farming the back forty"-as my BIL affectionately refers to my garden – we live on a suburban lot, um..50 pounds of yak meat in my garage) yes excessiveness and me -- we are good buddies. And this yak -- he will be well loved! I have 3-4 days to figure out what to do with him or her while he/she thaws.

Got any ideas? I'd love to hear them!

Humming to self..”Yakkity Yak, Don’t talk back!”..hmm..wonder if they have that on itunes?..gotta run! I have much googling to do. Stay tuned and see what adventures I have with my Yak. I'll post back.