Homemade Duck Prosciutto (Air Dry-Cured Duck Breast): Perfect Way of Game Meat Preserving

Homemade Duck Prosciutto Recipe

Prosciutto is known world wide as Italian dry-cured ham. Etymology of prosciutto derived from Latin word pro or before and  exsuctus or drained out the moistures. Prosciutto  usually served uncooked or raw with greens leaves  salad and vinegar or lemon juice dressing. Beside that, prosciutto can be served as sandwich filling, rolled in the veggies and roasted and many more. Italian ham prosciutto in Indonesian is kinda damn pricey, it cost me about 10 USD for only 100 grams, fivefold than regular ham.

Recipe Duck Breast Prosciutto

Duck prostiutto is popular among the hunters because it can be made of lean cut of dark meat poultry like duck, goose or even pigeon instead of regular pig or wild boar ham. But actually the prosciutto mostly made of gamey bird breast. Properly dry cured method of prosciutto can save the good amount of hunting harvest. Than tey can enjoyed  for a long day since it can last for months or even years. Some would love to inocculate a good white mould in the exposed meat to make it last longer. To mantain the red meat color and prevent spoiling and poisoning from botulist, prosciutto cured with nitrites like salt peter (sendawa) or potassium nitrid. The nitride oxide  binded and reacted with the remaining myoglobin in the flesh and make a red pigmentation. This process get even better when the water is drained out from the flesh.

Duck Presciutto: look at that georgeos ruby red cured meat!

To make duck breast prosciutto, you must have the duck breast first. Make sure you deboned the duck breast properly and cleaned it from any silver skin or it won’t be well cured. The duck breast then cleaned, salted and cured with good seasoning for about 2-3 days, depend on your duck breast size. During this time the duck breast is gently pressed to drain all the blood that remains  in the meat.  After the curing process, the duck breast is carefully washed in running water,  patted dry and hung in a dark, good-ventilated environment. The  humidity and temperature of the inviroment is the key success of making a good quality of duck prosciutto. The best enviroment for making cured meat is cold climate with low humidity. The duck prosciutto  is then left until dry and loosen  30 percent of it’s weight. When you lived in a tropical country with high temperature and humidity, don’t worry about it, as long as you can set your refrigerator in “dry mode” you can made your own dry cured meat or prosciutto.

Ingredient:

Homemade duck prosciutto recipe:

• 1 duck breast (you can use goose or pigeon too)
• 1/2 tbsp seasalt
• 1/2 tbsp freshly grounded black peppercorn
• a pinch of rosemarry
• 1/4 tsp juniper berry, coarsly grounder
• a pinch of mix italian herbs
• a pinch of salt peter/ pottasium nitride (you can either use pink salt)

Instruction :

How to make homemade duck prosciutto:

• Clean and pat dry the fresh deboned duck breast

Fresh duck breast: ready to cure

• Mix all ingredient and rub it evenly, put it in a tupperware container
• Let it cured for about 2-3 days, flip twice a day and discard any liquid that dripped off.

Curing the duck breast: look at the liquid that dipped off from the flesh!

• Gently press the cured duck breast  and discard the liquid before you flip it over
• When the curing process is done, your duck breast should be slightly flatened and firm to touch

Cured duck breast, ready to hung dry

• Washed it gently in running cold water to dissolved the remaining curing salt
• Pat it dry with clean paper towel
• Rolled with a gently  press to remove any air in the duck breast, tide it thightly with butcher  twines*optional

Roll the duck breast just like you’ve made pancetta!

• Rub it with a little of seasalt*optional
• Wrap it with clean cheesecloth
• Measure and note the weight of your cured duck breast
• Hang it in your refrigerator (make sure you set it in dry mode)

Presciutto: hang to dry cured

• Let it dry- cured for about 2 weeks up to 2 months
• Make sure you watch the weight loss
• Your duck presciutto is ready when it losen 30 percents of it’s weight.
• You can either serve it raw on salad or cook it in your pasta, your choise…..

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