In the Charcuterie: Making Sausage, Salumi, Pates, Roasts, Confits, and Other Meaty Goods - Tapa dura

"Every now and then, a book comes along that you look at and wish you had written yourself. This is a book full of a fantastic collection of meat-based recipes showing technique and understanding. The photography is beautiful and the content is well-written and easy to understand. This really is a must have for all chefs, professional or not, to have on their shelf. A cracking book!" (Tom Kerridge)

"If you love chopping, grinding, salting, stuffing, and curing―or anything deliciously handmade―then this is the book for you! Taylor and Toponia show you how to make a wide array of meaty goods, from simple gingery duck legs to a hunter-style sausage." (April Broomfield, author of A Girl and Her Pig)

"In the Charcuterie is nothing less than a thorough overview of our growing infatuation with good meat ... there’s lots of good information on how to cook meat. Want to roast a chicken? It’s here. Pancetta-wrapped pork tenderloin? That looks good. And there’s big cuts that are perfect for cool weather ... But where the book really shines are on the kinds of quick-cooked charcuterie items that are easily approachable by any reasonably ambitious home cook. Pâtés, terrines, confits and meat pickles." (LA Times)

"A veritable meat-lover's bible" (Time Out New York)

'A cracking book!' Tom Kerridge

The tradition of preserving meats is one of the oldest of all the food arts. Yet, most people simply associate charcuterie with a delicious platter of meats at a restaurant.

But real charcuterie goes well beyond that. At its most basic level it is the technique of seasoning, processing, and preserving meat, but the charcutier’s bounty ranges from sausages and hams to stuffed game birds and elaborate roasts. Charcuterie can be a succulent confit duck leg on a bed of crisp greens, a rich and meaty stew, or a picnic blanket laden with pâtés, pickled vegetables and slices of fragrant salami.

With over 125 recipes and fully illustrated instructions for making brined, smoked, cured, skewered, braised, rolled, tied, and stuffed meats, plus a primer on whole-animal butchery, this definitive cookbook explains professional techniques that will enable home cooks to experience restaurant-quality meat every day and take their meat cooking to the next level.

Start with a whole hog middle, stuff it with herbs and spices, then roll it, tie it, and roast it for a ridiculously succulent take on porchetta. Or brandy your own prunes to stuff a decadent duck terrine. If it’s sausage you crave, grind, case, link, loop and smoke your own kolbász. This book will help you fill your larder with jars of suet and drippings, tubs of flavoured butter and pots of confit. It will show you how to turn a haunch of pork into creamy lard, a heady broth or a smoked ham, and how to whip up an elegant pâté, a hearty pot of soup, or a mess of savoury scones.

With its impeccably tested recipes, this instructive and inspiring tome is destined to become the go-to reference on charcuterie – a treasure for anyone fascinated by the art of cooking with and preserving meat and an indispensable classic for years to come.