Duck Breasts and Salt

Having grown up with a basement of prosciutto at my grandparents home, the duck breast prosciutto is an exciting proposition.  Its a simple twist on one of my favourite meats that I happily discovered can be accomplished in the comfort of our own homes.  I have not been overly adventurous in what I do with the meat, but I am always happy to sit down to a glass of wine, some cheese and a few slices of prosciutto.

We sourced a few duck breasts from a local butcher. They are smallish, but they seem fresh and the meat had a nice rich colour.  Starting this process, I can start to see  why some of the better quality meats cost so much, when we start to consider the quality of meat, the quantity of salt and other spices, ant the time it takes to properly care for the meat as it dries.

We trimmed up a few duck breasts leaving the skin on for the curing process and started them off in 2 cups of diamond salt.

From there we let them sit for a day packed in salt in the refrigerator where they dried  out a little, firmed up and began to darken in colour. My favourite bits of the prosciutto were always the darkest and driest bits.  Not every ones favourites... but it leaves more for me!

We then did the old wrap and hang in the basement - not ideal conditions but as close as we can get for the time being.  When we wrapped the duck breasts in cheese cloth,  only wrapping with one layer at first. It seemed a little thin, so  on the second one we wrapped with a second layer of cloth...  Its about experimentation so we thought what the heck.

We are hoping to give it a taste shortly.  There is a local shop that sells some of their own duck breast prosciutto - perhaps a taste test will be in order!