How to Make Heritage Pork Charcuterie with Justin Severino

Justin Severino of Cure and Morcilla in Pittsburgh is a charcuterie master. His grandfather was a butcher, so having a way with meat pretty much runs in his blood. At his restaurants, he cures his own meats to great acclaim; he's been a James Beard Award nominee for the past four years and Food & Wine People's Best New Chef for the Mid-Atlantic region two years in a row.

So, when Severino came to the MUNCHIES kitchen recently to teach us the basics of making charcuterie, we were pretty damn excited, but in his unassuming way, he said he was there just to show us how "to make three chunks of meat out of this one chunk of meat." The first chunk of meat is a pork leg; the three are culatello, fiocco, and blackstrap ham.

Severino told us that his culatello—which comes from a cluster of three muscles from the hind leg of the pig—starts out as a 20-pound piece of meat and is hung for 9 months' time, during which it loses about 30 percent of its weight in water. The meat is then tested to make sure it hasn't become too acidic. Severino says you can do this at home with pH testing strips. "I taught myself how to make charcuterie—no one taught me," Severino told us. "It's just something I was really passionate about."

READ MORE: The Secret to Perfecting Charcuterie Is Camaraderie

Severino says starting with a heritage pig—one that has plenty of fat on it—is the key to great charcuterie. "This is the hind leg from a heritage Berkshire pig. We have a lot of great relationships with pig farmers in our community." Industrially farmed pigs just won't cut it, in Severino's opinion. He said the heritage pigs he buys are typically 225 to 250 pounders: "Factory pigs are only 180 pounds and that pig is bred not to have a lot of fat. It's really hard to make charcuterie out of average pork."

Severino explained that his curing process starts with salt. "Salt extracts moisture, and without moisture, bacteria can't live." Unlike many charcuterie makers, Severino doesn't like to use mold in the curing process because he doesn't like the taste of charcuterie when it's cured in mold.

Severino also wonders why anyone would take "an animal that lived a good life that supports a good person" and then stuff its meat into a chemically processed casing that comes from a factory farm. Instead, Severino uses fat and skin to slow the drying process and paints his meat with lard and rice flour.

Once the meat has been rendered shelf stable, Severino puts it into a refrigerator room—Severino keeps his restaurants' at about 55 degrees—where, he said, it might stay for months.

Moving on to fiocco, Severino told us that, historically, it was made up of bits and pieces of meat that were rejected from the culatello-making process, but Severino makes his fiocco out of the sirloin tip of the pig. "And I might be totally wrong, but who gives a shit, because it's delicious," he adds.

Rose water, pink peppercorns, and cava are added to the fiocco brine to enhance it. Severino then vacuum-seals the meat; the lengthy drying process will take place back home in Pittsburgh.

Severino said he developed his blackstrap ham recipe while working in Virginia on a farm with his wife. He didn't want to just make a traditional country ham, so, utilizing the sirloin of the pig, he came up with a complex flavor profile that includes salt, brown sugar, blackstrap molasses, cayenne, ginger, allspice, coriander, juniper, and rum. It's more Caribbean than Virginian, he concedes.

About the blackstrap ham, Severino says, "I want this piece of meat to be super intense. We end up cold-smoking this with applewood after it hangs for about three months. It's probably one of my favorite cured meats that we make."

Severino's mantra is "do it right." He said, "We want our charcuterie to take as long as possible. We're gonna go back to what charcuterie is and where it came from. My perspective is that charcuterie is where we take this animal and turn it into pieces of meat that nourish our family and community for the future."

But don't expect to be making great charcuterie overnight. "Charcuterie is such a long learning curve. To make this, it takes nine months. So how do I learn? I have to make one a week, or one a month, right? And remember what you did nine months ago. For me, I'm still learning how to make this stuff better. It's ongoing." His advice to novice charcuterie makers is to rely on your gut. "Also, smell, how it feels, how it tastes. But I try to engage my natural instincts—in addition to the science behind it."

Don't think you can do this yourself? Severino begs to disagree: "The best way to make charcuterie is to fuck charcuterie up. Literally. Just like with the best intentions and all the right instincts. Make some really bad charcuterie, document what you did, and then make it better."

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.