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great flavor and body. At the restaurant, we confit it (follow the instructions for confiting the pig’s ears, after they’ve been cured), then slice it in half-inch strips and fry them as cracklings to garnish salads.

LAMB BRESAOLA

Perhaps the easiest things to dry-cure at home are whole muscles. Bresaola typically refers to beef loin that’s been dry-cured, but I love to dry-cure lamb. You can use either a boneless cut from the leg or a lamb loin. It results in a beautiful intensely lamby flavor. Serve it shaved paper thin with crusty bread, some arugula, and olive oil.

Makes 1½ pounds

2 pounds lamb loin or leg

2 tablespoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons sugar

½ teaspoon pink salt

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

1 teaspoon chopped fresh lavender

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Rinse the lamb and pat dry. Transfer to a 2-gallon resealable plastic bag.

Mix the kosher salt, sugar, pink salt, rosemary, lavender, and black pepper. Coat the lamb all over with the mixture. Close the bag and refrigerate for 7 to 10 days, flipping once a day.

Remove the lamb from the bag, rinse thoroughly, and pat dry. Weigh the cured lamb and record the weight. Hang the lamb in a cool dark place (ideally 55°F at 60 percent humidity) for 3 to 4 weeks.

Weigh the lamb. The lamb should have lost 30 percent of its weight. (If it hasn’t, let it hang until it does, testing every few days.) Wrap well in plastic and refrigerate until ready to use. It will keep this way for up to a month.

Fresh Sausages

Fresh sausage and pasta my two favorite items to make. They’re therapeutic. So many things you do in a restaurant you rush through; you’ve got so much going on you can’t take the time you need to really appreciate what you’re doing. You can’t do that with sausage; you have to take your time. It’s not as hard as you may think, especially if you stay organized. Good planning, good preparation, and taking your time make sausage making fun.

I love the technical aspect of it. Sausage making isn’t difficult, but a few parts of the process require special attention. Seasoning a day ahead I think is absolutely essential, in both whole muscles and in diced meat and fat that will be ground; it deepens the flavor and gives the finished sausage a more pleasing texture. Temperature also affects texture. The meat and the fat must always be kept very cold (this can’t be overstated). And finally, you’ve got to achieve the correct ratio of fat to meat to end up with juicy—not dry—sausages.

Sausage making is the greatest skill I learned from Carl Quagliata, legendary Cleveland restaurateur and one of my mentors. Carl’s father was a butcher here, and Carl is master of everything ground and stuffed.

I use fresh sausage in many ways at home and on my menus. When I go to a restaurant I’m always more impressed with a grilled sausage than with a grilled piece of beef tenderloin with a fancy sauce. Loose sausage is the easiest way to put your homemade versions to use; I stuff peppers with it and use it crumbled and cooked as the main flavoring agent in a sauce for scallops (it makes a great sauce for all shellfish). If you stuff it into casing for links, you can serve it in a sandwich, on its own with a simple sauce, or as a starting course, with a little salad. A lamb sausage, for example, is great with a dollop of Greek yogurt and a pile of shaved fennel and bell peppers with mint and a lemon vinaigrette.

Here are three different sausages, made from three different meats, with three different flavor profiles: pork (sweet and garlicky), veal (spicy with Italian seasoning), and lamb (spicy in the style of merguez).

PORK SAUSAGE

Makes 2 pounds, or about 8 6-inch links; serves 6 to 8

1½ pounds pork shoulder, diced

½ pound pork fatback, diced

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

3 garlic cloves, minced

1½ teaspoons fennel seeds, toasted (see Symon Says)

4 feet of hog casings (optional), soaked in water for at least 30 minutes and then flushed with water

Combine the meat, fatback,