Smoked Cured and Pickled – Page 6

Hinckley’s Fancy Meats

I’ve been hearing about Chef Matt Hinckley and his cured culinary creations for carnivores for a while now. After focusing on mail-order charcuterie sales, he recently opened Hinckley’s Fancy Meats (https://www.hinckleymeats.com/), a storefront inside Orlando’s East End Market, a small but great foodie destination in the hip-but-family-friendly Audubon Park neighborhood. You can buy his meat masterpieces by the pound there — think bacon, sausages, pastrami, mojo-marinated pork, tasso ham, porchetta (slow-cooked, boneless pork roast), and rustic pâtés, terrines, and rillettes, all on display in a nice glass deli case. But now, you can also order sandwiches featuring that marvelous multiude of meats. If that’s not fancy, I don’t know what is!

(By the way, if you aren’t sure of the differences between pâtés, terrines, and rillettes, as I originally wasn’t, or if you’ve never even tried them, Food Republic has a very helpful guide.)

Last month, I met a group from the Orlando Foodie Forum on Facebook for lunch at the East End Market, and many of us visited Hinckley’s for the first time. I studied the menu in advance, as I always do, but still couldn’t decide, so I ordered two sandwiches. Because I meant to share and let my new foodie friends sample the goods — yeah, that’s the ticket! (Don’t worry, Constant Readers — I got two meals out of them.)

I ordered the porchetta sandwich, which is hard to find anywhere in Florida, as well as Chef Hinckley’s take on the banh mi, those French-inspired Vietnamese sandwiches I love so much.

The porchetta sandwich ($14) includes salsa piccante, broccoli rabe (one of my favorite vegetables, especially cooked with sausage or other rich, salty meats), and roasted peppers on a crusty ciabatta roll. I would have preferred a softer roll, but it was still very tasty, with a lot going on in the sandwich.

The porchetta wasn’t quite as juicy as I was expecting, but it was still very flavorful and tender. All the ingredients worked very well together.

But even though the porchetta sandwich was good, the banh mi (also $14) was GREAT. Banh mi sandwiches are usually served on a French baguette and may be spread with some combination of butter, mayo, or pate, with a variety of pork-based cold cuts, grilled beef or chicken, or other kinds of meat, topped with pickled vegetables (usually cucumber, carrot, and daikon radish), fresh cilantro, and fresh jalapeños or other hot peppers. Hinckley’s Fancy version of the banh mi normally features country pâté and duck liver pâté with pickled carrot, daikon radish, and hot peppers and cilantro on the toasty grilled baguette.

But on the day I went, Hinckley’s offered a special kind of thick-sliced, coarse Cajun terrine of pork, confit duck gizzard and hearts, tasso ham, and smoked turkey sausage as an alternative to put in the banh mi. (I sent them a Facebook message to verify all of this deliciousness, to make sure I got it right.) Here’s a better photo from Hinckley’s Instagram account. How could I refuse, with all the recognizable chunks of different meats to sample? It was AWESOME.

A new friend was magnanimous enough to order this charcuterie board ($22) for the group to share. It came with sliced porchetta di testa (boneless pig head), thick and rich chicken liver pâté (the jar on the right), and chilled spuma di lardo (the jar on top), which is creamy whipped pork fat, sea salt, and honey. It also included toasted baguette rounds to spread the spreads on, and a Dijon-style mustard. So fancy for lunch on a workday! I’d love to see Lunchables (which are essentially charcuterie boards for children) create a culinary masterpiece like this.

We are lucky to have some incredible sandwich shops in Orlando, most of which only opened within the last two years. I’ve already reviewed several of my favorites — LaSpada’s, Stasio’s, Manzano’s — and that’s on top of all the places that serve banh mi sandwiches. A review of another big sandwich joint, maybe the biggest and best of them all is coming, I promise. But Hinckley’s Fancy Meats is doing things nobody else is, curing its own meats and reinventing the classics with creative new twists. It’s a great addition to our local sandwich scene, and all carnivores should check it out.

Stasio’s Italian Deli & Market: Opening Day review!

Well, after tracking its progress for what seems like a year, Orlando’s first Italian deli and market, Stasio’s, finally opened for business today, as a soft opening. (https://www.facebook.com/Stasios-Italian-deli-194418224503776/) I love Italian delis and markets — Mazzaro’s Italian Market in St. Petersburg is one of my favorite destinations in all of Florida (and I don’t just mean restaurants), and DeLaurenti inside Pike Place Market in Seattle and Eataly in Chicago are two of the coolest places I’ve ever been. Needless to say, I had to make a pilgrimage to Stasio’s on its opening day, and I’m so glad I did, because they are filling a void in Orlando’s burgeoning culinary scene. The family that owns Stasio’s also founded the venerable and much-missed Louie and Maria’s Italian restaurant, as well as the Pizzeria Valdiano location in Waterford Lakes, so they aren’t new to Orlando or to delicious Italian food.

My co-worker and I arrived around 1 PM, and I was glad to see the place busy and bustling. We immediately got in line to order sandwiches at the deli counter, where we were presented with a laminated menu. (The menu is not easy to find online, but Stasio’s has photos of it on their Facebook page going back to 2020, so the prices won’t be accurate. Page 1 | Page 2)

For me, choosing the Stasio sandwich was an easy choice: prosciutto, hot capicola, mild soppressata, fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers, red onion, and white balsamic vinaigrette on a sub roll, for $11. That’s my idea of a good time! My vegetarian co-worker ordered the Melenzani sandwich, with eggplant, spinach, roasted red peppers, marinated tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and balsamic reduction, which only came as a panini, for $11. (Editor’s note: she e-mailed and said it came on a sub roll after all, despite the menu saying it would be a panini.)

They were slammed on their first day, so it gave us time to browse around. At the deli, I ordered some sliced Italian beef brisket and porchetta, both made in-house, while my co-worker picked up some beautiful fresh sfogliatelle (flaky, shell-shaped pastries) from their bakery counter. They had plenty of other meats and cheeses, huge square slices of pizza ($4.95 for a gigantic slice), deli salads and vegetables, including broccoli rabe, multicolored roasted peppers, stuffed cherry peppers, and sundried tomatoes glistening in oil, marinated imported anchovies that looked like actual silvery fish and not the salty brown fillets that everyone except me dreads on their pizza, and prepared Italian meatballs and sausage. Shelf-stable groceries included all kinds of fancy pasta you will NOT find at Publix, and plenty of cans, jars, and bottles of delicious Italian delicacies.

Stasio’s does not have tables, but the store is lined with a long counter for people to enjoy their food while sitting on stools. We brought ours back to work, though. They also have an espresso counter near the cash registers at the front, and it looks like you can also order wine by the glass there, but I could be wrong. (Don’t drink, wasn’t paying that close attention.)

Upon returning to work, I couldn’t be more pleased to say how great the sub was. The melange of meats worked together in perfect harmony with the fresh “mutsadell” (I promise I’ll never do that again), and roasted red peppers are a welcome addition to almost any sandwich. I’m sure someone is wondering how the sub roll was, and I’m happy to report it was the perfect amount of chewy with an exterior that wasn’t too crusty — just how I like them. The rolls were also baked in-house, of course. I would have liked more toppings on the sub — lettuce, tomato, maybe some of the long hot peppers they advertised on other sandwiches — but ordering was a bit of sensory overload today, and I didn’t even ask. Next time!

Here’s a much better photo of a different Stasio sandwich from a later visit:

I also impulse-bought a Manhattan Special espresso soda in a glass bottle, because even though I’m not much of a coffee drinker, I sure love trying new and interesting soda flavors. It was good, although I think a cappuccino/latte version with some creaminess would have been much better. All they had were regular and diet version of the espresso soda, though.

Well, I am very happy Stasio’s is finally open, and so close to my work! I’ll definitely add it to my regular restaurant rotation, and I suggest my dozens of loyal readers (bakers’ dozens?) give it a try at your earliest convenience. I wish them the best and welcome them to the neighborhood!

ADDENDUM: My co-worker gave me one of her shell-shaped sfogliatelle pastries, and it was delicious. The crispy outer dough is very flaky and fragile, able to be peeled apart in thin, spiral-like layers. The inside is kind of like a thick, lightly-sweetened cheese (not creamy or runny at all, more like the filling of a cheese danish but not nearly as sweet), speckled with tiny, chewy bits of candied lemon for a subtle fresh citrus taste and scent.

ADDENDUM 2: If you go on a weekday afternoon, Stasio’s will often have huge rectangular slices of Sicilian-style pizza, which I just love. I highly recommend seeking one of these big baddies out.