Forget the gingerbread house. Make a meaty charcuterie chalet instead
It looks just like Hansel and Gretel’s dream house: a European chalet with a perfectly pitched shingled roof, fire logs stacked outside and decorated evergreens framing the fairy-tale picture.
But wait! This house isn’t made of gumdrops and cookies. Look closely and you’ll see the roof shingles are salami. The evergreens are fashioned from mini mozzarella balls, olives and grape tomatoes. Those fire logs are actually mozzarella sticks wrapped in prosciutto.
Welcome to the world of charcuterie chalets. Images of these charming houses are trending on Instagram as more families are ditching the cookies and sweets to build a Candyland for carnivores with meats, cheeses, veggies, crackers and pretzel logs.
We turned to Evan Inada, whose friends and co-workers know him as “The Salami Guy.” He’s charcuterie/partnerships director for Columbus Craft Meats, a 103-year old company founded by Italian immigrants in San Francisco. Now owned by Hormel Foods, the company is based in Hayward.
Inada didn’t start this meat hut trend, but he definitely jumped in with both feet.
“I won’t take credit for it, because I must’ve gotten about 60 emails from random strangers, coworkers, and all my family and friends, showing me charcuterie chalets on Instagram and saying, ‘ Hey, where’s yours?’ ” he said.
He accepted the challenge and set to work building a whole village with a trio of salumi, cheese and cracker houses; three cheese and cherry tomato Christmas trees; a prosciutto woodshed; mozzarella ball snowmen and a red bell pepper and cheese sled.
So who’s making these things?
“All ages, but I think (many are) millennials and the generations that are really tied to social media,” he said. “I think this is a perfect outlet for them, because they are at home and away from their friends, and they want to have something they can maybe do online together through a Zoom.”
Inada’s creation looked so over-the-top, nerd-level cool that we had to find out how to build our own. Now we’ve broken it down for you into three steps — plus an easy Plan B, if you’re not feeling that ambitious — in case you’re looking for something fun to do during the lull between holidays.
1. Choose a sturdy board or tray
There are no rules about size or dimensions, Inada said, and you don’t have to go crazy and create a whole village. But it’s a good idea to make sure that the board you use fits into the refrigerator, in case you don’t eat your whole chalet in one sitting. A tray or board with a bit of an edge will protect your creation when you’re transporting it in and out of the fridge. Above all, make
sure the board is level, so your chalet has a good base.
2. Choose your materials
You’ l l need me at s, cheeses, veggies and crackers for each chalet.
“I always start with at least three, four varieties of salamis, half a pound to a pound each,” Inada said. “You don’t want to skimp when you’re building roof tiles, for example. You really want to be able to cover
that whole area. And then cheese-wise, I would go the same way — three or four of your favorite cheeses, about half a pound of each.”
For a snow scene, use salamis with white, bloomy rinds. Grate some Parmesan to pile up for snowdrifts. Use mini mozzarella balls if you want to make trees and snow people.
The Columbus Craft Meats website, www.columbuscraftmeats.com, suggests using sturdy crackers as a base. But as wild as it
sounds, Inada’s best hack is a store-bought gingerbread house kit.
“You could still eat the whole thing,” he said. “Salami pairs great with gingerbread. I whipped mascarpone with some honey and shaved cacao. It’s basically the glue to hold everything on top of the gingerbread house frame. It’s easier than holding crackers together and waiting for it to stay in place.”
To build trees, use styrofoam cones with toothpicks
to hold the olives, mozzarella balls and grape tomatoes in place.
3. Start building
Give yourself an hour or more to assemble your chalet(s) and don’t be afraid to get creative. Love Americana? Pretzel logs will achieve an Abe Lincoln logcabin look. Tiki fan? Add special touches like ham and pineapple, maybe some shredded string cheese for snow people in grass skirts.
A surf shack, a palapa on a
Mexican beach, it’s all good. “I did a Winnebago with Santa fishing on the lake,” Inada says, “because he’s got to shelter in place, too.”
Plan B
Too busy to build a whole village? Set out a charcuterie tray — Columbus Craft Meats has some ideas on where to get that, of course — but give it a fun centerpiece, a caprese tree, perhaps, or one made of olives, with a mozzarella ball snowman or two.