Broadway Butcher Shop helps me assemble my first charcuterie plate

Stuart Aldridge cannot stop smiling. On a Friday afternoon, as customers peer into the illuminated cases at the Broadway Butcher Shop, where Aldridge has been owner-operator for a little more than a year, he is an enthusiastic blur of energy. I am here to ask him about charcuterie: cured meats, sausages, terrines and pâtés. And there seems to be no topic that could bring him greater joy.

I’m hoping that Aldridge can teach me how to assemble a party-appropriate charcuterie. I want a platter that will give the illusion of sophistication without causing me to go broke.

Aldridge nods. He knows exactly what to do: “Let’s start with the cocktail weenies!”

I am expecting to see those teeny-tiny sausages that you stick toothpicks into, but Aldridge gestures to some plump links ($8.50 a pound) labeled “Mint Julep Cocktail Weenies” and “Old Fashioned Cocktail Weenies.”

“These are really good roasted and sliced thin,” he says. “I’ve worked at some places that do some really good cocktails, so it was just taking that knowledge and applying it in a different way. There’s fresh mint, bourbon and a little simple syrup in a mint julep, and we use the same ingredients. We use dehydrated mint because the mint flavor lasts longer once you’ve steamed and roasted them off. For a meat and cheese tray, you can have those sliced and sitting out on a tray for 30 or 45 minutes and they’ll be room temperature, but they’ll still taste, you know, like a mint-julep cocktail.”

Sausages that imitate booze sounds either brilliant or disastrous, I think, but I take Aldridge up on it. Two weenies for me, I say. He nods, and we head over to the cured meats.

This case is filled with promising hunks: a long, rectangular mass of Italian-imported Recla Speck Alto Adige ham ($16 a pound); heavy-looking loaves of Molinari salami, Molinari Finocchiona and Citterio sopressata; 18-month-aged Spanish jamón serrano ($29 a pound) sitting proudly in the back. Aldridge has already made up his mind that my charcuterie tray should involve, at a minimum, the speck ham and the serrano ham, and he begins slicing off tastes.

“The speck is smoked prosciutto,” Aldridge tells me. “It’s very Northern Italian. We get this from the upper part of the [pig] thigh. It’s probably the single best-selling item we have in the case.”

Aldridge shaves off a paper-thin slice that’s marbled like a $1,000 countertop. The meat looks almost too artful to eat, but of course I do. After the wood-oven smokiness melts away, I taste a sweetness that reminds me of country honey and rosemary.

“Jamón serrano is Spanish-style prosciutto,” Aldridge says. “I equate the taste to almost an attic-y flavor because you can taste where it was hung and where it aged. It’s definitely on the drier side. Some people like to wrap things in prosciutto, for cooking, but that’s not what this is for.” He’s right. This meat’s dry texture and woody flavor make it easy for me to imagine myself standing in a shop in some hilly, tree-lined Spanish town.

To finish my charcuterie project, Aldridge talks about his house-made country pâté ($15 a pound). It is equal parts pork shoulder and liver, he tells me, steamed off slowly and allowed to settle overnight.

“We sell the bejesus out of it,” Aldridge says with a grin. “Charcuterie is kind of all-encompassing, a labor of using scraps to make something awesome. We use the trimmings from our pork shoulders and chops — those go in the pâté. We utilize those products to make something beautiful and clean and rich. And in the colder months, something rich is always good. I look at it like this: To me, charcuterie is just utilizing the product to its full potential to make someone happy.”

Sold.

At home, I prepare the cocktail weenies according to Aldridge’s instructions — oven-roasted at 375 degrees for 12 minutes — and slice them thinly. I try his Old Fashioned sausage first, and I’m rewarded with something aromatic and juicy and packed with flavor. A hint of bourbon, lots of sweet cherry and a little citrus tart zing around in my mouth. The Mint Julep weenie is just as hearty and promising, and the mint does indeed come through loud and clear. My skepticism is gone. I am impressed.

The pâté is thick and coarse, and I realize that I have forgotten to pick up some crusty bread. I have to settle for unearthing an old box of water crackers, but no matter. Aldridge’s recipe is properly fatty and highly filling, the pork salted to perfection. I understand why he frequently sells out of it.

Aldridge has chosen well for me — the cocktail weenies, the speck and the serrano, the pâté. I should probably have listened to him when he recommended Dijon mustard, too, or the cornichons from his small dry-goods section. In fact, I think, as I spread more of the pâté on another cracker, I should probably just let Aldridge run all my parties. I’d be so popular.

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