Rocky Harvey is a real character, and he wants to teach you to make your own meats. Photo: Supplied.
Roll up your sleeves and sharpen your knives: Rocky Harvey, the hilarious character behind Jindabyne’s Rockstock Deli, is opening the doors of Rockstock Deli for a new series of meat masterclasses.
In his usual tongue-in-cheek style, Rocky is calling the classes The Salami Mafia, inspired by the Europeans who taught him the art of sausages and air-dried meats, and he says that there will be a lot of laughs as well as some serious skills to be learnt by participants.
“These aren’t demos; you’ll be learning the real deal, laughing a lot and leaving with skills that’ll ruin supermarket smallgoods for you forever,” laughs Rocky.
“We break it down to real skills. The way the Italians do it. They make the mince, stop, fry some, taste it, and discuss whether the flavours are good or not. It’s that real tactile experience.”
Rocky Harvey moved to the Snowy Mountains to live a ‘feral gourmet’ lifestyle. Photo: Supplied.
The classes are split across two topics, with fresh sausage-making scheduled for March. Keen to get Canberrans out into the mountains, Rocky specifically chose the Canberra Day long weekend to encourage people to make a weekend of it.
He says this class is all about learning to make sausages in a way that can be replicated at home.
“We show people how to do it without a whole bunch of gear. You don’t need to spend a bunch of money setting up a kit to be able to do it. You can do it on a small scale without the expense.”
Rocky lets me in on a few of his secrets to extruding sausages with some cheap equipment from Bunnings. I won’t divulge his best tips here; you’ll have to go see Rocky in person to squeeze that one out of him.
The Salami Mafia classes will be held at Rocky’s cafe, the Rockstock Deli in Jindabyne. Photo: Supplied.
The second course will be taking place in mid-June to align with the cold weather, an ideal time to make air-dried meats. The class is split over two days, with participants learning the skills to produce salami, coppa, bresaola, and pancetta.
Rocky has made the classes BYO to ensure everyone has a good time and has designed them for all skill levels, including beginners. He believes people who’ve dabbled in home meat-making will take away a lot from his simple, repeatable method.
“There’s a lot of confusing information out there on the world wide web and you’ll probably walk away more confused than before you looked.”
“You can definitely overcomplicate things; you can actually make some of these things very simply. You don’t need a high-tech curing cabinet for 10,000 bucks.”
The full Rocky experience also includes grazing platters to keep your energy up on the day, and he’ll send you home with course notes, a couple of kilos of snags and the confidence to start making your own meats.
The Rockstock Deli is also fully stocked with a wide range of products made by Rocky himself, so you can take home extras to get a taste for how the experts do it.
For more information and to book the Salami Mafia classes at Jindabyne’s Rockstock Deli, head to the Rockstock Deli.
