Kaaron Mitchell with one of her award-winning prosciuttos curing and almost ready to slice.
Pink Lake Butcher has taken out two national awards for smallgoods.
The Nulsen business won silver medals for its Prosciutto de Lago Rosa and its Coppacolla at the Charcuterie Excellence Awards.
Kaaron Mitchell was elated when we dropped in on Monday.
“It’s a really good feeling knowing you are rubbing shoulders with the big players,” she said.
“It’s a good competition to see where you’re at, against the people who have been doing it for generations.”
She said she was “largely self-taught” and had used trial and error — plus advice from her husband and business partner Scott Mitchell — to come up with the recipes and procedures.
“Scott’s a licenced smallgoods man,” Kaaron said.
“The shop’s licenced to make smallgoods, so I did a lot of research, a lot of asking the right questions, I picked Scott’s brains a little bit.”
Scott said he did his apprenticeship with a well-known Italian butcher in Perth.
The Australian Meat Industry Council hosts the Australian Charcuterie Excellence Awards to showcase members’ craftsmanship, benchmark their products, and gain national and international recognition.
It was part of a two-day industry event last week in Sydney.
