THE sausage debauchery

Mosefund Soppressata di Calabria

2012-01-21T12:42:00.002-05:00

This is not "supersod," it is soppressata, and it is THE salame of Calabria. I've made soppressate before, but, that's just some generic name loosely applied to almost any salame. Throw a little hot pepper in it and you got, "supersod." It took me a quite awhile and a trip to Calabria filled with innumerable questions to get me to this point. Poring over Italian language books and email correspondence with family members in Calabria(they don't check email regularly in Italy) for several months, I felt I had an authentic recipe. Bear in mind that these recipes, like all recipes in Italy, vary from home to home. So, this became an amalgamation of several recipes.

I was given a good amount of meat again by Michael at Mosefund farm for this project(he also lent me his new meat grinder to make my life easier). The meat and fat were ground up through what I believe to be a 6mm plate. Where it gets interesting and little controversial is the addition of the peperoncini products. Really, only one ingredient is the issue, hot pepper paste or crema di peperoncino. It is hotly debated whether or not it gets used...........I used it. The rest is easy and predictable, hot pepper powder/peperoncino in polvere is a lock, salt, black pepper, cure #2, t-spx starter and dextrose and red wine.

Onto the next issue of import.......casings. Hog middles, without question. I've seen most made here using beef middles, which are fine. But, the DOP item assuredly uses hog middles, which you see pictured. After everything was ground up, mixed together and stuffed into the hog middles, it was time to press them. Not having a dedicated press, I had to get somewhat resourceful. I placed the soppressate on the bottom of my fermentation chamber. On top of which I placed several plastic cutting boards to cover them. On top of those, I placed a roasting pan, in which I placed a case of bottled water. I told you.....resourceful. They were pressed for the entire fermentation process which lasted a little under 72 hours. Now they hang, and I wait, for what I believe to be 12 weeks or so based on the drying time of the Salame Mugnano.

Speck d'alce(elk speck)

2012-01-02T16:38:00.002-05:00

My cousin, whom I've mentioned here prior, stopped over for the 1st of 2 venison drop offs.(More on that at a later date) Among all the "roasts" was a little vacuum sealed frozen pearl, on which "elk" was scribbled in black marker. I was asked if I wanted it and/or if I could do anything with it. He didn't ask again. Being only one genome off from venison, I knew I could treat it the same. So, with that, I decided to "speck" it. The speck subject has been covered ad nauseum here, so, I'll spare you the banality. This was prepared exactly as pig speck. This was cured, cased, smoked and dried the exact same time as 3 other venison bresaole I just made. However, this took about 1.5 weeks longer to dry out. Tough to say why, the leanness is near the same, which is to say quite lean. Just pulled it down today and cut into it. Tastes no different than venison, honestly. Slightly gamey, nicely smoked. All around very tasty. Side by side, you wouldn't even know it was elk vs. venison. But, at least I've satisfied my desire to work with elk.........successfully.

Prosciutto Cotto

2011-12-27T23:24:00.002-05:00

I made this back in October. I had to hold back on posting while waiting for Jason to post his. I won't drag this on because this is, for all intents and purposes, HIS recipe, which was developed by Alessandro Morreale. Jason was nice enough to draw it up for me to try. The only difference with mine is in the cooking process. I don't have access to sous vide equipment, so, I had to improvise. I placed the ham in a baking dish and weighed it down. I set the oven to 200 degrees F and brought it up to 155(about 5 hours) and removed it. I allowed it to sit in the fridge overnight for flavor development. I was pleased all the way around with the taste. The only thing I would do differently next time is attenuate the amount of allspice I used. I do admit to having something of an allspice aversion, however. If you have the patience to make brine, subsequently inject, then spend several hours cooking it, I recommend trying this.

Schulterspeck/Speck di Spalla/Shoulder speck

2011-11-14T18:21:00.007-05:00

I was fortunate enough to be bequeathed some more Mangalitsa to cure by Michael. Among the several cuts I received was a shoulder. Prior to receiving said shoulder, I planned on making a Spalla Cotta, which is a cured, then cooked shoulder stuffed in a bladder. Well, plans have a funny way of changing. The shoulder I received was more akin to the cut used for leg speck. I was told that the coppa was removed and it was basically flattened, as pictured. In my suspension of disbelief, I skinned it, still thinking I could roll it and tie it and make the aforementioned salume. What a friggin mistake. I knew it, too,

even before I did it. I mean, it was abundantly apparent that Spalla Cotta was no longer a possibility. Oh well. So, here I am with a skinless piece of shoulder that is unsuitable for Spalla Cotta. Now, due to it's being skinned has become less suitable for anything for w

hich it would have been suitable had I left the skin ON. Make sense? It will. I went home and pored over all my books, researched German language Italian websites(odd, I know),

and consulted some Italian salumi forums, the best of which being this one. I knew that in Sudtirol, that they make speck with almost

every cut. I also knew that they did make speck with this actual cut. The problem is finding enough detail to actually make it. With some help over at the Italian forum, combined with my research, I found something concrete. I decided to go with rosemary, garlic, allspice and black pepper as my seasoning, as seen in this terribly non descriptive picture. Further research revealed that the smoke should be provided by beech wood, which I've subsequently purchased. In about 2 weeks, this will hit the smoke, along with s

ome other new salumi, like speck di carre or karreespeck and speck di coppa. I'll be writing about those in the near future.

For those of you interested..........

2011-11-10T01:04:00.002-05:00

I have acquired several of the strange, obscure and hard to find casings. I will list them and then link where I used them. Among the casings are hog middles(Salame Mugnano and 'nduja recently), hog middle end caps('nduja), hog bladders(2 sizes, boccia al finocchio), hog bung ends(I haven't used, but they look really nice for salame), and beef bladders(culatello). Anyone interested, please email me: scott@sausagedebauchery.com, they are NOT listed at the store. Thanks.

Culatello results

2011-11-04T23:19:00.002-04:00

Just a short 7 and a half months after I put it in to cure, it's ready. Typically, culatelli cure for a longer period of time. However, this felt pretty firm after the aforementioned time. Prompted by Jason to cut it open, I went for it. I was more than a little surprised, a bit dismayed, even. It was really firm, too firm. It was so lean, it overdried. Shame on me for not weighing it and tracking it's weight loss. I assumed that I would just remove it at it's 10 month birthday. I guess I won't be making that mistake again. It tastes just fine, quite mild and salty. It's just so excrutiatingly lean and very dry. Nowhere near the texture of culatelli I've tried int the past. So, somewhat disappointed by my ineptitude, I just left it in the chamber, slicing a bunch off to eat from time to time. Fast forward a month, and about midway through the culatello, it transformed. It became something better and exciting. It softened greatly and intensified in color and took on the appearance of a real culatello. I'm not going to sit here and tell you I had something to do with it, the middle just has a larger circumference. It is a completely different animal from the culatello into which I cut initially. While still a lean piece of meat, it does appear to have a bit more fat in the section pictured. So, it would seem a successful project. Definitely worthy of another go, no more commercial practice meat. I'll see if I can get my hands on a Mangalitsa leg.

Mosefund Mangalitsa Speck results

2011-09-26T18:34:00.002-04:00

I got a couple of these mega speck back in April from Michael Clampffer. I cured and aged these exactly as I did these. Only difference is the quality of the meat. Totally different ballgame, as you can see by the marbling and the fat cap. As far as tasting is concerned, I am completely flabbergasted. I am delighted that I write everything down in my little notebook. Had I done this by the seat of my pants, I would be beside myself. This is awesome in every sense of the word. I'm sure 95% of it is the sheer quality of the product, but, I certainly didn't do anything to get in it's way. The smoke is perfect, not just in a smoky way, but, a tinge sweet, perhaps? Sliced thinly enough, the fat melts on your tongue, pretty amazing. Perfect smoky, hammy deliciousness.

There was a bit of concern during it's drying. My old chamber is so well inoculated with mold, the speck developed a really thick layer of white mold. I'm talking 1/8" worth. I left it due to it being mostly white, however, about 2 months in, some green spots moved in. No biggie, I just gave them a pretty thorough bathing in a vinegar bath. Then, I realized there was some standing water in the bottom of the chamber of which I was unaware. It was hiding under the Styrofoam on top which I place the humidifier. This contributed to a somewhat musty smell in the chamber. I removed all the salumi and cleaned out the chamber with a bleach and water solution. Smell taken care of, but, there goes all the mold I developed in there. I noticed a bit of the smell on the speck as well, and was a little apprehensive that I ruined them. So, after 4 months of drying I took it out to see where it was. I split it right down the middle and out poured the most incredible smoky, pork perfume I ever smelled. Unbelievable. This is most likely the best salume I have produced to date.

Mosefund Manga Salame Felino

2011-08-17T11:57:00.002-04:00

This is a Salame Felino I made using both lean and fat from mangalitsa pork from Mosefund farm. Felino is a town in the hills near Parma in Emilia-Romagna. This salame is renowned for it's austerity, using just salt, black pepper, and garlic macerated white wine. Since it is also typically a salame made to be on the softer side, I chose to stuff these in somewhat larger beef middles.

I received some lean leg meat and some backfat from Michael Clampffer to make this salame. I used 85% lean and 15% backfat. They were both ground on the smallest die, which I believe to be 3/8". Along with the aforementioned salt, black pepper and garlic macerated white wine, I added t-spx lactic starter and cure #2. They were stuffed in beef middles which I soaked in mold solution. They were fermented for close to 80 hours and developed a really thorough mold coating. They were hung to dry in the curing chamber. Since some of them were needed after just the 3 month mark, they were removed and still very good. The salame pictured was aged for 4 months and is really quite lovely. Still a touch soft, perfect amount of black pepper and just enough garlic flavor to be pleasant. The one thing that really stands out is how tender the meat is, terrific for this application.

Mosefund Mangalitsa Lonzino di Calabria

2011-08-08T12:11:00.002-04:00

As you can probably tell, I didn't take this photo. It was taken by Michael Clampffer. This is lonzino, yes Lonzino. I know......it looks like no lonzino I've ever seen, either. The marbling is just sick. Looks more like beef. This was done in the exact same fashion as the capocollo from my previous post. The

loin was cured with only salt and cure #2. It was then removed, rinsed, then rolled around in peperoncino powder to coat. Finally, I stuffed it in a beef bung and left to dry for about 2 months. I think next time I think I'll add crushed red pepper flake as well. While casing these, a lot of the peperoncino powder was rubbed off, making the spiciness inconsistent from slice to slice. A little flake should provide a some consistency. It tasted as good as it looks. Silky and rich with a nice hint of heat. Awesome stuff.

Capocollo di Calabria via Mosefund Farm

2011-07-28T17:39:00.002-04:00

After 5+ months of waiting, we finally have a result. And what an amazing result it is! Thanks again to Michael Clampffer from Mosefund Farm for providing me with the best raw material available. This one is really simple. I've made coppe in the past and posted about them in fairly good detail. This Capocollo is simple as far as these things go. Simply cured with salt and cure #2 for a couple weeks. It was then removed and rinsed in a red wine vinegar bath, patted dry and rolled in peperoncino powder to cover. Stuffed in a beef bung, allowed to

'ferment" overnight and hung to dry for the aforementioned 5 months. One thing I've been doing differently lately, and I did with this capocollo, is soaking the casings in the actual mold dilution as opposed to spraying them. There is quite a difference in mold coverage. Soaking them provides a much heavier, consistent mold cover. However, the dilution is rubbish upon completion of stuffing. So, if you're a mold miser, this process is not for you. I find it quite effective and reliable and will continue to employ it. If you plan on making this, please do not sully your meat by using paprika or cayenne, use the real thing.

Mosefund Mangalitsa 'Nduja results

2011-07-13T09:25:00.002-04:00

Here is the result of my previous 'nduja post. Honestly, I don't think I'm capable of producing 'nduja any better than this. I think this one looks awesome and tastes great. The texture is perfectly smooth and spreadable. The really light amount of smoke is just enough to come through. The hog middle end caps really made a difference as far as the appearance of authenticity. The 'nduja pictured aged for roughly 90 days, but, was perfectly fine at 60 days. Should have a new batch going in soon. Short post, I know, but, I HAD to show this one off. If you haven't yet made 'nduja and are thinking about it, don't forget you can get all your supplies at my store.

Fiocco/Fiochetto- byproduct of Culatello butchery

2011-06-08T18:58:00.003-04:00

Fiocco or fiochetto, whatever you choose to call it, it is delicious. This salume was the byproduct of my culatello process back in January. Due to it being only 1/3 the size of the culatello and noticeably leaner, it dries much more quickly. This was really a no brainer. 3.5% salt, .25% cure #2, that's it. Cured it for about 14 days. Then stuffed it in a hog bladder, trussed it, tied it, hung it and forgot it, just as you see in the first pic. 52 degrees and 70-75% humidity and 4 months later.........voila! Fiocco! Not really much more to say about this. If you're going to butcher a culatello, might as well harvest this and make it as well. I've already eaten quite a few sandwiches using this. It is quite lean and subtle, yet still really moist and "hammy."

Salsiccia di Calabria....."My Calabria" style

2011-05-16T18:36:00.003-04:00

After my initial post on this, I conferred several times with my friend Rosetta, who is the author of the outstanding book, "My Calabria." I was fortunate enough to try some of her father's Salsiccia di Calabria. Rosetta informed me the recipe is exactly that of the fresh sausage recipe from the book. Easy enough, I figured. However, the recipe doesn't call for a starter or any nitrate. But, that's no big deal at all, really.

This time around it was just some pork shoulder with the addition of some mangalitsa fat from Mosefund, only 10% of the total weight. Salt, hot pepper powder, sweet pepper powder, and some fennel seeds, along with some cure #2 and f-lc starter.......that's it. I stuffed these in regular hog casings. Fermented for close to 80 hours. They were hung to dry at 52 degrees and about 79% humidity. I'm not quite sure what's been going on in my chamber recently, but, my salumi have been taking an inordinate amount of time to dry, my salame, in particular. Typically, salame I make stuffed in regular hog casings can be done in as little as 3 weeks. For some reason, this wasn't ready for a whopping 8 weeks! I speculate that it could be the lack of moisture in the mangalitsa fat, but, at only 10% of it's total mass, that seems unlikely. When I introduced that lot of 30lbs. of 'nduja, the humidity jumped to over 80% and averaged about 82% for a couple weeks, but, that still shouldn't delay drying to that degree. So, I'm at a loss for an explanation.

Regardless, the flavor seems unaffected by the chamber's issues. It is very tasty. Perfectly balanced to where everything can be tasted and no component overwhelms. I did vary the recipe slightly. I only used half the sweet pepper powder the recipe called for and replaced the other half with hot pepper powder. The rest of the recipe was followed closely. As you can see by the picture, the powders turned the fat orange. Good stuff. I suggest buying this amazing book and giving this one a try.

'Nduja quickie

2011-04-16T17:20:00.003-04:00

Won't bore anyone with details of a salume about which I've posted several times already. What sets this particular batch apart from the others is #1, I used hog middle end caps to case them, and #2, I used some sweet pepper powder or pepe rosso in addition to peperoncino powder. The hog middle caps are significant in that along with hog middles, they are what are used to case 'nduja in Calabria. The sweet pepper powder/pepe rosso was used this time as a means of correcting the color I've had in prior batches. My previous efforts have been a touch too dark. After several discussions with Rose tta, author of "My Calabria" she suggested I use the pepe rosso to get that fantastic, glowing red color. I decided on using 17% peperoncino powder, along with 13% of the pepe rosso. I think Rosetta had it right, and I think I nailed it, just look at the color. I decided to avoid prolonged smoking this time in an effort to preserve this great color. Whether or not that had anything to do with it's color is not definitive, but, why take a chance. So, just 2 days smoking. However, I lit the smoker from both ends to increase the intensity of the smoke and cut down on actual smoking time, 2 sessions of 8 hours each and they smelled much smokier than in the past at the same smoke hour. Usually, I ferment for about 48-72 hours, then smoke. But, I had a couple days in the northeast where it was about 60-65 during the day, so, I smoked during the fermentation phase, and I believe it was pretty successful. Hung to dry for about 60 days. Other than that, nothing else special to discuss. Just eager to see how this one turns out.

Salame di Mugnano

2011-03-22T22:32:00.003-04:00

This salame comes from the town of Mugnano which is right outside of Naples in Campania. Jason did a post on it in January, so, I won't get too in depth. Which leads to my next point. This salame was a collaboration of sorts. As Jason was describing it, I became intrigued.................hot pepper, cold smoke, I'm in. So, we devised a recipe to follow to see how the same salame prepared by two different people would differ in appearance and flavor. There were several differences in our recipes. As usual, I went overboard on peperoncino powder AND black pepper. I actually used twice the amount that Jason used. My black pepper content was 1.5%, while I think Jason's was somewhere near .4%, so WAYYY more. The other difference was the fat component. I used fatback versus pork belly for Jason. Everything else used was the same, although I'm pretty positive my salt % is higher. I used F-LC starter along with .5% dextrose. I stuffed this into hog middles, which is a new casing for me, just recently acquired. These hog middles look great, very authentic, they also dry perfectly and evenly, a delight to use. Although, their diameter is slightly larger and they take quite a bit longer to dry. I fermented for about 80 hours at 70 degrees. They were then cold smoked for 12 hours. This was a difficult salame for me to try and reproduce. I had no point of reference as I've never eaten it before, all I had to go on was Jason's description of it. With that, I certainly didn't want to oversmoke it, so, I only went with one smoke session. I then hung them in my chamber at 53 degrees and 78% humidity. A seemingly endless 11 weeks later, it was pulled down and sliced. The result is what you see above, looks awesome......I think, anyway. It tastes as amazing as it looks. It is rather spicy, which is right up my alley as you may have read here prior. Still, what's amazing about this peperoncino powder is that it provides not only heat, but a wonderful pepper flavor and seldom overwhelms as the meat flavor is totally apparent. I can't speak on it's authenticity, again, I've never eaten it, but, I CAN say it's great, nevertheless and certainly worth making. I may make this my default salame. Thanks to Angelo again for taking the lovely photo.

Speck results

2011-03-14T18:06:00.002-04:00

4 long months of waiting is finally over. This is the smaller of my 2 speck projects. As you may be able to tell from the picture, that is certainly not a photo I took. Thanks to Angelo, not for just the picture, but for slicing and the actual harvesting of the cut. There isn't much to add from my initial post about this item in December. They dried for nearly 4 months in my chamber. I had to remove them on several occasions to be wiped down with a vinegar solution based on the mold build up. However, after about their fifth washdown, I noticed that the mold was all white and wasn't returning with any fervency. So, I decided I would just let it go and see what happened, while keeping a close eye on it. Strangely enough, the mold returned, grew a bit and then kind of faded. Lucky, I guess. I pulled it down out of curiosity last week and noticed it was rather hard in spots, and made the decision to cut into it. Great decision. It is fantastic. Keep in mind, this was done with just regular commercial pork. As this was my first attempt, I make it a rule to never use heritage or super top quality pork for practice. I can't imagine having to throw out a $200 piece of pork. It looks perfect, quite reminiscent of the speck I ate in Sudtirol. Smoke is near perfect as well. Very moist still on the thicker inside slices. Just delicious. I'm not alone in that regard, I brought this over Angelo's house the other night and after everyone got their greedy little hands on it, I am left with what you're looking at in the picture. Good thing I have big speck lurking in the chamber. This is one of my favorite things I have made to date.

Bresaolina di Cervo Affumicata

2011-03-06T09:01:00.007-05:00

I gave everyone a break by posting about Lardo from Tuscany. I'm going back the Sudtirol well with this. Bresaolina di cervo is a small bresaola made from venison meat. This is one of the salumi I actually ate at a restaurant called Tubladel in Ortisei. It was soooooo good, I had to reproduce it, or at least try. What stood out to me while eating it was the pungency of the smoke. Quite obviously achieved with the use of juniper wood. I asked the server how it was made. He returned after a brief consultation with the chef(I guess to get permission) and told me it varied from producer to producer as to what was used, but, rattled off a bunch of things that ARE actually used, like rosemary, sage, marjoram, caraway, bay, nutmeg, juniper and anise were those I remember. Then he told me it is cold smoked for several hours a day over the course of the week with juniper wood..........of course. At least I now had a good point of reference. The first time I was to attempt it, the venison wasn't butchered quite well enough for me, so it became the Kaminwurzen, about which I posted previously. In the meantime, Jason and I discussed what he should do with his nice cylindrical piece of venison. So, he went ahead and stole my idea. ;) I'm glad he did, his looks amazing. However, he did not smoke his.

Finally, my cousin showed up on New Year's day with 4 good looking "roasts," which are ubiquitous with venison hunters/butchers. I'm beginning to learn the "roast" is the entire deer anatomy outside the "backstrap" in that world. So, I really don't have much of an idea what part of the animal it is. Gun to my head, I'll say it's from the leg. When I got them defrosted, all 4 small pieces were suitable for my application. I went ahead and cured them with salt, black pepper, caraway, bay and cure #2. They only took a little over a week to cure. I rinsed them and stuffed them in beef bungs. For the smoke component, I tried something different. I've been using the pro-q cold smoker for quite a long time. Recently, I bought a new cold smoke generator called the a-maze-n smoker. I was perfectly happy with the pro-q, but, I kept getting in trouble with wifey because there was candle wax everywhere from the tea light used to light the pro-q. I'd also received an earful for dipping into her tea light supply. Jason just informed me about this new device the day before, and when I saw that the a-maze-n came with a mini torch with which to light it, I impetuously bought it. No more wax trouble. In a nutshell, this is the cold smoke generator I used to smoke the bresaolline. I used a mixed harwood sawdust along with some crushed juniper berries which I added to the sawdust. (side note: I think I finally found some juniper sawdust). What's different about the new smoke generator as opposed to the pro-q is that it can be lit from both ends, producing twice the smoke. Having cold smoked several salumi with the pro-q, I can state that the smoke flavor is very subtle, barely noticeable. Which is nice, especially for 'nduja. However, the smoke flavor I tasted in Sudtirol is much more aggressive, yet, still not overwhelming. Still......very smokey. That was my intention. So, I lit both ends. It smoked, a LOT. That reduced my smoking time from 12-14 hours down to about 8 hours per day. My notes say I put 40-45 hours of smoke on these, about 4 days. They were then hung in my chamber. Keep close watch, they're so lean, they only hung for about a month. I put them in on February 2 and pulled them out on March 3. As you can tell from the pictures, they look terrific. As for the taste, I could tell the minute I opened them that I hit it out of the park. I could smell that same pungent smoke I have been after. A couple of thin slices confirmed it. It was exactly the smoke flavor I remember tasting at Tubladel. Still apparent were both the bay and caraway, so I think I nailed it. Even have that really nice smoke ring on the outside as well. If you have venison in the freezer and don't what to do with it, wonder no more!

Mosefund Mangalitsa Lardo

2011-03-01T16:24:00.003-05:00

Yet another salumi created from the never ending lug of scraps from Michael of Mosefund. I know it seems like a bottomless pit of usable scrap. But, I won't apologize for the amount of posts I've been able to squeeze out of one scrap pile. It sure does seem like an inordinate amount of salumi, though. Now on to the Lardo. I read up on Lardo di Colonnata again in various sources. Lardo di Colonnata has been granted IGP status in Italy. Colonnata is a small town near the larger town of Carrara where the famous marble is mined. Miners would take a piece of lardo with them to eat while at work. It would then seem to make sense that they use marble curing bins or a "conca di marmo" in Colonnata to cure their Lardo. In the absence of said marble bin, I would have to make due with a heavy duty tupperware container. Same concept, but, the marble bin is a lot cooler, oh well......soon enough. After trimming it and squaring it off a bit(a very little bit), I cured it in the style of Colonnata. Which is to say, I was inspired by Colonnata, but, being from NY and not Tuscany, and depending on the norcino, cinnamon and clove could be included in the curing process. Since I have a bit of an aversion to both when used in curing(I feel they overwhelm), I kept to my recent theme of austerity. Starting with the curing, I did something I've been doing recently, I cured with only salt and cure #2 for a period of time........17 days this time. Put it in the tupperware container and off to the chamber. Curing completed, I rinsed off the salt and cure, then added the concia, or spice mix, which in this case were garlic, rosemary, black pepper and bay leaf. I threw it back in the tuppperware into the chamber for over 2 months. I kind of forgot about it, honestly. When I was lamenting the end of the "scrap heap salumi, " I remembered the lardo and thought, "How the hell did I forget about that?" I think this is the simplest of all salumi. Throw a little salt on it, put it in tupperware and forget about it. Of course, I'm not sure it would be effective if you did this with fatback from the supermarket. I am just lucky enough to have a giant slab of mangalitsa fat to play with;). The strangest thing about this fat is how quickly it gets soft......almost instantly. I really wanted to cut a few slices thinly with the machine, but, the lardo doesn't cooperate. Coming out of the chamber, as soon as you handle it, it wants to get soft and melt on you. What I've discovered is to put it in the regular fridge for awhile to stiffen it up. On that note, it's actually safe to cure Lardo in the regular fridge as it has little to no moisture in it. After an hour cool down, I was able to get a couple real thin slices. I toasted up some crusty bread and watched the magic as the lardo makes contact with the warm bread. It turns translucent and melts into the bread. Awesome. Luscious, fatty deliciousness. If you're able to get your hands on some quality fatback, this is a must.

Pushing the Envelope- Mosefund Mangalitsa 'Nduja

2011-02-19T21:05:00.003-05:00

This was totally unnecessary, yet irresistible. Again, I refer back to that lug of scraps that Mosefund Michael gave me. As I wrote in the guanciale post, there were quite a few jowl and belly scraps. I really wanted to do something spreadable with them, and I was leaning towards Ciauscolo. I mentioned this to Michael, well, I don't think I got the words out of my mouth and he blurted out, 'Nduja!" Very well then, sir, 'Nduja it would be. Readers here most likely find 'nduja pedestrian at this point, as I have littered this blog with 'Nduja posts for well over a year and a half. But, this one was going to be different. First of all, I had just returned from Italy having eaten 'Nduja in 3 different locations in Calabria, and was ready to knock it out of the park. Secondly, using this meat is just a silly extravagance.

As written in my blog about chasing salumi in Italy, 'Nduja was the crown jewel in the salumi holy grail for me. At my uncle's house in Santa Cristina d'Aspromonte, he told me to go to a small salumeria in Gioia Tauro. He failed to mention the dirt roads through the dark fields at night I would have to navigate to find said salumeria. Finally found it, then drove right past it. So, I spun around and drove the wrong way down a one way street to get to it, then parked on the sidewalk. Anyone else alarmed by this? My wife was. This is not normal behavior. I ran inside and took the last one in the case along with a loaf of bread. Went back to the hotel and after having a rather large late lunch at my uncle's house, my wife and I devoured the entire thing with the bread for dinner. The next day, I was to go see my aunt and a couple of cousins in Reggio. On my way, I spotted a random salumeria. I thought, "oh no way I'm passing by this place." Unfortunately, I was going about 40. So, I slammed on the breaks and the tires squealed really loudly, then my wife asked me politely, "What the F$#& ARE YOU DOING!" I just pointed and ran out. I saw her shaking her head as I ran inside. Got a really good one there. Brought that to my Aunt's house and ate a bunch at lunch and left her the rest. When I went back to Scilla later that night, we went to the little gift store in town. Guess what I found? Yep, "'Nduja di Spilinga" in the jar. I'll let you know how that is when I open it. I'm weird, I feel like once I open it, it's gone forever. Instead, I just stare at the jar, wondering. While still in the store, I asked the woman where I could find the best 'Nduja in a 10km radius. She told me there was a small butcher up the road in Bagnara Calabra. Off we went, begrudgingly for some. I'm still not sure how I found it, it really was a SMALL butcher shop. Bought 2 from this lovely gentleman, who coincidentally lived in NJ for 4 years and still has half his family there. We destroyed one of those on the ferry to Sicily the next day. I don't know what happened to the other one ;) In a nutshell, there is some background on 'Nduja and me.

As for production. There really were a lot of scraps in that lug. I think I salvaged 7lbs. of usable belly and jowl scraps(after skinning and piggy hair removal). Which is a perfectly round number if one is going to make 10lbs. of 'Nduja. I ran the meat scraps through the 1/2" plate on the grinder. Not caring about smearing whatsoever, I gave it a second pass. My last 'Nduja, I only ran it through once and was unhappy with the texture, it was stringy almost. Second pass did the trick, the texture of this is absolutely perfect, exactly as I'd eaten in Calabria. For the peperoncino numbers, all my questions and all my reading keep throwing the same numbers at me, so there must be something to them, 60-70% meat, 30-40% pepper(hot/sweet combo) or pepe rosso and peperoncino. But, based on my experience with the peperoncino powder, it mellows dramatically, so I didn't see a need to mess with any of that sweet nonsense. Also, previously I have used "crema di peperoncino," which is hot pepper paste/puree. Again, all reading and research resulted in the discovery that this is not used in the production of 'Nduja, so out the window with that. Now what? That paste weighed a lot more than the powder and made it much easier to get to that 30-40% threshhold. That would be a lot of powder.......who cares, go high or stay home! I went 28% peperoncino powder and 2% crushed red pepper flakes. Also, I added salt, cure #2, f-lc starter and dextrose. These were stuffed in a beef bung and tied off into nice little packages. I fermented them for 72 hours and followed that with 50 hours of cold smoke over the course of 4 days, using a mixed hardwood sawdust in my pro-q smoker. This sat in my chamber for about 3 months and was removed last week. It is delicious and quite hot. In fact, I think Michael is annoyed with me for it being too hot. But, I don't think it's any hotter than what I had in Calabria, and it's not too hot for me. Sorry, Michael! Next up.......Salame di Felino made from Mosefund Mangalitsa(yes, the same scraps).

Culatello update

2011-02-14T21:32:00.002-05:00

As promised, here it is. This was a bit labor intensive, but, it sure looks good. After curing for 3 weeks, I removed it and scraped off excess salt. I then gave it a bath in red wine for about 10 minutes. Then, the fun started. I stuffed this in a beef bladder. When I removed the beef bladder, I immediately felt a little uneasy. I thought, "oh, no way that thing is getting in there, that's ridiculous." I soaked the bladder in warm water for about 20 minutes. It stretched some, but, even then I thought I was going to be stuffing 10lbs. of shit into a 5lb. bag.......still no way. I proceeded to fill the bladder with water and hold it up, getting it to stretch out a little. I emptied it out and filled it up again. I performed this mundane task 4 times. Finally, I made the decision that if it wasn't going to fit now, it wasn't going to fit, period. I had to cut it down the middle to squeeze it in. Amazingly, it was wide enough to accommodate the culatello. The issue I know faced was it wasn't quite long enough. I had to stretch the end, pulling and turning, pulling and turning. I got out the trussing needle and magically trussed it shut. It looked a bit ugly, but, at least I got it closed. Now on to the fun part.......the tying. I'm not sure I can effectively describe the tying process, so, have a look here this exactly how I learned. Using hemp twine, basically, it's 4 vertical passes, which becomes 8 lines going around the culatello. At that point you start the horizontal passes. Starting from the top, you work horizontally, tying a half hitch around every one of the 8 vertical passes, spiraling your way all the way to the bottom. My horizontal passes are a little wide, I should have done more. But, my verticals are great, they stayed put as I ran my way around doing the horizontals. I think it's pretty impressive for just my second effort. I sprayed it with some mold spray and left it to "ferment" for about 24 hours. I hung it on Friday morning, 2/11/11(says it right on the label). There it will hang for 9-12 months. Look for me to cut into it sometime around Thanksgiving. Sounds waaaaay too long for me.

Kaminwurzen di Cervo

2011-02-07T20:50:00.003-05:00

Venison Kaminwurzen. Yes, I'm going to bore you with yet another salume from the Dolomites. If any of this starts to bore you, please let me know. Otherwise, too bad. Everything I had while there I've been trying to recreate. I think I've done a pretty good job, this one included. Kaminwurzen(or Kaminwurz) is typical of the Val Badia and Val Gardena in Sudtirol. It is most often made with pork. However, I read in a couple books while I was there that can also be made with venison or comoscio(which is a native mountain deer). So, when I got a bunch of venison from my cousin again, I earmarked half for Kaminwurzen and the other half that looked like good, solid cylindrical roasts were to be used to make Bresaola di Cervo(venison bresaola), which, by chance, I also happened to eat there as well. Upon opening the venison, I realized that those pieces I intended to make into Bresaola were a little busted up, so, it all got turned into Kaminwurz. On to production. Sticking to my recent pledge of austerity, I researched my ass off. Finally, I decided on a real simple one. This has 70% lean venison, 30% pork backfat, salt and black pepper, cure#2, f-lc starter with some garlic, red wine and caraway seeds.............that's it. Cold smoked using the pro-q cold smoke generator for about 50 hours. Again, I used the ground up juniper berries as an addition to the hardwood saw dust. I'm still tinkering with how much cold smoke to lay on these things. I thought 50 hours was quite a bit. But, the several I ate in the Dolomites were noticeably smoky. But, 50 hours was not enough. While the smoke is definitely present, it isn't quite as noticeable as the native salame. Next time I'll give it 70 hours. I really think the juniper WOOD makes the difference. Some day, perhaps. I stuffed these in hog casings, fermented for about 72 hours, then hit them with the smoke. I read that in the case of cold smoking salame that you should ferment at the same time as you are cold smoking. That would be great if it was May in New York. So, I had to improvise a bit just to make sure it was fermented. This dried out for 5-6 weeks. I'm pretty happy with the results. With so few ingredients, it's nice to be able to taste each of them. Great garlic, caraway smoky flavors. Very, very pleasant. Looks pretty good, too..no smearing or case hardening. Try it.

Lonzino Affumicato or Loin speck

2011-01-30T19:44:00.004-05:00

Another salume inspired by my visit to Sudtirol. This was one I found on the shelves of every one of the several salumerie I frequented while there, and was eager to make it. I usually always have lonzino on hand as my wife enjoys it on a sandwich with a little fresh mozzarella. Seeing as I was running low, I decided to use a whole loin and make it 2 ways. This was initially designated for the Christmas Eve salumi plate. But, for some reason this loin decided it would take about 8 weeks to dry out as opposed to the usual 4-ish. Good thing........more for me. So, in true Sudtirol fashion, I cured this with caraway, anise and nutmeg, along with salt, pepper and cure #2 of course. Cured it for about 12 days, then cased it in a 4.5" beef bung. What separates this from lonzino is the cold smoke, hence the affumicato(smoked) designation. Still without the juniper wood dust they use in Sudtirol, I improvised again. Ground up juniper berries added to my hardwood dust does the trick. Cold smoking has become a non issue with these new cold smoking devices. It really is a breeze, once it gets lit, you can leave it alone for 12 hours or even more in some cases. This lonzino got 3 sessions for a total of about 36 hours of smoke. Seems a like quite a bit of smoke, but, honestly, it's not. While it can be tasted and it is pleasant and far from overwhelming, it still isn't as prominent as I tasted over there. Next time, I'll either try more smoke or more ground up juniper berries. Either way, I'm not complaining about how this one tasted, I'm pleased with it. I wish I could say at what percentage of weight loss I removed this, but, I mistakenly pulled it down prior to Christmas Eve to see if it could be cut. I knew it was far from ready, but, a little panic set in and I tried anyway. I know the common practice is 30% weight loss and it's ready, but, I prefer my lonzini a touch drier and harder than that. I believe 35-38% is a better number, for me anyway. Sliced very thinly it is very versatile and also delicious. My first Mangalitsa salame is ready, should be posted at the end of the week.

Culatello

2011-01-24T21:44:00.006-05:00

The elusive culatello. THE culatello is called Culatello di Zibello and is a DOP salume. Culatello di Zibello DOP is only made in a small geographic area in Emilia-Romagna near the Po river. It's salted and put away to cure for a couple days. Then some of the salt is scraped off, it gets re-salted along with the addition of black pepper. Then, it's rinsed with local red wine and cased in a bladder, then tied in a specific manner creating it's characteristic pear shape. It is aged for a period up to a year. I call Culatello elusive for several reasons. First off, it's not easy to harvest. Second, you basically wreck the entire leg to harvest it. 2 strikes off the bat, have to wreck a prosciutto and be able to harvest it. I have neither a leg I was willing to wreck nor the butchering skills necessary to harvest it. That's what friends are for, they say. Again, thanks to my friend who owns the salumeria and his father who makes about 20 prosciutti annually for the past 30 or so years, I was able to procure a leg I wanted to wreck :) AND, after showing him a couple pictures, he was able to harvest it in roughly 5 minutes. Salumi serendipity! He then tied it for me perfectly as well. Got home and uh-oh......realized culatello needs to be skinned. There is also something of a "tail" left over from the butchering process that needed to be removed. So, I had to cut the twine, then skin it, retie it, then remove that little tail. I then salted it(added some cure #2 as well). The picture you see is after initial salting, it's sitting in it's second salting along with the black pepper. It will be cased in a bladder at the end of the week after it's red wine bath. You ask what happens to the rest of the leg? Well, the bottom half of the leg, which would be akin to the hamstring is harvested to make fiocco/fiochetto, which I do have curing as well. The tail is used to make strolghino, which is a salame, as I was instructed by Jason. I'll try and post the finished and cased product at the end of the week. Mangalitsa 'Nduja and Salame Felino ready to come out any day. Look for them soon.

Mosefund Guanciale

2011-01-17T18:40:00.004-05:00

Yes, more guanciale. Sorry it's not something more interesting. But, I think I keep getting better and better, because this one really looks dead on. Interesting how this was acquired. I rescued this this out of a lug full of scraps given to me by Mosefund Michael. Most was intended to be used for salame. I made 10lbs of 'nduja with Mangalitsa belly and jowl scraps. Made about 5lbs of Salame Felino with some shoulder and neck scraps with some scrap fatback. But, at the bottom of the lug, I swear this thing lit up like the suitcase from "Pulp Fiction." No way I was scrapping it. I'd actually been looking for a jowl since I returned from Italy. While in Rome, I went to Antica Norcineria Viola and purchased some guanciale. I had a nice discussion with the Norcino. He informed me that in Rome, they cure guanciale with only pepper. So, after some research when I got home. I discovered this is indeed true. It's actually referred to as guanciale amatriciano. I cured this with salt and cure #2.; I removed it from the cure mixture, rinsed it off and then covered it with a freshly ground black pepper and peperoncino powder mixture. Left it in the chamber for about a month. Just pulled it down last night and cut some up to make, believe it or not, amatriciana. Great, great stuff.

Salame Toscano

2011-01-07T19:54:00.003-05:00

This is the second salame made with the remnants of cutting a speck from the leg. I only call this Salame Toscano because I used fennel pollen from Tuscany in it. I hadn't yet used fennel pollen in a salame and was eager to do so. This was my second salame made after my austerity pledge. So, all that went into this was salt, black, pepper, fennel pollen, cure #2, dextrose and F-LC starter. That's it, plain and simple. In my zealousness to use said fennel pollen, I may have gone just a bit overboard. It's a little strong of fennel. However, being a fennelphile, I'm delighted with it. If you're looking for subtlety, this formula isn't for you, more like a fennel freight train. Ha! It's really not as bad as I wrote, but, it sounds better that way. In all seriousness, there is a touch too much fennel pollen. Everything else was done status quo. Run twice through 1/2" plate of commercial grinder, mixed with pork backfat that I ground up while it was frozen solid(thank god for commercial grinders). Stuffed in beef middles, sprayed with mold solution and fermented at 70 degrees for about 72 hours. Hung in my overcrowded chamber at 52 degrees at about 77% humidity. These took about 5 weeks to really stiffen nicely. Next up, hoping my mangalitsa Salame di Felino, 'Nduja, lardo and guanciale are ready.

Cotechino Milanese

2010-12-30T18:03:00.008-05:00

Yes, new year's is Cotechino time. To recap my journey into this meat insanity, this is the actual sausage that launched me. Several years ago, I received both the meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachments for the kitchen aid stand mixer as a Christmas gift. Several days later, I was looking high and low for Cotechino. I googled it and found a recipe for it. Only problem was, it was a recipe to actually MAKE it. The old light bulb went on and thought, "I can make that, I have the grinder AND the stuffer." and I went and bought the book in which the recipe was contained. So, cotechino was the first sausage of any kind I ever produced. It was not produced well, however, in fact, it was terrible. I was unaware there was such a thing as a cardboard sausage. Oh well, my first sausage.......mulligan. Last year, with a little more experience under my belt, I made Jason's Cotechino, and it was terrific. Well, this year, I got a real treat. I have been corresponding with my cousin in Milan. He told me he was able to procure a recipe from an old norcino and was nice enough to give it to me(really the only reason he got it was because I asked him to). Oh, and don't ask me any stupid questions, like, "Can I have the formula?"......not happening........forget it! Here they are. I used a combination of jowl, some shoulder, and raw skin. Had a bit of trouble getting the raw skin through the grinder. Even a commercial grinder didn't really want to play. My first effort to grind it just thrashed it up quite a bit, so, I had to go up in die size just to get it through. When it came time to spice it, I had a little surprise waiting for me. Typically, cinnamon is used in almost all cotechini. Surprise! Wifey decided to toss out my cinnamon and not tell me, sooooo bush league. Slightly irritated, I went with coriander, clove, ginger, allspice and mace, along with salt, black pepper and white pepper and some pink salt. Thankfully, the formula only called for various spices that differ from, "norcino a norcino," so, I can pull the old Norcino license card. They were stuffed in beef middles. Decided to get even more authentic and use some hemp twine, they look even better, cotton's out! I'll let you know how they taste when they are eaten on Saturday along with some obligatory lentils.

Salsiccia di Calabria

2010-12-28T13:50:00.003-05:00

Salasiccia di Calabria is a DOP salame from Calabria. This is one I had eaten while in Calabria in between chasing and consuming 'nduja. In typical Calabrese fashion, it is laden with hot pepper that leaves quite an impact.......perfect. Having ample hot pepper powder and flakes from Calabria, seemed like a home run. I have also re-committed myself to austerity. No more random, silly ingredients and trying to reinvent the wheel. I think I should do a couple simple salame and do them well. This definitely qualifies as austere......Pork butt, backfat, salt, hot pepper powder, crushed red pepper flakes, cure and F-lc starter, that's it. All the literature I have read about this particular salame reads that it is cased in a small hog casing. I think next time I would opt for a hog casing a bit larger than this, which is your run of the mill sausage casing. I fermented for about 72 hours and hung them to dry. After about 3 weeks, I weighed them. They had the requisite weight loss, yet still seemed soft, which is very strange for these size casings. So, at 45%, I pulled one down. Still just a touch soft for my liking. Puzzled, I went to review my notes. I noticed I wrote f-lc, but not distilled water. I usually write distilled water as I write out the formula, so as not to forget to use it. That tiny little omission, combined with soft salame lead me to believe I used tap water to mix my starter, which most of you who do this at home will know, I murdered my starter. I had 4 of them, so, I ate 1 and vacu-sealed 3. The one I ate had wonderful flavor, super hot and tasty. A week after I vacu-sealed the other 3, I removed 2 to be served on my Christmas Eve salumi platter. When I peeled back the casing and cut into it, I was amazed. I had read about others employing this as a means of equilibrating moisture throughout the salame, but, I was under the impression it was more for case hardened items. The texture was perfect all the way through. Just how I like it. Needless to say, I was quite happy with this result. Point of this story is don't kill your starter. Keep reading, several more ready or almost ready, including salame di Mugnano made just yesterday with hog middles, AKA crespone.

Speck Projects

2010-12-07T19:00:00.003-05:00

I finally committed myself to attempting a leg speck project. This was always a salume high on my list, but happen to be a bit ignorant in the butchering department. I should say incompetent and/or not confident as opposed to ignorant. I know what it is, just don't know how the hell to harvest it. Well, my oft-mentioned salumeria owning friend bought a couple hams on which to practice. After staring at an already completed speck from Alto Adige, he got to it. That would be the speck on top. The following week, I guess he got the bug again, he called to tell me he had yet another even larger speck, which is the big boy on the bottom. Little speck was cured with rosemary, fennel and juniper. After I cured little speck, I wanted to kick myself for being stupid. When I was in Ortisei, I went into a small supermarket. There was a rack of cookbooks. I flipped through the Italian cookbooks(Italian or German were the choices). One of the books had a chapter dedicated to speck. There was an entire page with a step by step speck walk through. I completely forgot about the book until after I put little speck in to cure. Lucky for me there was big speck. This was cured with garlic, juniper, bay, anise, fennel and caraway. They were both cured for 3 weeks. At that point, they were rinsed and left out for a couple hours to develop a nice pellicle before getting hit with a boatload of cold smoke. I gave the pro-q cold smoker a good workout, smoked every day for almost 3 weeks(only 2 of which were for the speck). I used some mixed harwood dust along with some ground up juniper berries. The juniper berries were a suggestion of Kristoph Wiesner passed along to me via Heath Putnam of Wooly Pigs. I had to settle on the berries after my desperate search for the actual juniper wood didn't pan out. But, I will state that the berries definitely worked. The smoke released by the berries were pungent, exactly what I was going for. 50 hours each of cold smoke and they were hung in the chamber. Look for me to crack these open some time around March-April.

Coppa di Cinghiale

2010-11-19T21:03:00.003-05:00

AKA Wild boar coppa. This was an unplanned item. Initially, I was summoned by my friend at his salumeria to retrieve a couple wild boar shoulders to make salame di cinghiale. When I arrived, I found these shoulders to be perfectly cylindrical. So after brief deliberation, another experiment was hatched, we decided to make 2 coppe. I'd never seen it before and I was interested. I returned home and everything fell apart.....literally. Well, that's a slight overstatement, only 50% fell apart. What I mean is, I removed the netting around the first shoulder and it fell apart. Very poorly butchered, looks like maybe the first time this individual butchered anything of ANY kind. But, no biggie, I would give it a shot regardless, cure it and tie it tightly prior to casing should do the trick. The second shoulder was a dream. The picture above is, in fact, the latter. Coppa #1 was cured with juniper, rosemary and fennel seeds. Coppa #2 was cured with hot pepper powder, crushed red pepper flakes and fennel seeds. Man, now that I'm typing it out, and looking back in my notes, I think I have a small obsession with fennel seeds. They were both cured for 2 weeks. Due to their stoutness, I had to use a couple 100mm collagen casings to case them. I hung these right before I left for Italy on 9/15. I figured I would return and they would be perfect. Live and learn they say. I didn't pull these until about 10 days ago. Took 2 months for them to achieve the requisite 30% weight loss, and they're both still soft, a bit softer than I care for, but, 2 months is plenty. I brought them to the salumeria of record for tasting and they both passed muster. Coppa #1 is awesome. The crushed red pepper flakes made the difference in heat. I usually only add the hot pepper powder and that mellows with time. The flakes, however, did not. I made this to emulate the wretched "hot gab-a-gool" of anglicized Italian and "Sopranos" infamy. Well, I'm sure that more than one track suit clad gentleman would enjoy this and be completely ignorant to the fact that it is cinghiale. Coppa #2 is delightful as well. The transcendent flavor here is rosemary. But, I am as big a rosemary freak as I am fennel. Case in point, during our stay in Chianti, there was a large rosemary hedge right outside our apartment. Every time I passed by the hedge, I made sure I rubbed some part of my body on it, thus filling my car with rosemary perfume. I'm serious, EVERY time. Anyway, this coppa was very good as confirmed by my friend. This was the coppa that had to be tied up prior to being cased. As I cut through the end of it, it looked just fine. However, I cut into a little more to mete out my friend's portion and it was then that you could see the air pockets created by the poor butchering. Good thing is, no internal mold. Success all the way around, and everyone was happy. I will probably shoot out a bunch of new posts in rapid fire succession. I have 11 new projects since I've returned from Italy(inspired?), including 2 big speck projects(one cold smoking outside as I write), 2 lonzini(one cold smoked), a bresaola, Salame Toscano, and Salsiccia di Calabria. Just yesterday, I took a ride up to Mosefund Farm to visit Michael Clampffer who was nice enough to invite me to observe Kristoph Wiesner conducting the Mangalitsa class. He also gave me a bunch of meat to play with. So, I now have another Mangalitsa Lardo and guanciale curing. Today, with the scraps I made 10lbs. of 'nduja(which seems a bit extravagant with this pork) and 5lbs. of salame felino. Been a bit busy, it seems.

Mosefund Pancetta tasting

2010-11-08T17:59:00.003-05:00

These are the other 3 quarters of the whole side of pig I acquired from Michael from Mosefund Farm back in August. The other quarter became that lovely slab of bacon about which I posted on August 23rd. From top to bottom are Pancetta tesa, Pancetta Calabrese and Pancetta affumicata(bauchspeck or speck belly). The Pancetta tesa on top was cured with juniper, thyme and bay. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary with it. Due to it's size, I left in to cure for about 12 days. It was removed, rinsed and hung to dry. The Pancetta Calabrese was cured with fennel seeds and hot pepper powder. What I did differently with this was in the rinsing process. This is a DOP item, so all the literature about it points to the fact that it is cured simply with peperoncino powder. I used a little Norcino license and added some fennel seeds. After the curing process, it was rinsed with water and red wine vinegar. It is then recovered with peperoncino powder. It is then dried for a minimum of 30 days. The pancetta affumicata was cured with juniper, thyme, bay and caraway seeds. Why the caraway? I was shooting for flavors typical of the Alto Adige, South Tyrol, in particular, and even more specifically Val Gardena. My wife visited Ortisei in the Val Gardena last year. She returned with a small cookbook from the area. Caraway was by far the most pervasive aromatic used in the cuisine. From bread to meat, it is used in just about everything. Knowing that I was to visit this very place a month after I made it, I wanted to return and try my own pancetta affumicata to see how it measured up. See my previous post for the whole dissertation on the speck vs. pancetta affumicata thing. I cured this for the same amount of time as the others, 12 days. After the curing process, I left this out at room temperature for 2 hours to develop a nice pellicle prior to cold smoking. This thing got about 25 hours of cold smoke on it over the course of 5 days. I used a mixture of apple and cherry woods. In the Dolomites they use juniper wood for the cold smoking, which I've been in the process of tracking down for months to no avail. The cold smoke was applied using a nifty little gadget called the pro-q cold smoke generator. It is an inexpensive, invaluable tool made in the UK for those without room for a gigantic Bradley smoker or something of that ilk. First time I used it, I forgot to remove the candle and came out to find the thing on fire, so, keep that in mind.......remove the candle! All three of these items were left to dry for about 60 days. As I had written previously in the bacon post, these were all cured in vacu-sealed bags, with inconclusive results, other than no leaks and no headaches from wifey giving me the business about said leaks. With regard to taste on these, this meat makes you look like a superstar. All you really have to do is not screw it up. It's very forgiving as you can make a ton of mistakes and will STILL taste good. The Calabrese has a terrific heat, of which I'm a huge fan. The affumicata is delightfully smoky, but, not overwhelmingly so, with hints of caraway and bay. I think I came pretty close on taste judging against what I ate while in the Dolomites. The smoke on theirs is so much more aromatic, I really need to find that juniper wood. The tesa is delicious as well, I use it as my "working" pancetta, for use in sautes, soups, etc. After working with this belly, I don't think I would go back to curing belly found in Asian or Latin markets, I feel like that would just be pissing in the wind. If you have the opportunity to use this meat, I recommend you give it a go.

Recap of my 3 week Salumi tour in Italy

2010-10-27T21:46:00.026-04:00

Sorry for the lag in posts. Got married in September, then went eating my way through Italy for 3 weeks(started with a 3 crazy days in Munich for Oktoberfest). So, I'll get right to it. Took the train from Munich into Bolzano in the Alto Adige. Rented a car and went to the Val Gardena. We stayed in Ortisei for 3 days, which is absolutely stunning place and a must see for anyone travelling in Northern Italy. As far as salumi goes, this is probably the most diverse region in the country. I spent about 3 hours in 2 different salumerie, asking questions and buying almost everything. Really, really cool stuff. This first picture was from a restaurant called Tubladel. This was speck, kaminwurzen and cold smoked venison bresaola. First, a small lesson on speck and the Alto Adige. Alto Adige was part of Austria until after WW1 in 1919. They still hold strong their cultural heritage to Germany/Austria. In fact, German is the official language. So, while speck in Italy refers to the cold smoked outer shell of a pig's leg, in German, speck refers to bacon. There tends to be a little confusion about what's what. For example, I picked up something called cuore di speck, which was cured, cold smoked pork tenderloin. This is part of the reason I spent a couple hours in various salumerie. What I came to realize is that almost everything is cold smoked here. Pretty much all of which smoked with juniper wood. The next day, we took the cable car to hike the Swiss Alps(Dolomites). Since I'm unable to describe in words what it looks like, I'll put up a picture. After hiking for awhile, we came across a small cabin serving lunch. Again, I got some more salumi. Speck and Kaminwurzen this time. That purple stuff on the plate is a mostarda unique to the Alto Adige. It is small cranberries and horseradish. This is fabulous stuff. I was so blown away, I bought a bunch of jars home with me and contacted the company to try and import it myself. On the way back down, we stopped at a salumeria in the little town. I spoke to a very nice and accomodating female norcina. She was patient enough to walk me through almost all of the different salumi produced in the region. I found horse salami, camoscio(which is a chamois) bresaola, capriolo(which is a small deer I'm told) bresaola, cured pork tongue, carne salata(salted, uncured beef), pancetta affumicata, cold smoked pork tenderloin and, of course, kaminwurzen and speck.

From there, we drove to Tuscany. Chianti, to be more specific. Took a road trip to Siena, which is obligatory in my world due to my wife having lived there for 6 months. Found a really nice little salumeria. What I found is that although they do have the renowned Cinta Senese pig, a good portion of the salumi is made with cinghiale(wild boar). I believe they are everywhere, as I saw one trotting on the side of the road one night. This is probably my favorite as far as salame goes. Really big fan. The larger salame in the picture was made with Barolo wine. While still in Tuscany and relatively close to Panzano, we made a stop at Antica Macelleria Cecchini to see Dario. I learned when I arrived that he was married 2 days prior...........too bad. Made our way to Florence anyway. Bumped into another nice Norcineria, where I found some Ciauscolo. I know it's native to Marche and Umbria, but, since I wasn't going to either place, I jumped on it. Especially after the shopkeeper informed me that they DO make it in Tuscany as well, and theirs was the best ;). I also discovered Sopprassata Toscana, which is basically gigantic head cheese.

From Tuscany we travelled to Positano. While before I left Tuscany, I was all geared up to hit Antica Pizzeria Port'Alba in Naples(allegedly the oldest pizzeria in the world), possibly visit my grandmother's hometown of Casserta and maybe even see Pompeii. Plans changed. Those of you who have driven will understand. Once I got to the outskirts of Naples and onto the Amalfi drive, I tried to introduce road rage to Italy. Suffice to say, once I parked the car at our hotel in Positano, I made the executive decision to not move the car until absolutely necessary. I wasn't terribly disappointed, as I don't feel I missed much. Salumi wise, Campania doesn't have the resume of Alto Adige or Tuscany or Calabria. But, I did manage to get some decent Salami Napoli.

Speaking of Calabria, that was the next stop. All I could think about was hunting down 'nduja. I originally planned to stop in Spilinga. But, since my family is located in Santa Cristina and Reggio, we decided to stay in Scilla, as per a recommendation by Rosetta Costantino, the author of the soon to be released cookboook "My Calabria." Scilla is a really charming little fishing village on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Tough luck finding a salumeria here. No worries, I was also told that you could pretty much find 'nduja on any street corner. I was able to get in touch with some cousins whom I'd never met and they were able to steer me in the right direction for 'nduja. I bought this one from a butcher in Gioia Tauro. I'm pleased to report my own tastes pretty similar and is HOTTER. Aside from Alto Adige, I think Calabria maybe the next prolific region for salumi. Other than 'nduja, I found 5 different salumi with DOP status: Capocollo di Calabria, Pancetta di Calabria, Salsiccia di Calabria and Soppressata di Calabria. I tasted all except the pancetta. One thing they all had in common..............peperoncino, of course.

Hopped on the ferry over to Sicily to spend 3 days in Taormina. We stopped at Mount Etna on the way. Based on the fact that we did an inordinate amount of running around with various day trips and sooooo much driving. We decided that we would shut it down for a couple days. Again, with Taormina being on the sea, I was more interested in eating fresh fish than in finding a salumeria.

Dropped off the rental car in Catania and jumped on a flight to Rome for 2 days. Got out the Guanciale tractor beam. Locked it in at a super nice Norcineria in Campo dei Fiori. You can see the fat cheeks hanging in the middle of the picture. I spent 2 days in Rome eating Guanciale in any way you could imagine........carbonara, gricia, amatriciana. Also found the biggest mortadella I've ever seen. 2 days in Rome and time to go home. I can say that I really learned a lot. I found the salumieri much friendlier and willing to share information than I had been led to believe. So, in a nutshell, there is my 3 week salumi chase.

N'duja tasting

2010-09-08T18:59:00.002-04:00

Finally! I was able to bring one all the way to completion done correctly. This is my 4th effort. The prior 3 have been documented here. But, I'll save you the time of tracking them down and give you a quick rundown. My first attempt was terrible. The fat proportion was akin to that of a regular salame, that alone, I believe, was enough to harden it enough to render it unspreadable. It was stuffed in an artificial casing, which did NOT shrink at the same rate as the meat. This caused giant mold covered gaps in the salame. So, on to #2. Again, the fat content was low, higher than the first one, yet still too low. This was stuffed in beef middles and at least they behaved properly. It tasted pretty good, but, was not spreadable. #3 was very promising, I revised the meat recipe and decided to use strictly jowl meat. The hot pepper component was 30%(combination of Calabrese peperoncino paste and powder). Stuffed it in a beef bung, which looked and worked very nicely. Where I screwed the pooch was fermenting. I put a light in the fermentation chamber. It got too hot and what I was left with was a big red water balloon. I opened that one up a couple months ago. I've been using it ever since in various cooked dishes with fantastic results. I'll move on to the latest. This was executed exactly the same as the 3rd. It was fermented for 5 days @ 70 degrees. I left it to dry for 5 months. Where I deviated from the traditional preparation is in the smoking. I didn't have cold smoking capability from the outset. I could have smoked it on the Big Green Egg, but, that could only be held at roughly 100 degrees. Bearing in mind that I destroyed the 3rd N'duja with temperatures on 90 degrees, I decided to wait on the smoking. I was unable to cold smoke all summer as it was an unusually warm summer. However, there was a week when it rained for 4 straight days and the temperature never climbed above 80 degrees. Luckily for me, I was ready to cold smoke a speck belly at the same time. So, even though it had already been dried, I decided to cold smoke it for roughly 22 hours. Surprisingly, the smoke did actually impact the flavor of the meat. Only thing I would change about it is the grind. I only ran it once through the large die of the KA grinder. I think a second run through would be perfect. There are just a couple of larger pieces that are slightly challenging. Overall, a very succesful project. On a similar note, I will be IN Calabria in October, I plan on spending a day in Spillinga asking questions and taking notes and pictures so I can really get this thing dialed in.

Mother of all Bacon

2010-08-23T19:13:00.003-04:00

So, if the raw belly was "silly," then this bacon slab is just "Sick." These lovely slabs of deliciousness were treated with the utmost respect. Obviously, this is not pork belly you pick up in an Asian or Latin market. These are special, and deserve to be treated as such. This particular piece was cured with fresh ginger, sage and garlic to go with salt, pepper and sugar with a little cure #1. This has become my "go to" cure for bacon. As I know it works, I really didn't want to experiment with this piece of meat(refer to previously stated reasons). It was cured for 10 days. Usually I do a week, but, given the extra girth of this thing I gave it 3 extra days. For the first time, I decided to cure in vacuum sealed bags. I can't really be 100% as to whether or not this actually made a difference, but, at the very least, I didn't get in trouble for leaking bags in the refrigerator. Win-win. I removed it and rinsed it. It was dried off and set in front of a fan to develop a pellicle for an hour. While that was going on I had to get the hot smoke situation sorted out. Now, typically when I buy the $1.99/lb pork belly from a meat market/butcher, etc. (which have been absolutely awful, skinny and lean recently) I don't hold it in too high regard. I get out my $30 smoker, start a fire and throw some soaked wood chips on it. Smoke for 2-2.5 hours and remove it. Always works just fine. This time, however, I was NOT willing to disrespect this meat, as it wasn't $1.99/lb either :) . I set up my Big Green Egg. After quite a bit of tinkering, I was able to hold the temperature at 200 degrees. Only then did I introduce the soaked apple wood chips along with some apple wood dust. I babysat this sucker for 3 hours. A temperature probe was inserted after about an hour. Total smoke time was between 45 minutes and an hour. Total time on the fire was roughly 2.5 hours, maybe closer to 2 hours and 45 minutes. Took it off, waited 10 minutes and skinned it. Couldn't wait, I had to cut a piece off and try it. This meat really behaves differently than any meat I've ever eaten. I can't decide if the fat explodes or melts in your mouth, or both........explodes then melts. Either way, I can't say I've experienced it before. The worst part about using this meat is I don't think I'll waste my time with any other meat, seems useless. As for the rest of the belly, I made a Pancetta Tesa cured with thyme and juniper. Also, a Pancetta Calabrese cured with hot pepper powder and fennel seeds. Finally, a nice piece of Speck which was cured with caraway seeds, bay, juniper and thyme. The Speck will be cold smoked for a total of 20 hours, 4 hours for 5 days. N'duja also to be removed shortly.

Silly

2010-08-04T18:19:00.003-04:00

Silly in reference to this pork belly I procured yesterday from Michael Clampffer of Mosefund Farms. This is an 18lb. whole belly of a Mangalitsa pig. Looks more like the belly of a brontosaurus. Like a Fred Flinstone pork belly, almost comical, cartoonish even. I plan on breaking this into 4 sections of roughly 4.5lbs each. One pancetta, one bacon, one speck and I'm undecided on what to do with the 4th piece. Perhaps I'll do 2 different pancette....tese, of course. I don't think arrotolata is even a possibility due to the size of this thing. Anyway, sorry for the short post. I thought this was noteworthy based on the ridiculousness of it. More on this in a week or so.

Best Bresaola yet

2010-07-17T10:35:00.003-04:00

I know I've posted about Bresaola a couple times already. I realize it's not really sexy anymore. However, I found it noteworthy solely based on the result. This is as close to perfection I think that I could get. Looking at the individual thinly cut slices, you can see the slight marbling in the beef. You can also see on the outside that there is absolutely no case hardening and it's overall lovely rosy tint. This is a salumi I make over and over for one simple reason............I like to eat it, and so does everyone else, it's a real crowd pleaser. For entertaining purposes, I slice a bunch like you see in the picture, pile a bunch of pickled artichokes in the middle and drizzle with a really good olive oil. As far as taste, this one is dynamite. What's peculiar about this particular bresaola is that I forgot about it. I put it in to cure, which was sage, rosemary and juniper, along with salt, sugar, pepper and cure #2, of course. Put it in a Ziploc and into the refrigerator. I usually do 14-15 days on bresaole. Well, this one got lost in the shuffle and spent 21 days in the cure. I thought it would be a bit salty, or overwhelmed by juniper. Wrong. I think the juniper may have somehow mellowed, because there is only a slight, pleasant hint of it. The salt content was fine, not salty at all. I think 21 days will be be the new curing time for all bresaole I make. Very pleased with this one as you can tell. I'll be even happier to make it disappear.

Venison Salame..........Once again

2010-06-23T23:22:00.002-04:00

It's been quite some time, over a year, to be exact, since I've made venison salame. Shame, too, because it really is fantastic and pretty damned easy to make. But, honestly, I haven't made any due to the fact that I haven't been given any venison. I'm told it's been a slow deer hunting season. I find this a bit of a conundrum as I can't keep deer from eating the plants in backyard. Who knows. Finally, my cousin brought me 3 lbs. of freshly butchered venison. This was super lean, crimson red meat.....like BLOOD red. I like to keep something this special really simple. I don't muddle it with too many ingredients, just salt, hot pepper powder and fresh garlic. That's it.

I ran this meat right through the grinder. It was butchered so thoroughly that there was NO fat and no connective tissue. I added 30% pork fat(jowl in this case). I used 3% salt, a pretty hefty 1.5% hot pepper powder, a couple fresh garlic cloves along with the obligatory cure #2(.25%) and lactic starter(.09%). Stuffed them in some beef middles where they will ferment for an undetermined amount of time. I've been going back and forth on the fermentation time and temperature and still haven't nailed anything down yet. I think I'll try 48 hours @ 80 degrees this go around. They should be ready in 4-5 weeks when the results will be posted.

Mangalitsa Guanciale

2010-06-07T15:34:00.006-04:00

Here is that enormous Mangalitsa jowl that's been sitting in my curing chamber for several months. Just looking at the pictures you can tell this was a pretty special pig, or you can just assume he had a huge face ! I feel like the superlatives are redundant at a certain point, so, I won't gush. I always have "working" guanciale on hand, so, this was just a luxury. Also, when I saw the size of it, I knew it would be next to impossible for me to leave without it. I'm fairly confident I can make this guanciale disappear. Like I wrote, I always have "working" guanciale with which to cook. So, last week I needed some guanciale crisped and rendered for a recipe. The allure of using this stuff became overwhelming. I know it's heresy, but, I cut some up and cooked it. I keep looking through a thesaurus for synonyms for absurd or ridiculous and the like, but, I think I'd rather just describe how it tastes. Imagine that there was crispy pork flavored candy....................because there is! Seriously, if I were blindfolded, that's what I would have thought it was. Sweet, salty, porky candy. This stuff will definitely spoil me, I'm afraid. I am, as I have previously described, a guancialophile. I don't know how I'll be able to go back to "regular" guanciale after this. If you have the means to procure it, I highly recommend it.

Mangalitsa Lardo is ready

2010-05-17T14:56:00.002-04:00

Here is the gigantic piece of Lardo that's been sitting in my chamber for 3 months. This stuff is just silly. Look at that lovely rose colored hue running right through the middle of it. I was concerned that it wouldn't be cured, I only left it to cure for 3 weeks. I also dried it as I would any other salumi, bearing in mind I don't have the unique marble coffin used in Tuscany for just this application. But, I am relieved to announce it is just fine. In fact, more than fine. It's terrific. I think God put these piggies on earth specifically to cure, I can't imagine they serve a better purpose than this. As I wrote prior regarding the coppa and how it melts in your mouth, the Lardo is even more unctuous, if that's possible. I sliced some paper thin to put on bruschetta. I toasted the bread and while it was still warm added the lardo. It was drizzled with top notch olive oil and cracked pepper. By the time I got to it, the lardo had begun to melt into the bread..............sick. There is one small caveat with this stuff. But, this goes for all salumi. I sliced a little with a knife that was a bit thicker than the with the machine and I didn't care for the mouth feel, it was a bit challenging. Again, this is true of all salumi. Sliced thinly on bruschetta, I made a whole lot disappear. Another small bit of advice when playing with Lardo. Prior to slicing, remove it from the chamber and either into the refrigerator for a couple hours or into the freezer for a couple minutes. This will make it much easier to slice. Otherwise, it will get really soft and be a pain in the neck to slice correctly. As you can see by the picture, it was starting to sweat a little. Doesn't take long, maybe 5 minutes. Mangalitsa guanciale is up next.

Mangalitsa Coppa Tasting

2010-05-10T20:13:00.002-04:00

This is some fabulous stuff! I now understand what all the fuss is about. This was cured with the hot pepper powder and fennel seeds. It hung for roughly 6 weeks. I cut it down right at 30% weight loss. In this case, I think the 30% was perfect. The fennel seed and hot pepper powder really seemed to mellow and faded into the background as the pork was really able to stand out. What really makes this stuff ridiculous is it's unctuousness. Sliced paper thin, it actually melts on your tongue. This coppa was perhaps a bit too salty, but, that's hardly a complaint. Overall, I really couldn't be happier with this effort. Really, really great stuff.

Salame tasting

2010-05-04T13:14:00.004-04:00

This is the most recent salame. I just pulled it down yesterday. By looking at it, I can honestly say, this is the best looking salame I've made, technique wise. You can see there aren't any holes in the forcemeat at all...........perfectly solid. The fat definition is great(in my opinion anyway, you're welcome to disagree), absolutely ZERO smearing. As for the tasting, it has a really nice black pepper heat to it. The anise is certainly present, but doesn't interfere. The garlic provides a pleasant backdrop, while the vermouth while mellow to begin with, has really fallen to the point where it's just an intriguing last taste. I think vermouth in salame is a great idea. I know that there are some who complain that raw wine leaves an unpleasant taste and choose to cook it down to rid it of this. What I think I've found with the vermouth is that you can use raw wine and it won't interfere with the flavor, yet still provide the gentle acidity for which you're looking. Overall, this is a REALLY good salame. With only 4 ingredients(aniseeds, garlic, black pepper, vermouth), I really couldn't ask for a better tasting(or looking) salame. The Mangalitsa salumi are ready and will be posted about this week.

New Salame

2010-03-30T19:17:00.002-04:00

It's been quite a while since I made a salame. I mean a salame that didn't contain enough hot pepper to sear your lips. So, I felt like making a regular old salame. But, I didn't feel like making something I've already made. That in mind, I opted for something just slightly unusual, sounded good in my head, anyway. This would be a salame with aniseed, garlic, black pepper and vermouth. Made the usual way, of course. Here's what it looked like:

1863 grams lean pork butt

615 grams pork backfat

86.7 grams salt(3.5%)

24.7 grams black pepper(1%)

19.8 grams aniseeds(.8%)

6.2 grams cure #2(.25%)

11.9 grams dextrose(.48%)

2.2 grams F-RM-52 starter culture(.09%)

3 large cloves garlic

1 cup dry vermouth

All the dry ingredients were combined into a mini chopper and beat up. I added a healthy tablespoon of whole black peppercorns at the end, for appearance's sake. This, incidentally, was my first effort using F-RM-52 starter culture. I think my F-LC has run it's course as I've mentioned in previous posts. These salami were stuffed into beef middles. So, nothing real exciting, but, at least it's something new to look at! Oh, the picture is deceiving, sorry. I hung them in the chamber just to take the pic. They will ferment at 70 degrees for 48-72 hours after being sprayed with M-EK-4 mold spray. Hopefully we'll be ready to cut them down in a month, just as I'm pulling my N'duje.

Mangalitsa part 2...Lardo

2010-03-07T12:23:00.003-05:00

This is the gigantic piece of Mangalitsa Lardo that's been curing for 3 weeks. I've never cured anything for this long. Then again, I've never had anything this thick to cure before. As a gauge to it's thickness, I inserted a toothpick(far right). You can see the thickness is actually as thick as the toothpick. You can also see that is not even the thickest part of the Lardo! I hope that the 3 week cure was enough, but, it did feel pretty well cured. The cure consisted of juniper, rosemary and bay, along with salt, pepper, sugar and cure #2. All that's left now is to let it sit there for 2 months. I'm looking forward to this one. This may be my best work yet.

Mangalitsa Salumi part 1

2010-02-26T14:44:00.004-05:00

Removed the guanciale and the coppa to be hung today. The guanciale was cured with salt, sugar, black pepper, thyme and juniper. I did about 12 days in the cure, I think it was probably ready at 10 days as it was quite stiff. You can see the size of this gorilla, I hung it in front of two other normal sized guanciali. So, in actuality, this is Mangalitsa guancialone. This will probably dry for the better part of 2 months.

This is the coppa. I cured this with my old standby I use for almost everything. I use it to make fresh sausage, for dry rubs, marinades and more. This is a combination of hot pepper powder Products, along with fennel seeds , salt and cure #2. I use them in the following ratio: 3.5% salt, 1.75% pepper powder, .88% fennel seed, .25% cure #2. I stuffed it in a 90mm collagen casing. Based on how long my Berkshire coppa took to cure, I'm guessing this should take roughly 6 weeks. Part 2 will be the Lardo. This thing is SOOO big, I'm going to let it cure for another couple days. Wait and see.

Back on the horse

2010-02-16T18:46:00.005-05:00

Here's proof that it doesn't always go the way you want. After making that N'duja with which I was so happy, I committed N'dujacide. Having skipped a starter, I figured I would ferment at a little higher temperature than usual. So, I thought 90 was a good number, I'd fermented other salami at this temperature and it's been fine. Well, I have never made a salami from all jowl meat. I'm not 100% sure, but I'll go out on a limb and say jowl melts at around 90. I woke up and found the temperature in the oven to be 93 degrees. I removed the N'duja from it's container in the oven to find it a sack full of red liquid. After conferring with Larbo, we concluded it was indeed a bag full of hot melted lard and was toast. I hit it with the pricker and got most of the liquid out. I will hang and dry as normal, hopefully I can at least use it in pasta and pizza. So, I bought a couple more pounds of jowl and went right back at it. Same exact thing........3.5lbs. of jowl meat, 1 lb. hot pepper paste half pound of hot pepper powder Products, 3.5% salt and .25% cure #2.......that's it. Ferment for a couple days, cold smoke for a couple days(just got my cold smoke generator), and dry for a couple months. This is being gently fermented at 70 degrees.

Mosefund farms Mangalitsa

2010-02-10T20:26:00.012-05:00

Had the opportunity this past Sunday to visit Michael Clampffer at Mosefund Farm for a tour of the facilities. After a series of swings and misses, we were finally able to nail it down. Here are the babies. They are held here for some time and subsequently moved to the pen with the larger fellows. This pig on the right is one of the babies that looks to have been born a sheep. He also thought my hand smelled like food, until he tasted it! Didn't stop him from gnawing on it anyway. Here are the bigger guys, napping between meals. They are penned off adjacent to the babies. More of the bigger boys, looking like seals on a San Francisco pier. Here is a picture of what might be the coolest feature(for the pigs)in the facility. The pigs are free to roam the surrounding hills. They are all fenced in and allowed to meander and eat, as Michael told me, whatever isn't nailed down. From there we went inside, where the largest pigs are held. They are fed just wheat, barley and acorns until they are slaughtered. I took a bunch of pictures, however, due to the dust kicked up from the ensuing melee created when Michael tossed a bucket of acorns into the pen, none of them are viable. Michael also showed me his curing chamber. I confess I am quite envious as he has an entire walk in closet full of lovely smelling prosciutti. Ok, so, time for business. Where's my meat? Went to the barn to pull some out of the freezer. When he removed some, I laughed out loud. Absolutely ridiculous stuff. This is stuff you hear about or read about, like Lardo di Colonnata. This looked even better. I got a big piece of shoulder, from which I'll remove a coppa and cure the roughly 2-3" of backfat for lardo. It is still semi-frozen in the picture, I hope you can make out the thickness of the backfat......absurd! I also grabbed a jowl for guanciale, as I find I am a guancialophile. Way too good and huuuuuge to pass on. For a size comparison, I cleaned it up and layed an already cured jowl next to it. This jowl weighs about 1.5lbs. So, you can see it's not like any jowl I've ever seen. I'll post more as I cure these within the next couple days. Thanks Michael for a really cool and interesting experience., and thanks for the delicious lardo!

La N'Duja Terza

2010-02-04T17:57:00.005-05:00

This is my third effort at this now hot as a pistol(literally and figuratively) salame. I think this may be my best effort yet. It was also my quickest. I knocked this out from start to finish in 2 hours. A bunch of research, a couple of emails to Calabrese people, both in this country and in Italy, and I was able to formulate a recipe. I opted not to use any offal. I've never used any, so, that's a variable I was more comfortable leaving out of the equation. I read recipes that included almost everything from the pig you could imagine. One recipe, I believe to be loosely translated to English, simply read "pig face." I'll assume they meant jowl. Others calling for everything in and around the head and face, even skin, which I don't think I'd seen before. Well, Larbo and I discussed it a little bit. He told me his best texture came from using straight belly. That sounded like the best option. But, what sounded even better was the "pig face" option. If belly was good, jowl must be better. It IS softer, more unctuous and fattier. I've seen it used in many recipes. That was what I decided on. This will be the easiest salame to explain in terms of ingredients and ratios. 5lbs. is the max I can do in one batch with the Kitchen Aid mixer. So, always looking to one up Larbo, I went with 30% total weight in peppers. I'll give the ratios in pounds, don't even have to mess with grams for this one. 3.5lbs. jowl, 1lb. hot pepper paste, .5lbs. peperoncino powder. That's it. Well, not quite, I forgot 3.5% salt, .25% cure #2 and about .5% dextrose. I stuffed it in a 4.5" beef bung. This was my first effort using beef bung. I have heard things about their odor. Well, I must have a good batch, as they had no odor to speak of. I rinsed and soaked for about 30 minutes. Stuffed pretty easily and quickly. Trussed it up quickly, here it is. Looks pretty damn good, I think. I'll ferment it for a couple days, while I wait for my cold smoker to arrive. Cold smoke it for about 3-4 hours a day for a week or so. I would love to smoke it with olive branches, for some reason, I'm thinking that's hard to come by. Anyone reading who has olive branches, I'd love to barter for some. For any readers out there who make their own salame, yet have not tried N'duja, you have no excuse! I carry all the pepper products in the store. :)

Update

2010-02-01T22:31:00.004-05:00

Terribly sorry for lack of posting. Been trying to get this store up and running. Proper website should be ready to go in a week or two, so I can get rid of the cheeeeezy ebay storefront. I've shipped out a bunch of hot pepper products. So, there better be a bunch of new N'duja posts. Got Larbo to create a monstrosity of a hybrid N'duja/mortadella, or N'dujadella. Which is delicious, BTW. I was supposed to head up to Mosefund farm to get my hands on some Mangalitsa yesterday. But, that fell through, so, we have tentatively rescheduled for this weekend. I have spent the last 2 weeks emailing and calling every importer/distributor/exporter in this country and Italy. Apparently, the wheels move somewhat slowly in Italy. I have been discussing deals for almost 2 weeks. Deals that for the most part could have been finalized in about 2 hours. But, as I was told, people in Italy don't check email like Americans. Which is probably a good thing, I get my email right to my phone, which can be annoying. Anyway, on the agenda..............I have a shipment coming from Milano. This will have Garganelli combs, gnocchi boards, sausage prickers, Mezzaluna knives and ravioli stamps. So, some interesting tools and gadgets. The mezzalune are made by inox bonomi, these are special to me because this is the exact model(I think)that I inherited from my grandmother. It is well over 60 years old and still in use. I have coming by the end of this week(hopefully) some fig vincotto, hot pepper vincotto, pane carasau(flatbread from Sardegna), malloreddus, mullet bottarga(dried roe), wild fennel pollen and some capers from Pantelleria. I am waiting on word from a company in Sardegna about some other pretty obscure ingredients including tuna bottarga and wild Sadinian cardoons under oil. Keep checking back, and if you want something you don't see , please post a comment here or drop an email. When everything gets up and running smoothly I will start carrying more common items like olive oil.(mostly DOP stuff, like Lago di Garda). My third N'duja attempt should be posted this week. This one to be 70% jowl and 30% hot pepper. YIKES!

Good News

2010-01-13T08:37:00.005-05:00

N'duja can now be made by all! After a brief conversation with the Italian importers, Coluccio's, from whom I buy , I was given a green light to carry their products online. They have a great line of imported Italian food products. Almost everything you can think of. I need to know what readers would be most interested in me carrying. I can get just about anything you can think of, from saba and vin cotto to farro perlato and lentils from Castellucio. All types of oils, vinegars, olives, tuna in oil, pasta, coffee, spices and confections. Right now, I have a standing order for hot pepper paste, hot pepper powder(for N'duja, of course) and wild mountain fennel seed and probably some whole dried oregano(little bushes), dried rosemary branches and dried parsley. I won't have it until Friday, so, I have 2 days to come up with any products that would be in demand. Bear with me early on, as this is a fledgeling operation. Anyone who would like to order any of these three products, please drop me an email through the profile link on this page. I am in the process of quickly throwing together an ebay storefront to get started. Please make suggestions in the comment section. Forgot to add, I can get estratto(sicilian sun dried tomato paste), and wild fennel pollen(pricey).

Cotechino time!

2010-01-02T12:57:00.008-05:00

This is traditional Italian New year's fare. Typical from Emilia-Romagna, specifically Modena. This sausage is a bit of an enigma, well, in this country anyway. I was never able to find it consistently. One salumeria had it one year, then, not the next. Another was out of stock when I was looking there. Long story short, last year was when I first received the grinder attachment for the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I performed an internet search for Cotechino in an effort to see if I could get some mail ordered by New year's. The search also turned up a recipe from a book on how to make it at home. The light bulb went on. It has been on ever since and spiraled out of control into what you're reading right now. Anyway, this was the first sausage I ever made. It was just last year and it was atrocious. I had no idea what I was doing, but at least they looked ok. So, with a year under my belt, I was confident I could pull it off. Over at Jason Molinari's blog, a Cotechino discussion was started with Al Verona. Al suggested the use of jowls as opposed to backfat. For my ratios I went 50% pork shoulder, 25% pig skin, 25% jowls. For spices, I used cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, coriander, and a touch of hot pepper, along with black pepper and cure #1. The ratios of these spices are all relatively small, all were based on Paul Bertolli's cotechino. I did, however, use a touch more cinnamon than what his calls for.

The meat and fat were ground through the course die. The pig skin, boiled for 40 minutes, was ground through the fine die. I did not do a second grinding through the course die, as I've seen suggested. I don't think my jowl was cold enough and feared it would start to smear. It already was looking pretty soft. They were stuffed in beef middles and hung in my curing chamber. I took 2 down and cooked them yesterday. I'm afraid I have to add that there was one huge, glaring error in making this sausage. I forgot to add SALT! This bothered me for two days. But, I wasn't about to cut them down and start over again. I figured I would aggressively salt the poaching liquid and season each slice as it was still really hot and would absorb a good bit of salt. I poached them in barely boiling, or "smiling" water for about 2 hours. They were then left in the water for another 20-30 minutes. I prepared a nice bed of marinated lentils for the slices of cotechino to rest upon. I got lucky, I sliced the cotechino and salted each slice on both sides. I've only had a handful of cotechini, so, I don't have a wide frame of reference. But, from what I've had, this was better than the others. The lack of salt wasn't an issue. It tasted very good, perhaps a bit, just a bit, heavy on the cinnamon. Other than that, I thought they tasted and looked just like they should.

Christmas salami/salumi

2009-12-26T21:37:00.010-05:00

The title infers some sort of special salame. I assure you there is no such thing. I had to cater an affair for Christmas eve. So, I was instructed by the "boss" to have a salame ready for Christmas. This should have been ready in time. Usually, I pull my salami at about 45%. This measured in at 41%. It felt a touch soft for me, but, it was crunchtime. For this salame, a finocchiona, I used the same ratios and same ingredients I use for my dry rub. 3.5% salt, 1.75% hot Calabrian pepper powder, .8% "wild mountains" fennel seed. This was my first attempt at using natural casings(besides N'duja). due to it's slight softness and color, there was an abhorrent comparison to pepperoni. In DE-fense of the OFF-ender. It does resemble the deplorable American pizzeria topping. It tastes great. Good heat, and a pleasant fennel backdrop. I can't wait until it hardens a bit more. One thing I noticed using large beef middles as opposed to collagen casings. With the collagen, the forcemeat always seems to have gaps in it. What I mean is, when sliced thinly, it has holes in it. Now, there has never been any mold issues with any of these gaps or holes in the forcemeat. It's just a slight imperfection affecting it's appearance. Well, first glance at this salame in the beef middle, and not a single gap in any of the forcemeat. If anything, I can say these were under stuffed, in anything. Needless to say, I may have stuffed my last salame in collagen. Anyone else had similar issues?

As for the Christmas "salumi." As I mentioned above, I was responsible for catering a soiree for roughly 30 people. As if that weren't enough, I was given instructions, again, by the "boss," to make some "interesting" meat to hang in the fridge. The quotes are used to illustrate an interesting point. This is the same lady who wanted to throw me out of the house for the unsightly second full size refrigerator in "her" kitchen. Apparently, it was now a conversation piece. I had just become a freak show. Don't think for one second I'm bothered by the implication............I filled it, gladly. But, on such short notice, my options were limited. As you can see in the pictures, nothing new or out of the ordinary. Luckily, I had a bresaola curing for 2 weeks, so, that was ready in time to hang. Pretty straightforward. Cured for 2 weeks, hung in a 90mm collagen casing. You also see the 2 jowls provided by my local butcher. Salt, sugar, pepper and thyme. Finally, you see the pancetta arrotolata. While walking past the same meat display I've walked past nearly 3 times a week for the past 2 years at a local gourmet store, I was struck by a glowing white beacon. That of a beautiful piece of pork belly. Half became ginger and sage bacon, the other half was rolled into arrotolata. Bear in mind, I almost exclusively go tesa these days. Particularly because it makes no difference taste wise. It also tears the shit out of my hands trying to tie it so goddamn tightly. However, The "boss" suggested that it would make for a better presentation. Arrotolata it would become. How convenient. There you have it..........the Christmas salumi freak show.

N'duja sneak peek

2009-12-22T12:32:00.004-05:00

I pulled one down last week, but, mowed through it before I was able to snap off a picture. So, without further ado, here it is. Yes, it IS as hot as it looks. It may be just a touch firmer than I would like. I didn't use a starter culture, but I did use cure #2. I went with .25% as the default percentage for #2. Perhaps next time I'll use a touch less. It's only been hanging for about 3 months. I say only because, traditionally it is dried for about a year. It tastes wonderfully. I upped Larbo's ante, over at This Little Piggy: N'duja and pushed to 25% total weight in pepper(both paste and dried), and it sure feels like it. I takes a couple seconds to ignite, but when it does, it doesn't disappoint. The funny thing about this salame is the more you eat the hotter it gets, while at the same time it tastes better and better. By the time I got through just a half of a small chub, I was red faced and trying not to breath through my mouth, as the air hitting the inside of my mouth was excruciating. May seem like a fool's errand..............so call me foolish. I' ve never had an authentic N'duja, but, these ingredients are as authentic as they come, and I have to imagine that tastewise, it's pretty close.

Salame Pepato result

2009-11-23T11:30:00.003-05:00

This thing took forever to dry. Hung this up on September 3. Only took it down last week. This long delay is what led me to believe my starter had gone bad. Alas, it has not. While still a touch soft in the middle, it is delicious and perfectly fine. Has anyone else come across this issue? I'd call it a problem, but, with the salame being fine, it could only be described as an unexpected delay. A delay worth waiting for, I might add. I was finally able to get a salame with the heat I've been looking for. It is not overwhelming either, as you may think. I used four different types or pepper for this guy. The Calabrian dried chile powder, crushed red pepper flakes, black pepper and white pepper. I think it made a difference, because you can really taste the different heats, as they occur in different parts of your palate. One of them does resound a bit and stick around for awhile. I suspect it is the Calabrian dried powder, as this usually hits late. Another fine salame destined for the holiday table.

Finished Coppa

2009-11-10T22:41:00.003-05:00

There really isn't much to say about this that you can't tell from the picture. Yes, this is my first Coppa. But, I don't think I could have done any better. I pulled it down on 11/7. It was hung on 8/21, so, a bit longer than anticipated to dry out. I pulled it at 35% loss. It was perfect all the way through. No case hardening whatsoever. As far as taste, the same goes, fantastic. I think most of it has to do with the quality of the meat. If you read the Coppa post back in August, you'll see where I mentioned this is Berkshire pork, butchered for me as I watched. Sliced super thinly on a slicer, it literally melted in my mouth. Salty, soft, unctuous and porky. I can say without hesitation this is the best tasting salumi I've made to date. Only thing I'm bummed about is that I've already eaten half of it. This is to be repeated as soon as possible. I have to give credit and say thanks to Tom the butcher for such a wonderful piece of meat. You can find him at:

http://tomthebutcher.blogspot.com/

N'duja neurosis

2009-10-16T18:24:00.002-04:00

Yep, time to give N'duja another go. Again, I went pretty straightforward. I had enough trouble last time with plain old meat and fat, never mind throwing in offal. Well, Larbo beat me to the punch this time, using ingredients I planned on using. http://www.thislittlepiggy.us/2009/10/02/the-red-nutella/ (Please someone tell me how to make those nice little links, instead of these bush league links I keep posting.)

So, I ground up some pork shoulder along with some backfat through the course die. Then back through the fine die. One thing I have to mention, and I have to give credit where credit is due. I saw Chris Cosentino on "Chefs vs. City," making fresh sausage. He advocated the use of thin "strips" of the raw meat, as it will sort of thread through the grinder. I figured if a guy who pays his rent with salame does it that way, I have to at least give it a shot. I'll be god damned, worked wonderfully. For the strips that weren't overly frozen, I didn't even need the plunger. Once they grabbed in the grinder, they got dragged right through.............perfect.

N'Duja

1658 grams pork shoulder

414 grams backfat

62 grams kosher salt(3%)

5.2 grams cure #2(.25%)

4 grams dextrose

310 grams hot pepper paste

207 grams Calabrian dried hot chili powder

Not one to leave well enough alone, I had to do something different than Larbo, otherwise it would have been the exact same salame. I went above and beyond his big chili numbers. The 25% number is good benchmark for N'duja from what I've read. I went with 15% of the Calabrian hot pepper paste and 10% of the Calabrian dried chili powder. While measuring out the powder, I really did think it was overkill, but, whatever, that was my first instinct, so, 10% it was. I mixed it in the mixing bowl of the kitchen aid, it was little full, so some got spit out. A little aside regarding the paste, that shit stains, and stains everything....skin, counter tops, utensils, etc. I took out a little piece to saute up. No sooner did that thing hit the pan and I was coughing my ass off. I was a little apprehensive to taste it. But, my fears were allayed when I bit into it. Don't get me wrong, it's friggin hot, but delicious. I'll take better pictures once it's been fermented, which I'm thinking on the order of 3 days.

Fresh lot of goodies

2009-10-15T15:46:00.002-04:00

Pulled all these goodies out yesterday. On top is the speck belly, below which is the tesa, and finally guanciale. Right next to it is the salame pepato. You can see by the color of the speck belly, that is really doesn't look all that much like bacon. And, while it IS belly, it doesn't really taste all that much like bacon(strong smokiness aside). It is super rich and porky. One distinct difference. Now, I'll be the first to admit my knives need to be sharpened. But, they're not dull. I had a devil of a time trying to slice through this. The slicer, however, made short work of it, so, no biggie. It is very complex, and deeply smoky. The juniper really came through, as it was used both in the cure and for smoking. I should mention that this is not speck as you would find in the Alto Adige, seeing as how I only dried it for 8 weeks as opposed to the traditional 22. But, I can only go on what I've had in the past. This is in the right ballpark, regarding it's deep smokiness and color. This was certainly a worthwhile venture and definitely deserves another shot. As I've written, speck(correct me if I'm wrong) seems to be a preparation as opposed to just smoked prosciutto. I've seen it as loin and belly as well. I have a nice 5lb. piece of loin in the refrigerator as we speak, so, I have a feeling that'll be next.

The tesa and guanciale are the results of the post from August 11. Yes, I did leave them in for quite awhile past what I would normally. Based on the fact that this pork was more expensive and of a much higher quality than what I usually use, I wanted to optimize it's potential. They both were cured very conservatively, and it payed off. The guanciale is superb. Sweet and delicious, with a hint of juniper and a nice bite of thyme. The tesa, which I believe is Berkshire was treated as austerely, with salt, pepper, sugar, thyme. Playing it safe sometimes pays off. This is just plain old, tasty, unsmoked bacon.

The salame vexes me somewhat. I didn't do anything different outside it's flavoring ingredients. I left it to hang for an awful long time 6 weeks. Well, a long time for such a small casing(43mm). Weird that it is still a touch soft inside, I ate some and rehung it(that was yesterday, I'm still here). That's what's so odd. It shows it drying on the scale. I believe I dried it 50% loss, yet it remained soft. Like I write above, I did nothing different. Which leads me to believe the starter may be at fault. It is certainly cured, smells fine, tastes GREAT, just a bit soft. The other 43mm as well as the 60mm are still hanging. As far as the taste, I may have told you, it's GREAT! I finally packed enough pepper for it to hot enough for my liking. The Calabrian dried chilli powder really did it's job. As a side note, I just got my beef middles in the mail yesterday, paving the way for my next N'duja attempt, should be tomorrow.

Look what I found!

2009-10-14T13:40:00.003-04:00

Found this box of loveliness sitting at my front door. True to his word, Larbo made good on his promise. http://www.thislittlepiggy.us/2009/10/01/a-tale-of-two-boxes/ He asked me to ship some products which are difficult to find in most places. I had obliged. In return, I was to receive as payment an array of cured meats. You can see the HUGE vacuum sheet of pancetta(too much!). Along with a sample of his cocoa bacon, a nice generous package of pepper bacon. He also sent me some fresh mortadella(I must admit, I mowed through it in 2 days), as well as some pate'. He also included some BBQ pork shoulder fat and juices for exploratory purposes.

I destroyed that pepper bacon, I ate it every which way you could imagine. Even included it in a short rib braise. It is the best LOOKING bacon I've seen. Doesn't taste too bad either. ;) The cocoa bacon was surprising in that it had a hint of pleasant sweetness in the background that interfered with neither the smoke nor that rich, pork flavor. The mortadella is absolutely RIDICULOUS! Awesome, Larbo. I ate it by itself, cut it right out of the package. I've not yet gotten to the pate', as I'd like to include it in a hamburger patty as described by Larbo. As far as the pancetta, well, honestly, I enjoy looking at it too much to actually break open it's packaging. I may use it to wrap around a pork loin roast tonight! Larbo, I'm open for trade any time you like. As far as I'm concerned, you got robbed!

Pastrami follow-up

2009-09-29T13:24:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the long delay in posting this. This is the pastrami, post steam. You can see how juicy it was. This was a home run. At first, I was hesitant to steam it at all. It tasted wonderfully frsh off the smoker. However, it was a bit tough and not easy to chew prior to steaming. The bath really mellowed out it's flavor perfectly and made it wonderfully tender, especially for sandwiches. This was quite a treat, it was devoured within a day. Highly recommended.

Pastrami

2009-09-18T20:42:00.003-04:00

To those of you that read here, this is probably somewhat of a surprise. Yup, I ventured outside the box. I can't explain why either. I walked by the butcher at the supermarket as they were breaking down these briskets. They were brought out and looked pretty good, actually. So, I got a bug up my ass to make pastrami. Threw it in a brine based loosely on Ruhlman's. 3 days later, she was smoking. Now, I'm not real good at this smoking thing, other than hot smoking the bacon(which anyone can do). I smoked it on the Big Green Egg, which, by itself can present temperature control issues. I read Ruhlman says hot smoke at around 180 degrees. I was shooting for 200. I soaked a whole bunch of hickory to get the fire really good and smoky, and it was. Threw it on right at about 200 degrees.........perfect. However. I removed my T-bone(on the other grill) and went inside to eat, seeing that my temerature was fine, and there was ample smoke. Upon completion of my steak, I returned outside to find the Egg fired up to over 350 degrees. OOPS. Anyway, tinkered with it for the better part of an hour. Only able to get it down to 275, didn't want to play with it too much. Two hours into the process, I decided to probe it. Ruhlman says hot smoke to 150 degrees internal temprature. I figured 2 hours to be roughly halfway. Well, the probe told another story. I poked that poor hunk of meat in about 10 places to confirm I read correctly. My lowest reading was 175 degrees.......What the hell? I removed it and brought it in. The picture is what it looked like 10 minutes out of the smoke. I'm not sure if two hours is the right amount of time, as Ruhlman doesn't offer up any time estimates. But, two hours was enough time tonight to smoke a wonderfully flavored, perfectly cooked pastrami. It looks ok as well. I only just managed to drag myself away from it. But, not before I shoveled about half a pound down my throat. I'm blown away by how delicious this is. I hope I can recreate my comedy of errors to produce another one of these. Seeing as I'm not eating this until tomorrow, I'll steam it then. So, next time you see nice slabs of brisket freshly cut, beware the bug that got up MY ass, or just make pastrami! Oh, also, please excuse my deplorable photography. I bought a new camera, breaking it in. Not that my photos taken prior were anything to write home about.

Wood-fired beauty.....................right back at ya, Larbo!

2009-09-12T22:48:00.004-04:00

This is what 725 degrees looks like. Larbo may have his Robot Coupe, but I still have the capability to wood fire a Pizza Napoletana at 700+ degrees. You can keep your food processor, I'll take perfect pizza. This really is as good as food can be. Perfectly charred, yet still chewy crust. San Marzano passato with hand made fresh mozzarella. Freshly grated Pecorino Romano. New basil torn by hand. Can't beat it. God bless the Big Green Egg.

Eye candy

2009-09-09T16:31:00.003-04:00

Just pulled about 2 hours ago. Not much to report, just 2 more well cured creations. The bresaola has the faintest hint of clove, just enough that's it's pleasurable, not off putting. The Tyrolean cured lonzino is very good as well. Nothing too overwhelming in the flavor profile there. I'm not much of a braggart, but, tough to argue that these are anything but well done, they look and smell perfect. They are delicious as well, just had a bunch of each drizzled with some fruity extra virgin olive oil and shaved parmigiano-reggiano.

Pizza!

2009-09-05T14:47:00.003-04:00

I am a self professed pizza snob. However, I find most of what is made commercially to be abhorrent. Half-baked crust, topped with rubber mozzarella(no relation to the real thing). Lifeless, flavorless, tomato sauce combined with cardboard, saw dusty dry oregano. If you're really lucky, you can get pizza from a chain, where the dough is more closely related to Twinkies than pizza. Disgusting. These bastardized recreations bare no resemblance to the original creation. There are only a handful of places I will eat pizza out. All of those establishments feature some sort of brick oven, either coal or wood fired. Lombardi's and Arturo's in Manhattan make the list. For me, though, the best is Totonno's in Coney Island. They feature a coal fired oven that is over 100 years old. Perfectly charred crust, fresh mozzarella, and crushed tomatoes.............perfect. So, I've resorted to making my own, almost exclusively. I know, looking at the picture, you're saying "that's not Pizza Napoletana," and you're right. I happened to stumble across this recipe at Serious Eats. It looked so wonderful, I had to give it a shot. You can see it here:http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/08/sicilian-style-square-pizza-pie-recipe.html?utm_source=Serious+Eats+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4c98b02599-Serious_Eats_Weekly_Newsletter_August_17_2009&utm_medium=email, I wish I knew how to abbreviate links. Anyway, it's a little labor intensive for those who prefer ease of use, but, well worth it. I followed the instructions for the dough, but, went my on way as far as topping. I used fresh mozzarella(grated), Pecorino Romano, San Marzano passato and finished it with wild Sicilian dried oregano. Any other pizza fanatics out there should certainly give this a spin. I'm sure glad I did........3 separate occasions.

Salami Pepati

2009-09-02T16:15:00.002-04:00

After finishing the last of my sopressate, I discovered I was all out of salami. I liked it so much, I decided to go back to the well. However, as I mentioned in that post, it really never developed the heat I like. With further alterations to be made to THAT recipe, I could no longer call it the same thing. So, let it be called salame pepato! I used 4 different kinds of pepper for these. I went from .4% dried Calabrian chili powder all the way to 1%. I raised black pepper from .4% up to .5%. White pepper .2%, and finally crushed red pepper flakes from.1% to.2%. Obviously, I'm hoping to turn the heat up on these. I also threw in some garlic and red wine. I used bactoferm F-LC as my starter. They are currently fermenting at a touch under 70 degrees, where they will stay for 48-60 hours, depending on how they appear. The big one is a 70mm collagen, the 2 smaller are 43mm collagen. They have been sprayed with M-EK-4 mold spray as well.

Coppa and speck belly

2009-08-22T12:46:00.003-04:00

I suppose the Big Green Egg does perform as advertised. I was able to cold smoke this belly over the course of 3 days. It wasn't traditional cold smoke, mind you. I was only able to hold it at 100 degrees +/- 5 degrees. So, I smoked it for 4 hours a day for 3 consecutive days. The results of which can be seen in the picture. I used apple wood, also threw in some juniper berries wrapped in aluminum foil. The addition of the juniper berries really created some super fragrant smoke. I was pleasantly surprised how well it worked. I cut off a piece of the outside as you may have noticed, just to have a gander at how it worked and looked. Looks good, I think. Smells great as well. Off to the curing chamber for a couple months. I don't think I'm going

to wait the 22 weeks to have at this.

On to the coppa. For whatever reason, I forgot this thing was in to cure. So, I only left myself 24 hours to ferment and spray it. Regardless, a 10 day cure and it felt plenty cured. Stuffed it into a 100mm collagen casing. Sprayed with the obligatory M-EK-4 spray(which, I've seen has been renamed 600 mold or salami mould or some other nonsense) and set to ferment for 24 hours. I'm excited for this one as it is my first whole muscle coppa, and it looks very nice. FYI, you can see my tesa hanging right next to it.

One big(and green)reason to case whole muscles

2009-08-19T19:05:00.003-04:00

I don't know if you can see it, but, right in the middle of the picture, there is a good spot of green mold on my bresaola. THIS is exactly why I case my whole muscles and spray them with M-EK-4 spray. I'm baffled how this happened. I hung it less than an inch from my perfectly molded lonzino. My refrigerator is pretty well innoculated with good mold, having sprayed everything with good mold spray. Needless to say, this is the last time I omit spraying the mold spray. Nor will I ever hang naked muscles. I removed the bresaola and cut all the twine off. Then doused it with vinegar/water solution and rehung. I did all this 2 days ago, seems no worse for wear today. Also, as mentioned in my last post regarding this item, Hank is on the hook for 1 whole eye round! :)

Hanger on

2009-08-13T19:23:00.003-04:00

Finally got this last big, juicy sucker in to cure. Not sure if you can make out from this picture what is in the cure. I blasted this old boy with lots of rosemary, the zest of 1 lemon, 3 big cloves of garlic, and an inordinate amount of chili pepper flakes, along with salt and sugar. I'm looking to get some real flavor out of this one. I gave the cure mix a taste. Deliciously sweet and plenty hot, with that lovely rosemary undertone. I hope this comes through in the finished product. I know it seems I may have over seasoned this, but, being that this was given to me, no strings attached, I'm really going for some personality aside from salty, porky goodness.

Coppa and a cure-a-thon

2009-08-11T19:23:00.004-04:00

Well, I was finally able to procure a coppa. Finding one of these has been quite enigmatic. Scores of butchers and several arguments later, I got one. Thanks to Tom from Marlow and Daughters in Williamsburg, http://tomthebutcher.blogspot.com/. I found the link at Larbo's blog, http://www.thislittlepiggy.us/, thanks to him as well. I work nearby the store and will now be a frequent visitor. Tom was nice enough to actually break the coppa down in front of me and explain as he went. The meat looks and smells fantastic. It is pictured in the top shot, well marbled and lovely. I got sucked in and had to buy a jowl while I was there, which is pictured two below the coppa. As I passed by the display case, a fat, juicy hunk of belly caught my eye, so I grabbed that as well, which would be the second picture. The final picture is of another nice hunk of belly given to me by a friend.

On to the curing. Especially with the meat purchased from Marlow and Daughters, I wanted to maintain some austerity. I want the taste of this pork to shine. I decided to go simply with salt, sugar, black pepper, juniper and garlic, with cure #2. With this nearly 2lb. jowl, simple guanciale is called for. I've made 4 or 5 of these already and have run the gamut as far as curing ingredients. However, I think my first attempt was my tastiest. That was salt,

black pepper, thyme and juniper.....no curing salt. Again,

hoping that the jowl is of such high quality, it won't need much seasoning. I towed the line when it was time to cure the belly. Initially, this go around with the belly, I wanted to speck a piece, or, at least give it a shot. This is NOT the piece of belly I'm willing to experiment on. This has tesa written all over it. Very straightforward, went salt, black pepper, cure #1 and thyme. That's it. I shifted gears when it came to belly piece #2. I cut it into 2 separate pieces. With the first piece, I went back to the bacon well. The sage, ginger, garlic variety seems to be quite popular. More so than any of the other renditions I've made. With that done, I took another trip to South Tyrol. This last piece is the piece I'm going to try and speck out. Went with caraway seed, juniper and bay leaf along with salt, black pepper and cure #2. All the belly pieces and jowl will cure for 1 week. I'm still unsure about how successfully I will be able to cold smoke the speck on the Big Green Egg. Worst case scenario, South Tyrol bacon. Also, not pictured is another semi frozen jowl given to me by yet another butcher. I'm tossing around the idea of jowl bacon and/or jowl speck. Let's hear ideas.

Next Bresaola

2009-08-04T22:55:00.005-04:00

I cured this bresaola with South Tyrol in mind again. It was cured with fresh rosemary, juniper, fresh garlic, a scant bit of cinnamon and even smaller amount of clove. Where I thought I came up with something unique, it seemed eerily familiar. Then I checked http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/ and discovered it is exactly Jason's cure(minus the thyme.) Anyway, no biggie. Cured this old boy for 12 days. Cased in a 90mm collagen casing. What I did this time, out of deference to Hank(Hunter Angler Gardner Cook)http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/, was neither spray it with M-EK-4 mold spray nor ferment it. As you can see from the picture, it was hung next to the lonzino described in my last post that has become wonderfully moldy. As Hank says, if it wants to get mold on it, it will. If this doesn't work out, I guess Hank's on the hook for a whole eye round. ;)

Lonzino al'Alto Adige

2009-07-26T11:33:00.003-04:00

Suspend disbelief, please, I know I'm closer to California than Alto Adige. I cured this with caraway seeds, juniper berries, and anise seeds(salt, black pepper, sugar, and cure #2 as well). After poring over as many references as I could find, I used spices that seemed recurrent to many of the recipes found in the Sudtirol cuisine. Looking at Len Poli's site, I see he calls for Alpine herbs, which consists of hyssop, melissa(lemon balm), marjoram, and sage. Since I have neither melissa nor hyssop, I went with the more readily available, more frquently mentioned spices. This lonzino is pictured less than 24 hours after it was hung following a near 48 hour fermentation period. It was stuffed in a 90mm collagen casing. I promise as soon as I burn through these collagen casings I'll shift over to the more authentic, natural casings. I'd really like to be able to "speck" this lonzino. However, I have no way of cold smoking. Also, even if I did have the means to cold smoke, I don't have any juniper wood, nor do I have any way of obtaining any. If anyone has any ideas on either, I'm all ears.

finished sopressata

2009-07-24T21:50:00.002-04:00

Here is the finished product from my post in June. I think I'm getting better. This one looks very nice. The reason I say I'm getting better is people who were intitially a bit skiddish of the whole operation were downing this by the handful. I must say, tastewise, this is exactly what it's supposed to taste like. Just salty and porky and delicious. Ate a bunch of it paired with some Fiore Sardo cheese. Perfect. I made this with a bunch of dried hot pepper powder in it. Still not that rosy red color. It IS hot, but, I could take even a bit hotter. Guess I'll give it another go.

My new endeavor/obsession

2009-07-17T12:49:00.003-04:00

My fiance just returned from several weeks in Italy. Among the places she visited was Sudtirol, or South Tyrol in the Alto Adige region. Now, I was aware that there are various geographical influences throughout the country. Whether it be an African influence in Sicily, or Slavic in Friulli, or Swiss in the Piedmont, etc. What I didn't know, until I researched prior to her departure, is HOW dominant the German influence is in this particular region. I know it was annexed in 1918, but still remains very German. Why is this so fascinating is I have a German name and have blonde hair and blue eyes. Yet, as I've written in the past, I spent a good deal of time in my youth with my immigrant southern Italian grandparents. I even learned to speak the language. Delving into the cuisine of the Sudtirol, I made a huge discovery. This is a cuisine of BACON! My fiance brought home a tiny little cookbook, called "Tyrolean Specialties." In it, I would say 80% of the savory recipes call for bacon, or some type of cured pork product. Amazing. Speck, speck and more speck. This picture of a mountain of speck was taken during a "speckfest." They call everything speck, I guess, and smoke everything. Speck bacon, speck ham, speck loin, and a smoked sausage called

Kamminwurzen(see 3rd picture below). Canederli, or Tyrolean gnocchi, or bread dumplings made with stale bread. Lots of crauti(sauerkraut), the use of caraway and rye bread. I figured that this is a way for me to leave my comfort zone, while still staying inside my little box(geographically, at least). Being that resources about this region and cuisine are extremely limited, I hope that there can be some outside contributions. Also, failed to mention initially. I cured(or attempted) my first meat of this style. I cured a pork loin for lonzino. It was cured with caraway, juniper and anise seed.

Poor man's prosciutto follow up

2009-07-14T12:52:00.004-04:00

I'd kind of given up on this poor bastard. I left in my chamber for months. I dipped it in the vinegar solution several times, as it had picked up some exterior mold. Every time I removed, it didn't seem to be making any progress. Being that it wasn't such a huge hunk of meat, I was confused. I removed everything from the chamber when I went on vacation. I couldn't leave anything due to me blowing my second humidifier in 6 months. Without a meatsitter changing the hanging wet rag every other day, everything would be rubbish. It sat in a regular refrigerator for a week, where I paid it no mind, actually mad at it for not curing :). Came home from vacation and put some things back in the chamber. I came to the ham and opened it. I finally said screw it, I'm going to cut into it. WOW, it looks perfect. I cut some up and chunked it to be fried up. I couldn't be happier, it's great. Suffice to say, I'm no longer cross with it! It is my opinion that if any of you who read this have any intention on making a prosciutto, I highly recomment starting with this. It doesn't even take one third of the time it would for a normal proscitto, and the taste is definitely a representative example of the vaunted cured meat. This revelation has led me down a new path. I am about to embark on a new endeavor.

Bacon results

2009-07-14T12:46:00.003-04:00

Sorry for my little break in posting. Went on vacation for the better part of two weeks. Anyway, here are the bacons. From left there is the sage, ginger garlic, then the cocoa bacon, and on the left is the rosemary, fennel seed, honey bacon. The sage ginger bacon is a homerun. The cocoa bacon tastes like plain old bacon, the cocoa seems to have been overwhelmed by the smoke. You can kind of smell the cocoa a little, but there is really no taste of it. Still, it's bacon, and it's good. The rosemary, fennel bacon is delicious. The honey adds the perfect hint of sweetness. I really am a little disappointed in the cocoa bacon. I thought at least I would get a backdrop of chocolate. Any suggestions for future chocolate bacon cures are welcome.

Look at my big sausage!

2009-06-29T22:49:00.003-04:00

Another summer holiday=more sausage. Needless to say, there are 2 different sausages here. The one on the outside is an apricot, rosemary, garlic, vermouth sausage. On the inside, we have a hot pepper, anise seed sausage. I know you are thinking the apricot sausage may seem a little challenging. I cannot take credit for the idea entirely. While watching "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie," a segment was filmed at Salumeria Biellese, which I have frequented on more than one occasion. Anyway, at the end of the segment a fresh sausage was being eaten, it was apricot, garlic and brandy sausage, sounded good to me. So, I put my own spin on this odd sausage. However, it sure doesn't taste odd, it's friggin good, dare I say great. Perfect salty, sweet, with a slight rosemary taste in the background. The other sausage is very good as well, not overwhelminhly hot, although it's color would have you believe differently. Once again, back to the well of using that same dried Calabrian chilli powder, to the tune of 1.3%! One thing I am having trouble with, even with the use of pink salt, is gray sausage. It turns gray almost instantly, even as it's being stuffed. I used more pink salt this time around, about .2%, still gray. Has anyone else had this problem? It seems I have this issue every time I make fresh sausage. Doesn't affect the flavor, at least.

More beefy deliciousness

2009-06-29T22:45:00.003-04:00

Just pulled this out on Friday. This is the bresaola from the May post. As you can tell it is pretty well done. Tastes great, texture if very good as well. As stated in the title of this post, just beefy goodness. Simple.

Bacon madness

2009-06-26T09:25:00.004-04:00

First off, I'd like to preface this entire post by saying it is the product of too much free time and an overactive imagination. Yesterday, I procured another entire pork belly, ribs attached. With the ribs removed, I figure this to weigh 8 lbs. give or take. So, I'm looking at doing 4 different 2lb. slabs. One will be a tesa, leaving 3 rashers of bacon. I plan on curing the tesa with the same flavor profile as my porcini salame, which is dried porcini powder, fresh and dried sage and garlic. Now, on to the bacon. I will do one of the sage, ginger, garlic bacon(basically, Ruhlman's breakfast sausage made into a bacon cure). For the second, I may go rosemary, fennel seed, hot pepper, honey, lemon zest. As for the last, this is where I think I've gotten a little weird. I was thinking of orange zest, brown sugar, hot pepper, mint and..............unsweetened cocoa powder? Bear with me. It seems to be fashionable lately to pair chocolate and chillis. I also have seen plenty of bacon and chocolate combinations. So, I figured it might work. And, let's be honest, it's bacon, would it really taste bad? I'd like some input prior to actually starting. Ideas, thoughts, opinions? Let's hear 'em. Sorry for the poor picture. Thought I'd take a quick snap of the curing bacons/pancetta. Top left is cocoa, bottom left rosemary, fennel, honey. Top right is sage, ginger, bottom right is the pancetta.

N'Duja Disaster!

2009-06-23T19:56:00.003-04:00

I saw this one coming for weeks. I noticed it was drying strangely. I inspected it and found that there were empty spots, big gaps. Almost like it dried in sections and pulled apart from the rest, this was in 2 different spots on the n'duja. I pushed it down just to compact it back together. It was definitely too late. As you can see by the picture, it is certainly not spreadable, it is dry and crumbly. It also had some mold on the inside, between the meat and casing. I think 2 things were at play here. #1. The use of the starter culture combined with the dextrose was a mistake, obviously, it dried out too much. #2. Collagen casing- I say this beacause the casing did not properly adhere to the salame, not allowing it to dry well, and is what caused the internal mold. Weird that the starter culture dried it out too much, but, the mixture started out too wet for the artificial casing to adhere. That's an easy fix, next time, no starter culture/dextrose, and the beef middles are in the mail. OK, all this N'duja bashing aside.........it tastes damn good. As I removed it and cut it open, I found myself gnawing on a handful of crumbs. The salt content is perfect. The pepper paste is very pleasant and hot. Next time I think it could even be hotter. The perfect vehicle to throw in some of the Calabrian dried chilli powder. Back to square one.

My new toy

2009-06-20T21:28:00.003-04:00

Nope, not even a dad. For anyone who doesn't know what this is........it's a Big Green Egg. I won't go into too much detail, however, suffice to say, there has been a lot of hyperbole regarding this item. So, either I have been taken for a sucker, or it's dynamite. I tend to lean toward the latter. It's supposed to sear to temperatures at or about 700 degrees, perfect for steak or pizza. But, it also grills indirectly, and is a smoker as well. That being the case, instead of purchasing separate smokers, and kettles, etc., I decided to purchase just one item, as I have very little room to operate. I'm hoping the learning curve isn't too steep. I fired it up a little while ago. Getting it started gave me a little fit, but, once she got fired up, she went. Got it up to 600 degrees, and threw on a pork chop. Came out pretty good, actually. Anyone with any experience, I'd love some tips.

Double Heresy!

2009-06-16T21:00:00.004-04:00

Funny, how when I think outside the box, it's really just an exercise in pigeonholing me right into my own. What the hell does that mean? Well, I love this season. I love to cook on an open flame. So, after watching one too many "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," I wanted to get in on some southern style barbecue. One problem, there is a deplorable, abhorrent ingredient in barbecue sauce.................KETCHUP. I loathe it. I call it the crutch of the undeveloped palate. I don't think I use it on anything. The moment I slather it on anything, all I taste is ketchup. But, I like the idea of a finishing sauce. This is where the heresy comes in. What I did today, offended 2 groups of people. I offended Italians AND BBQ-ans :). I made an Italian dry rub and developed an Italian barbecue sauce.(As if such a thing does or even could exist) That explains me thinking outside the box. What I did was think outside someone else's box, so I could feel more comfortable inside my tiny, safe, little Italian box. Anyway, I made a dry rub of Sicilian sea salt, Calabrian dried hot pepper powder and fennel seeds. To this, I added some fresh sage, and lemon zest with a little fresh garlic, with olive oil and lemon juice. Beat it up in the Cuisinart, and poured it on. I tossed the lemon in the cavity and trussed it up, let it sit for 2 hours. In the meantime, I developed the sauce. Started by sauteing red onion, added garlic. I added some double concentrate Italian tomato paste. I let that caramelize for a little while, then added red wine vinegar. I reduced that down, then added the secret ingredient. I used the roasted hot pepper paste with which I made the N'duja. Into it I added some anise seeds, honey, lemon zest, sage leaves, and bay leaves. Cooked it down for a half hour or so. This thing was super hot, in my opinion it needed more sweet. Either way, it was still super tasty, and right up my alley, as far as flavor profile is concerned. In the end, as you can see by the picture, it was successful. If making something this good to eat is called heresy, I'll be a heretic any day of the week. Gonna try some heretical baby backs tomorrow!

Porchetta

2009-06-15T00:30:00.002-04:00

My interpretation of such. Boneless pork poin which was butterflied(by yours truly), subsequently pounded out, rolled and tied. I'm aware of the cultish following this meat preparation has in Italy. So, by no means, do I state that his is an actual porchetta. However, I DID spit roast it, so, I will claim it was made in the STYLE of porchetta. Regadless, I sauteed my own guanciale, red onion, fennel, and some garlic. Added some fennel seed, pecorino, eggs and fresh bread crumbs. I spread the stuffing over the butterflied loin, rolled it up and tied 'er up tightly. Threw it on the spit for just a bit under an hour(removed about 148 degrees). Absolutely fantastic. I'll definitely try this on a fattier cut of meat soon, like the butt recommended in the Zuni cafe cookbook(I've read nothing but rave reviews). I've prepared this in the past and there's always been leftovers. I can attest there is not a better cold cut ever produced that can rival a slice of this on a roll or fresh, crusty bread................It was not to be this time around. Sucks.
Something else occurred to me. I am the sole cook in my household, and I do so 4-5 times a week, yet all my posts are salumi related. If there is any interest in me posting plain old cooking posts, chime in, I'd be glad to throw up some more posts!

Salumi Removal

2009-06-10T13:56:00.004-04:00

Removed the 2 salami and the lonzino today. The salami were ready last week. The lonzino just today.

The 2 salami are the two featured in the second chance salami post. The one pictured in the middle is the oregano, blood orange zest, cardamom. On the right is the porcini, sage salame. They were removed at a touch over 43% weight loss(maybe 43.3%). They both look great. The porcini salame is the one that gave me a textural issue last time around. I think I may have forgot to add dextrose, preventing it from binding correctly. This time around the texture is right, with both, I should add. As far as flavor, the porcini salame really is outstanding. This opinion is shared by everyone who's tried it. I highly suggest anyone who makes their own to try this. The oregano salame is really good as well, but, eating it after the porcini salame does it no justice. It is certainly a good salame, worthy of reproducing.

This lonzino is the lonzino pictured on top in the lonzino carousel post. Cured with fresh oregano, lemon zest and hot pepper. It was removed at 40% weight loss, which usually would seem a little high for a lonzino, but, it was perfect. Great texture, good flavor. I thought it might be a little challenging or odd with the lemon zest, but, it is surprisingly mild. Porky and delicious. Successful all the way around.

Venison Salame Redux

2009-06-05T18:56:00.003-04:00

Went to the butcher the other day to buy some jowls and some butts. I gave him some of the venison salame I made several months ago. He gushed about how good it was. He then proceeded to give me a semi-frozen chunk of venison and asked me if I wouldn't mind making more. "Sure", I said. So, with absolutely no intention on making any more salame for awhile, the semi-frozen venison told me differently. This is exactly the same ratios as the last one I posted and I hope it turns out as tasty. I'm waiting to see if I'm going to have a similar issue as last time with the casings.

Sopressate di Calabria

2009-06-03T14:57:00.004-04:00

Well, in the style of Calabria, at least. This has always been my favorite salame. However, all the recipes I have found to this point have been uninspired. So, I decided to try my own. This is based on several recipes(Poli, Ruhlman, Bertolli, Kutas) I went with a high percentage of dried hot pepper powder from Calabria(about .5%) also added .1% crushed red pepper, along with some black pepper, white pepper, fresh garlic and white wine with a splash of vermouth. Cure #2 and F-LC starter were used as well. What I can't figure out is why with all that pepper powder, I can't get that nice red color. I sprayed them with some M-EK-4 mold. They will ferment at about 70 degrees for roughly 48 hours. They were stuffed in 60mm collagen casings.

Another Bresaola

2009-05-28T19:52:00.003-04:00

Lest anyone think I just pump out meat haphazardly, most of this meat is spoken for. After so many visits to both my local butcher and salumeria, I have established good relationships with both. This eye round was bestowed upon me by the proprietor of said salumeria. Always asking what I would be doing with so much meat, I explained. Having tasted some of my products, he has given me this eye round and the lonzino previously cured. Anyway, this was cured with the exact cure as the last. It was cured for 2 weeks and cased in another 90mm collagen. It will be hung to dry on Saturday.

Finally.......the SAUSAGE debauchery

2009-05-21T23:26:00.003-04:00

Just realized recently that there is a sausage debauchery sans sausage. So, in honor of the upcoming holiday that is typically synonymous with grilling......we have sausage! Nothing really exciting. This sausage is 80% lean pork butt, 20% back fat. Flavored with Pecorino Romano, fresh parsley, crushed coriander seeds and black pepper, some fresh garlic, salt and white wine. My first opportunity to work with casings from Butcher/Packer. While they are expensive, you can actually feel the quality being so much better than the rubbish purchased in the grocery store. Still managed to pop a link. Fried up a small piece, great flavor. Gonna grill me up a boatload this weekend.

Bacons #2 & 3 with a pancetta

2009-05-19T11:24:00.003-04:00

The pancetta was cured with juniper, bay, thyme, nutmeg along with salt, sugar and cure #2. Cured for a week, rolled tightly, tied even more tightly and will hang for about 4 weeks. The bacon on top was cured with molasses, real maple syrup and black pepper with salt and cure #1. Cured for a week and smoked for nearly 3 hours. The last bacon was cured with sage, ginger, garlic, pepper, cure #1, salt and sugar. This bacon was smoked just under 2 hours, due it being a whole lot thinner than the other. I took the skin off this piece as I initially planned to roll it for a pancetta, but it was a poor piece to try and roll, so, bacon it would become. I had a little easier time on the smoke this go around. I wrapped some heavily soaked hickory in aluminum foil. This really got the smoke going well and kept the temperature at bay. Nothing left to smoke in my refrigerator. Really like to smoke a speck, I do have that piece of boneless ham hanging in my chamber, any thoughts?

4 way Bacon

2009-05-16T11:02:00.003-04:00

Bought a smoker last week. Purchased exclusively to make bacon, a I've had several requests to make some. But, life outside my little Italian box is verrrrry frightening. I've never smoked anything before, so, I went for an economical version in the case that I just had no patience for it, or I just plain old sucked at it. Anyway, the picture is bacon #1. It is a loose interpretation of Alton Brown's hot pepper brine. I added pink salt and extra hot pepper. It brined for 4 days, instead of the recommended 3. As for the smoking.......I think I need a little more experience, unless this sub $30 smoker is just a bit hard to get down. The smoke would stop every 20-30 minutes when the wood chunks would ignite. I would douse them with water to get the smoke going again, this was the dance for over 2 hours, running out every 10 minutes, to either add more wet wood or douse with water. There has to be an easier way. So, this slab was smoked to waaaaay over 150 degrees, closer to 170. I left the smoker for 15 minutes, when I returned there was no smoke, but flames shooting out the sides. I removed it, cooled it overnight and sliced and ate some this morning. It is still delicious, so, no harm, no foul. Looks like I need more work in the smoking department, good thing I have 2 more bacon slabs to smoke(the 4th way is a pancetta). A little guidance would be appreciated.

N'Duja fever.....................

2009-05-13T21:28:00.005-04:00

............I got it. After all the hubbub created by 2 other bloggers(both listed here), http://www.thislittlepiggy.us/2009/04/01/nduja/, and http://www.foodieandtheeveryman.com/?p=1566, I got myself obsessed with making one. This salame is closer to my heart than others, my mother's parents were immigrants from Calabria, a small village called Santa Cristina. I spent a lot of time with them growing up and seem to remember a spicy salame being consumed on certain occasions. Is this, could this be N'Duja? I have no idea. It's very unlikely and there's no way to verify since neither are with any longer. But, it sounds much more romantic this way, so, I'll say it was. The most difficult part was trying to track down the proper ingredients. I was pleasantly surprised to find a 900g can of concentrato di pepperoncino made with peppers from Calabria and Basilicata at my favorite Italian grocer/importer in Brooklyn...........SOLD. I cracked that can open today and tried a tad on my steak.......it's blisteringly hot. So, with that I started looking through some recipes. I decided to roast up a couple red peppers on the grill as well. Here is what I went with:

1000G pork butt

560G pork belly

440G back fat

650G concentrato di pepperoncino

200G roasted red pepper paste

42.8G salt

7.1G cure #2

2.5G bactoferm f-lc

2.5G dextrose

The entire contents were stuffed into a 90mm collagen casing. I believe I will ferment this for a week @ about 70-75 degrees. It will hang for an indefinite amount of time, most likely 2 months.

BTW, I fried a little up to try, and it is unreal. Never tasted anything like this, very unique.

Guanciali pronti

2009-05-13T11:22:00.004-04:00

Here is the finished product from the previous guanciale post. Cured for 1 week, dried in the regular refrigerator for 3 weeks on a rack. Looks perfect, smells excellent. Fried up a piece............ outstanding. In my opinion, pancetta doesn't hold a candle to this lovely beast. Going to use some this weekend in a pasta dish with rosemary and dried apricot.

Lonzino carousel

2009-05-11T16:28:00.003-04:00

Took one out this morning, replaced it with another this afternoon. The finished lonzino was put in on 4/3 after an 11 day cure. I removed it at about 38% loss more than 2 weeks ago, but, it was nowhere near ready. I'm guessing this one to be 45-48% and is still just a touch soft, I'm a little baffled by this one. It was stuffed in a 90mm collagen casing, sprayed with the M-EK-4 mold culture and fermented in the usual fashion. It was cured using rosemary, bay leaves, juniper, salt, pepper, cure #2, sugar and garlic powder. It tastes very good, though not as good as the bresaola. Possibly a touch heavy on the rosemary, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Overall, another successful venture. My first lonzino had a bit of case hardening, showing my inexperience. By the look and taste of this one, it appears I am getting this whole thing dialed in. Thanks again to Jason Molinari for all the hand holding.

The cured-ready to dry lonzino is the finished product seen earlier in the ziploc, stuffed in a 90mm collagen(surprise).

Venison Salame success with one small issue

2009-05-09T13:51:00.003-04:00

As you can see by the pictures, the venison salami were quite succesful...........to an extent. The texture is perfect. The taste is very good as well. Garlic, but not too much so. A backdrop of red pepper without being "hot".(A lot was used) Salt content is dead on. Even looks pretty good, too!(I have a slight bias). Anyway, as you can see by the top left picture(had to be taken on a paper towel) I had a slight issue. I'm hoping someone can chime in here. Usually when I make salame and/or salumi using collagen casing, the casing will adhere to and shrink with the particular product. With this salame, I noticed that wasn't the case. The venison salami did develop the usual mold, but didn't "shrink wrap" like it usually does. I didn't go by weight with this salame, because Len Poli's recipe had it being pulled at 25% weight loss. When I pulled one out at 25% weight loss, it was nowhere even close to ready, so, I would go by feel. Well, I pulled one out and cut into it, and this is where it gets a little confusing. It appeared wet between the casing and salame, but not water wet, grease/fat wet. It looked lubricated inside, which is why I would guess the casing didn't adhere properly. I'm puzzled because the venison was extrememly lean, I didn't cut anything off of it, no sinew, fat, nothing. It was so lean I went 30% fat, which isn't abnormal even when using a fattier cut of pork. The salami all seem to be fine, just have to wiped down with a paper towel. These salami were cased in 43mm collagen casings. Lonzino to be cut down tonight!

Che Bella Bresaola!

2009-05-06T13:27:00.014-04:00

This was removed just this morning. It looks great, smells wonderfully and tastes pretty good, too(I just ate about 2 oz and had to put it away). I cured this with fresh sage, juniper, nutmeg, salt, pepper, dextrose and cure #2. It was cased in a 90mm collagen casing, then fermented for 48 hours @ 70 degrees. It was then placed in my drying chamber on 4/6. It was removed at about 39% weight loss. This was the first time I used fresh sage in a cure, and certainly not the last, it is really quite delicious. I'm not a real back patter, but, I'm going to go ahead and pat myself.

Lonzino

2009-05-03T22:34:00.003-04:00

This is a pork loin a tad over 3lbs. I went outside the box a little bit here. I used fresh oregano, fresh garlic, dried hot pepper powder from Calabria and lemon zest, along with salt, sugar, black pepper and cure #2. I have no explanation for my recent citrus zest fetish, just hope I haven't ruined a 3lb. lonzino. As you can see, it's thrown off quite a bit of liquid in just 12 hours. My real worry now is that liquid combined with the lemon zest making that liquid acidulated. If that's the case, I'll have 3lbs. of pork loin ceviche instead of lonzino. Keeping my fingers crossed that this cures correctly. I have another lonzino to be removed this week, stay tuned.

Second Chance Salami

2009-05-01T21:33:00.008-04:00

Second chance for these same recipes I previously posted. I had issues with both salami, so, I figured I should tweak them each a bit. With the oregano, cardamom, lemon zest, it was the overwhelming cardamom. So, cardamom was decreased by 2/3. Sicilian wild oregano was increased from .33% to .5% and some fresh oregano was added as well. The only change made to this recipe was the welcome find of blood oranges at the supermarket, so, I used blood orange zest in lieu of lemon zest and blood orange juice in the place of the lemon juice.
With the Porcini, sage salame my problem was with it's consistency. It never hardened the way it should have. In fact, my 60mm I made was hung on 3/23 is still hanging, while the 60mm oregano salame hung the same time was removed a week ago. That being said, the taste was so terrific it had to be made again, correctly this time. Looking over my notes, I may have accidentally omitted the dextrose last time, other than that I can't see why it would never harden. Both these salami were stuffed in 70mm collagen casings, sprayed with M-EK-4 mold culture and placed in a tupperware container with the lid closed. The tupperware was placed in the oven with the light on and door ajar where they will stay for 48 hours. The temperature fluctuates between 70-75. The porcini salame is pictured on top.

As requested the following are the ratios used for the porcini salame:

salt-2.75%

porcini powder-.65%

dry sage-.45%

fresh sage-.3%

black pepper-.26%

fresh garlic-.3%

cure#2-.25%

F-LC starter-.09%

1/4 cup marsala(about 2.5lbs meat)

1/4 cup distilled water in which starter was dissolved

Poor Man's Prosciutto

2009-04-26T23:14:00.005-04:00

You're looking at a roughly 3lb. boneless ham(or portion thereof). Since the uptake of the actual prosciutto is both time consuming and intimidating, I decided to go with a boneless rendition of a Len Poli recipe. I have every desire to tackle the king of all cured meats, just not the ability to properly babysit an entire hog's leg for about a year. This will have to do......for now. Anyway, I went with a cure of fresh thyme, fresh garlic, coriander and fennel seed, along with the usual salt, pepper, sugar and cure #2. Poli's recipe called for a 5 day cure of 400-500g chunks. However, it looked in his picture like there were several chunks stuffed together in the ham stocking. I am choosing to cure it in one, solid piece for 10 days. As far as the drying, I'll play that by ear. Most likely, right around the time Mr. Poli suggests.

Porcini, sage and marsala salame

2009-04-23T13:40:00.005-04:00

Pulled this one out today. This is a porcini, sage and dry marsala salame. This is in a 43mm collagen casing. I took some dried porcini mushrooms and ground them into a powder to be used a spice, along with some dried sage and dry marsala wine(sounds like a lot of "dry"). For all that dry, it still is a little wet, which is why I retured it to the chamber. But, not without first tasting it. If you think it sounds a little odd, it certainly doesn't taste it at all. This is my finest tasting salame to date(I don't have too many under my belt, so, take that with a grain of salt). it really tastes wonderfully. The porcini imparts some earthiness without being overwhelming(I was worried), the sage is a nice compliment to the porcini. There is just a touch of sweetness from the marsala wine. If anything, maybe a touch salty, but, this IS salted, cured meat................One thing was a little baffling about this salame, and that was from it's fermentation. It never seemed to really firm up, like I mentioned above, it's still not super firm, especially for having been drying for about a month. Regardless, this salame really is fantastic. I will update when I pull out the 2 60mm chubs still drying. I want to let them get really firm, we'll see.

Salame out, guanciali in

2009-04-20T13:50:00.002-04:00

Removed a salame today. This one was made with Sicilan dried oregano, lemon zest, cardamom, and vermouth. Unfortunately, the cardamom was a bit cloying. It overwhelmed that lovely wild Sicilian oregano(wasn't cheap either). Oh well, the flavor profile seemed pretty good. Next time, more oregano, less cardamom for sure. The lemon zest and vermouth were proportioned correctly, I believe, maybe a touch more zest. The picture is of a 43mm collagen cased salame.

The 2 guanciali were removed after their 1 week bath in the aforementioned cure mixture. I removed them, but decided against rinsing them. I have done it both ways(rinsing and not rinsing) and found that not rinsing them created more flavor. I will remove all the bay leaves and wipe off their surfaces. They will be put on a rack in the regular refrigerator for 3 weeks or so. I've hung guanciali in both my chamber and the regular refrigerator and found that the regular refrigrator provided better results, especially as far as the texture of the meat is concerned. Picture of the racked guanciali to follow.

Stracotto

2009-04-18T10:07:00.000-04:00

Braising is my favorite means of cooking. I think I've braised every type of meat in every imaginable way. One of my least favorite cuts to braise is bottom round of beef. In fact, I'm not the only one, in a quote from Cooks Illustrated, "This cut was the tester's least favorite. It was essentially devoid of flavor, and had a rubbery, chewy texture. This roast is not even worth the little that it costs." With that in mind, I figured I would give it one more shot(that, and it was on sale). I've made it in the past and found exactly what Cooks Illustrated found...........very little flavor. Anyway, thumbing through Paul Bertolli's book, "Cooking by Hand," I remembered he had a section on braising and found his Stracotto recipe. Since everything else I've made from his book seems to be dynamite, I went with his recipe. Bought a bottle of Valpolicella and marinated the roast. One problem, he calls for the use of saba or vin cotto, of which I have neither. I stumbled across a recipe for vin cotto in Mario Batali's book, "Molto Italiano." I cooked down some old red wine with some honey, cinnamon and cloves. This was used to deglaze along with the strained marinade. Long story short, it was great. I don't know if it was due to the marinade being applied to the meat hot, or the oven method, but, whatever, it worked, and well. Anyone looking to salvage the use of a cheap, otherwise dry cut of meat should definitely give this method a try.

Guanciali

2009-04-15T18:06:00.002-04:00

Like I mentioned earlier, got 2 nice, thick jowls from the butcher. Time to make more guanciale, this is my absolute favorite cured meat.

Guanciali- 1250G in total:

fresh garlic-1.25G(.1%)
fresh thyme-6.25G(.5%)
bay leaves-5G(.4%)
juniper-5G(.4%)
salt-34G(2.75%)
pepper-18.75G(1.5%)
cure #2-3.2G(.25%)
fresh grated nutmeg-2.5G(.2%)

Spice mixture was ground up in mini food processor. It was then rubbed into the jowls. The jowls were placed in a ziploc bag with all the spice mixture added and shaken up to coat well. The bag was placed in the refrigerator where they will cure for about a week.

Creation of this blog

2009-04-15T17:35:00.001-04:00

I decided to create this blog primarily in an effort to quit pestering others and hijacking their blogs. http://curedmeats.blogspot.com/, This gentleman, in particular. Thank you, Jason. Anyway, just hung some venison salami. I've developed a good relationship with my butcher after so many visits. He set aside a nice piece of lean shoulder roast for me along with 2 nice pork jowls. (all percentages in parentheses are percentages of the weight of total meat)

Venison salame: 1745G in total
1222G lean venison-70%
523 G pork back fat-30%
salt-48G(2.75%)
dextrose-8.7G(.5%)
red pepper-7G(.4%)
cure #2-4.4G(.25%)
fresh garlic-7G(.4%)
red wine- .5 cup
F-LC starter-1G(.06%) dissolved in .25 cup water with a pinch of dextrose.

Lean and fat chilled to a touch under 32 degrees, ground together on course die of KA grinder attachment. Spice mixture was ground up in a mini food processor and added to the meat in the kitchen aid bowl. With the paddle attachment, the meat and spices were mixed at low speed for 2 minutes. The red wine was added at the beginning, the starter culture was added for the last minute of the process. The meat was then stuffed into 3 43mm collagen casings. The salami were sprayed with M-EK-4 mold mixture. They were then fermented in the oven with the door ajar and the light on for 48 hours at roughly 70-75 degrees(placed inside tupperware containers to maintain high humidity). They are being hung in my drying chamber at 52-55 degrees with 68-75%RH.