Calabrese Yourself
May. 18th, 2020 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerThis week's Resolution Recipe: Salami Calabrese.
All weights have been normalized to the base meat weight, which makes scaling easier.
1000 g pork shoulder butt
27.5 g pork back fat
3.4 g curing salt #2
2 g cracked pepper (I used half long, 1/4 black, and 1/4 true red pepper [which is not chile pepper])
0.5 g crushed red pepper
0.5 g cinnamon
no garlic (Ha! I used... more.)
32 ml red wine
5 g T-SPX culture
14 ml distilled water
35mm hog casings
Slice the pork and fat into strips and freeze until crunchy. Grind through a large die into a stand mixer bowl. Mix in the salt, curing salt, pepper, red pepper, cinnamon, and garlic. Mix with the paddle attachment on medium speed for 30 seconds until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Add wine and mix until incorporated. Dissolve the fermenting culture in the distilled water, add to the meat, and mix until well distributed and the meat is tacky, another minute or so.
Stuff into casings and tie off at 5" lengths. Hang for 24 hours in a warm place (ideally 80 F and 80% humidity). Hang in the drying chamber until 30% weight loss, about 3 weeks.
What worked: I haven't made any cured sausages in a while. I haven't been feeling it, plus with not going to SCA events we aren't using that much - so there hasn't been a need to make more. But mostly I just haven't wanted to bother. I felt I should get back in the habit. This seemed like a pretty basic one to try, and being modern I didn't have to make any decisions on the recipe. Other than adding garlic, I mean.
I timed the meat freezing pretty well; it was crunchy but not fully frozen, so grinding was easy. After three weeks it had lost the desired 30% green weight and it was moist but not raw-textured.
What didn't: I cold-smoked to get the fermentation going, but it got a bit hot (too many coals, ran out of ice to cool the water bowl) and there was some rendering. Not a huge amount thankfully, but the water bowl had some fat and I could see a few drips on the casings.
It honestly wasn't that interesting - which I suspected might be the case. It's okay as a topping on pizza, but not as a main ingredient on a charcuterie plate. There was a bit of occasional funk which I am pretty sure is from the back fat; it probably lived in the freezer too long and picked up a few off flavors.
I didn't spray with mold, and it didn't pick up any. That's not really a problem for three weeks though.
Not this recipe's fault, but I had curing chamber fail. The zipper broke and came off entirely. Fortunately, I suppose, it broke as I was zipping it up so it was closed and I was able to cure the meat. But now that we undid it to remove the sausage, it can't be re-zipped. We have a second bag already, but it will require a bit of work to install the heavy grommets for the ironmongery we put in to hang the sausage and the heavy anti-rat covering we put in after the Damn Rat episode.
Will I make it again? Meh, probably not. I knew that going in.
All weights have been normalized to the base meat weight, which makes scaling easier.
1000 g pork shoulder butt
27.5 g pork back fat
3.4 g curing salt #2
2 g cracked pepper (I used half long, 1/4 black, and 1/4 true red pepper [which is not chile pepper])
0.5 g crushed red pepper
0.5 g cinnamon
no garlic (Ha! I used... more.)
32 ml red wine
5 g T-SPX culture
14 ml distilled water
35mm hog casings
Slice the pork and fat into strips and freeze until crunchy. Grind through a large die into a stand mixer bowl. Mix in the salt, curing salt, pepper, red pepper, cinnamon, and garlic. Mix with the paddle attachment on medium speed for 30 seconds until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Add wine and mix until incorporated. Dissolve the fermenting culture in the distilled water, add to the meat, and mix until well distributed and the meat is tacky, another minute or so.
Stuff into casings and tie off at 5" lengths. Hang for 24 hours in a warm place (ideally 80 F and 80% humidity). Hang in the drying chamber until 30% weight loss, about 3 weeks.
What worked: I haven't made any cured sausages in a while. I haven't been feeling it, plus with not going to SCA events we aren't using that much - so there hasn't been a need to make more. But mostly I just haven't wanted to bother. I felt I should get back in the habit. This seemed like a pretty basic one to try, and being modern I didn't have to make any decisions on the recipe. Other than adding garlic, I mean.
I timed the meat freezing pretty well; it was crunchy but not fully frozen, so grinding was easy. After three weeks it had lost the desired 30% green weight and it was moist but not raw-textured.
What didn't: I cold-smoked to get the fermentation going, but it got a bit hot (too many coals, ran out of ice to cool the water bowl) and there was some rendering. Not a huge amount thankfully, but the water bowl had some fat and I could see a few drips on the casings.
It honestly wasn't that interesting - which I suspected might be the case. It's okay as a topping on pizza, but not as a main ingredient on a charcuterie plate. There was a bit of occasional funk which I am pretty sure is from the back fat; it probably lived in the freezer too long and picked up a few off flavors.
I didn't spray with mold, and it didn't pick up any. That's not really a problem for three weeks though.
Not this recipe's fault, but I had curing chamber fail. The zipper broke and came off entirely. Fortunately, I suppose, it broke as I was zipping it up so it was closed and I was able to cure the meat. But now that we undid it to remove the sausage, it can't be re-zipped. We have a second bag already, but it will require a bit of work to install the heavy grommets for the ironmongery we put in to hang the sausage and the heavy anti-rat covering we put in after the Damn Rat episode.
Will I make it again? Meh, probably not. I knew that going in.
