Monday, February 9, 2009

Salame di Sant'Olcese

I didn't know much about the salame from Sant'Olcese until i read about it in an Italian cured meats blog. Sant'Olcese is a small town outside Genova. This salame is characterized by a 50/50 mix of beef and pork for the lean portion, and pork fat. It is also traditionally very lightly smoked. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to smoke the salame, so mine will be a Sant'Olcese style salame. This is true for all my salami. None of them can be the real thing, since that requires me to actually be there. They are all "in the style of" the place or region. Anyhow, let's get to the recipe and method.




Salame Sant'Olcese
IngredientQuantity(g)% of Meat+Fat
Pork ham meat
908
37.75
Beef chuck meat
908
37.75
Pork belly (70/30 fat/lean)
590
24.5
Salt
65
2.7
Cure #2
6
0.25
Dextrose
12
0.50
Black pepper (whole)
6
0.25
Black pepper (ground)
2.4
0.1
Garlic powder
2.4
0.1

F-LC starter culture
1
0.042


You'll recognize a number of the pictures from the chorizo post. I didn't see a point of taking different pictures for the exact same step. I'm reposting them in case people end up in this post through a link from somewhere, so they can see the whole process.

The usual suspect. A ham steak. This is cubed up nicely.







Pork belly strips waiting to be cubed up as the fat component of the salame. Hmmmm pork belly.......






This shows the beef chuck, which was also cubed, the ham meat, and the pork belly. I forgot to take a picture of the piece of beef chuck, but i think you might have seen one before at a grocery! Buy one, remove fat and sinew and cube it up.
This is mixed with the cure and spices shown below, and put in a freezer to get nice and firm for 45 minutes or so.


This is the spice mixtures and cure that went into the salame. It's very simple. Not a lot of flavors to get in the way of porky beefyness.





The meat was ground on the large kitchen aid plate. Which i think is 1/4"...i don't recall, and i keep forgetting to measure it. I don't know what is wrong with this picture, i couldn't get the white balance on the camera right, and the picture looks blue...anyhow...the meats and fat are ground.



The starter culture was diluted with about 30g of distilled water, and the poured over the ground meat mixture.

The mixture is then mixed for about 2 minutes with the Kitchen Aid or about 3-4 minutes by hand until a nice bind is achieved. I forgot to take a picture of the mixed product. Sorry.


The salame was cased into 3 natural casings, and 1 collagen 60mm casing. I figured I'd take the opportunity to to a scientific taste test of salame cured in natural casings and one cured in artificial. Will it make a difference? I don't know! We'll see. I must admit, using the artificial ones is MUCH more convenient. They are shelf stable, even, don't smell, don't require washing, but they do lose the natural appeal and old world look.

The M-EK4 mold mold is mixed with 30 or so grams of distilled water and allowed to bloom for a couple of hours.






The mold "concentrate" is then diluted with about 300g of distilled water in a spray bottle.






The salami were placed in the fermentation box at 70 deg. F. for 48 hours. I was actually able to keep my basement room right around 70 or 71 F, no need to run the lightbulb in the fermentation box.

After the 48 hours, the salami had a nice coating of mold already.







The salami were fermented for 48 hours, and then put into the curing chamber at 54 deg. F and about 70% RH.

Looking forward to trying them in about a month or so.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
scott said...

You certainly are busy, sir. Thanks for the link to that site, it's great. My Italian is a little rusty, but, was there Gavi in that recipe? Also, any plans on making a Salame di Felino, or Soppressate di Calabria. I can't seem to find any recipes for these two products(outside "Charcuterie") Your salumi look great, BTW. Oh, the grinder plate to which you refer, if it is the same custom one you referred to me is 1/2".

Jasonmolinari said...

Scott, i'll undertake a salame felino probably in the next batch. I do have some recipes.

Hrmm..you are correct, there was Gavi in his recipe, which i completely omitted, by accident. Oh well!

The grinder plate i used is the large one that came with the grinder, not the custom 1/2" one.

scott said...

Sweet, sorry to hijack your whole blog. I'll be awaiting the salame felino eagerly.

Anonymous said...

Stop it! you make me soo hungry!!!

FYI scott if you need a translation, google is pretty good at this try:

http://translate.google.com.au/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://salumicasalinghi.splinder.com/&ei=G33gSaTADNSMkAWOgLXQCw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://salumicasalinghi.splinder.com/%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dcom.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial%26hs%3DVab

Unknown said...

Jason-
I am hoping to make this soon but I have 2 questions if you do not mind:

1- I am planning on adding the Gavi (or some other white wine) to the recipe. How much would you recommend I add?

2- Why do you use garlic powder as opposed to fresh? I much prefer the fresh garlic flavor and was thinking about using that instead unless you strongly advise against it.

Thanks.

Jasonmolinari said...

Elie:
1) I'm not really sure how much wine to add. I haven't used wine in my salami since i don't like the flavors i get. I would guess about 100ml per kg of mixture.
2) garlic pwdr is easier for me to disperse, but fresh would probably taste better if it's a strong component. I don't see nay reason why you shouldn't use fresh if you want to!

Mamaliga said...

Hi Jason -

really quick - I am making this salame now. How much M-EK4 mold should go to the 30g water for spraying?

thanks!
Gabi.

Mamaliga said...

Sorry Jason - Here's a quick one again. My curing salt #2 from Butcher & packer is plain white as opposed to pink as yours. Is that right?

Thanks again,
Gabi.

Mamaliga said...

Jason -

Found the answer on the curing salts colors on your post thanks a lot.
Just called Butcher & Packer and they confirmed:

Curing salt #1: PINK
Curing salt #2: WHITE

So I have the salame in the fermentation box sprayed with the M-EK4 at 73 F and 80% humidity and will report back with the progress.

How do you store the leftover M-EK4 mold left in the sprayer? Should I place it in the fridge?

I used 1.5 g into 30g distilled water then added that to approx two cups of distilled water (about 3-400g).

Thanks!
Gabi.

Jasonmolinari said...

Sounds like you've got it sorted out Gabi.

Jasonmolinari said...

I store left over starters and mold cultures vacuum packed in my freeze.r

Mamaliga said...

Thanks for all the help, Jason! Yep - I sorted it out, the salami has a nice mold after 60 hours in the fermentation chamber.

I Posted some images on the Sausage Making Forum here.

Cheers!
Gabi.

Adriana said...

How many grams of M-EK-4 mold in those 300 ml of distilled water?

Jasonmolinari said...

Adriana follow the ratio on the pack. About 0.5-1g is plenty.