Salame di Mugnano – Tasting

The Salame di Mugnano is finally ready! It took longer than I thought it was going to, but sometimes these things have a mind of their own. This was hung Jan 1st after smoking, and it out April 4th, so 3 months. I kept it in the curing chamber this long because I wanted to achieve the same texture as the ones I ate in Italy last summer; pretty firm. It lost 42% of its weight over these 3 months.
This was "head to head" salame making between Scott at Sausage Debauchery and I. We thought through this together and decided to both make our salami then trade to see how interpretations could vary the results.

	Here’s the salame hanging after its 3 month vacation in the curing chamber. Note how basically no mold grew on the outside. This is due in great part to the fact that the salame was smoked.
	Nice picture of the slices salame. It’s nice and red fro the peperoncino powder added to the paste. The one in Italy wasn’t actually this bright red.
	Closeup. Because it’s beautiful!

As far as the flavor goes it’s delicious, but it’s pretty far from the one I ate in Italy. It has a nice spicy tang and the smoke is barely noticeable. The salt level is nice. It has a really nice chew to it being a bit drier than many of my past salami. Sliced thin this would be pretty good in a sandwich as well. It MIGHT have a little too much whole pepper. I know after I eat more of it. Quantity of fat is good.
If I grade this as a salame in general, I’d give it a solid A, but as a Mugnano I’d have to give it a C-. It’s too spicy (it’s not very spicy, but the Mugnano I had in Italy had a bare bare tingle in the throat), not smokey enough, and the grain needs to be a little bigger.
Would I make it again as it is? Yeah! Definitely.