I think by now pretty much everyone who is into pork and heirloom pig breeds has heard of Mangalitza pigs. Long story short; they’re an old world Hungarian lard pig, and when properly raised are about as good as it gets for curing.
I had the opportunity to purchase a leg from a Mangalitza pig, and I immediately thought “culatello time!”
I’ve gone into great detail on my last culatello post, so this one will just be some pictures showing the big differences between that commercial one and this one.
I’m not sure if this is the actual name of this product, but it’s fits! It’s something I made for a party where I wanted to share my lardo d’Arnad, but didn’t feel like dealing with slicing it.
If you have lardo ready, it’s incredible easy, and incredibly delicious!
I’ve already gone through the whole coppa making process in a previous post, but this one is slightly different. My buddy Scott at Sausage Debauchery, who’s family is original from Calabria, is a Calabrian FREAK. He’s so obsessed with the place that he opened a store to source and resell Calabrian chili pepper and other goodies. All I hear from him is how Calabrian cured meats are the best, tastiest, blah blah blah. Mostly in an effort to shut him up, I made a capocollo following the Calabrian DOP production methodology.
The poor brother of the Culatello is ready! As described in the Culatello post, the Fiocco is made from the small muscle of the hog leg. It’s cured in the exact same way as the Culatello is, but because its quite a bit smaller it takes a lot less to dry.
This piece was in the curing chamber for 4 months and lost about 40-42% of it’s weight.
Let's look at some interior pictures, shall we?
Well, that took a while. The whole coppa that I found at my local market just came out of the curing chamber.
The Violino di Capra is ready! It didn't take that long to dry. I forgot to write down when it went into the curing chamber, but I estimate it it's been about 40 days. Not long, but it's a very lean meat, and not very thick, so I'm not surprised it didn't take long.
After 2 months in the curing chamber, starting at 54 deg. F and 75% RH and dropping to 54 F and 65% RH after the 1st month, the guanciale is finally ready. It has a nice firmness and nice aroma.
After almost 90 long days the lardo is done. There really wasn't much to it; no need to control temperature, humidity or anything else really. Just waiting. So the waiting is over, and it's time to eat!
The latest cured meat I've made is lamb prosciutto. It's some outstanding stuff. Very gamey and extremely tasty. It's so gamey that it would really be too much in a sandwich. So I thought I'd give it a try dressed the same way a bresaola could be dressed.
You can see it here on the left. Dressed with some good olive oil, some lemon, black pepper and some Parmigiano Reggiano shavings. Really amazing. The tangy cheese and the gamey lamb go really well together. The lemon cuts through the richness, and the oil makes everything unctuous.
If you've made cured lamb, give this a try!
The lamb prosciutto, well one of them, is ready. Sure it doesn't look like the nicest thing in the world, but does it taste good?
Keep reading.
Sorry for the long delay on posts. I've been really busy at work, and with life, and i've been left with little to no time on weekends for cured meats. It makes me sad. Hopefully i'll post more often after my move in a couple of months. Until then, accept my apologies for the lack of posts.
So, the pancetta is finally ready, actually, it was ready about a week ago. I left it in the curing chamber for 3 weeks, at 55 deg. F and 65% RH. The picture on the left is what it looked like after that period of time. It's lost about 30% of its weight. At this point the pancetta is pretty hard, it's pretty dry and smells great.
The pancetta can be used right away, but i've found that it is better if you wrap it in a damp paper towel and put it in a sealed bag for about a week. This will soften it just a little bit, and make it easier to cut.
After a few days wrapped in a damp paper towel, and then cut this is what the pancetta looks like.
It smells great. Peppery, bayleaf-y, porky, yummy. I've only tasted one slice quickly, so i haven't really used it much, but i can tell it is very peppery, hopefully not too much so. The herbs are strong on it, probably because i caked it on for the drying phase! I'm happy with it, but will know a little more after a cook something with it.
Added 9/20/08 - I used some of this pancetta last night in a pasta..it was GREAT. It's peppery, and bay-leafy. It has the right amount of salt. The flavor is balanced, tending towards black pepper. It's one of the better pancettas i've made. MAKE IT!
Lonzino is a pretty simple salume. It is a salted and then dry cured pork loin. I guess it could be the equivalent of a pork bresaola. It's lean, tasty and easy to make with easily available ingredients.
The first time I made it, I let it cure in the salt too long. If I remember (it was a number of years ago), I left it for about 20 days. I never re-made it because i thought it wasn't that great. Last month someone commented on this blog that I should make a lonzino, so here it is.
This post contains the formula as well as the outcome. I just didn't have a chance to post as it was curing.Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat+Fat Pork loin 965 100 Salt 32 3.3 White Pepper 9.3 1% Clove 1 clove Cure #2 2.4 0.25% Juniper 2 0.2% Fennel Seed 5 0.5% Cinnamon 0.7 0.07% 
Start by procuring yourself a nice pork loin. One with some fat attached wouldn't hurt. You can see mine here on the left. Pretty standard stuff. I got this one from Publix.
The spices are ground and mixed with the rest of the ingredients. Shake shake shake to combine well.
Cake the mixture onto the pork loin and rub it in nicely. Put it in a zip lock bag, making sure to put even the cure that fell onto the plate into the bag. You want to make sure you get all the curing salts in with the meat to maintain safety.
This is the pork loin after 10 days in the fridge with the cure, and a quick rinse. Looks about the same, just slightly darker and it feels firmer.
All I had was 100mm casings. 90mm would have worked better, but I made do. Tighten well with kitchen twine, and pop any air pockets in the casing with a clean toothpick or a sterile needle. Squeeze well to get the air out.
As an experiment I took about 3 sq. in. of moldy casing from a salame i had in the fridge from my last batch, mixed it with 133g of distilled water and 1g of dextrose, and used that as a mold spray.
The cased loin was hung at 68-70 deg. F for 38 hours.
It cured in the curing fridge at 54 deg. F and about 68% RH, until it lost about 35-36% of its weight. This took just about 1 month.
As you can see the moldy spray worked pretty wellLook how beautiful the lonzino is. It has just a little bit of fat on the outer area, and nice fat flecking in the meat. It is soft and tender.
Here is the lonzino sliced thinly. It is VERY tasty. The salt level is just right. It is pretty strong on a certain spice, i can't quite put my finger on, but i think it is the juniper. It's very nice.
Next time i might put just a little less juniper. The weight loss of 36% is just right. It's still tender and soft, but nicely cured.
The guanciale that was cured and put up to dry about a month and a half ago was ready to be eaten. How did I know it was ready, well, because I had a pasta I had to make with it!
I weighed it, but I forgot to write down what the finished weight was, oops. As you can see on the left, it doesn't look too different from what it looks like before drying, it is just firmer.
I used it for some pasta alla Gricia, and some amatriciana, and it was quite tasty. I think I prefer pancetta, as it seems more flavorful. I also noticed the fat on guanciale has a strange "soft/crunchy" texture if you don't render enough fat out of it...not really a texture I cared for much. The flavor was good, quite mild, porky and very very slightly herby.
If I were to remake this I would season more liberally with herbs and leave them on instead of rinsing them off before drying, like I did with this one.
Last week I took the plain coppa that was made a few posts ago. I let coppa A, the plain one almost exactly 1 month, at about 52 deg. F and 72% RH. It lost about 35% of its weight through drying. The 2nd coppa, which was a fennel one stayed about 1 week longer in the chamber and lost about 2.3% more water, for a total of 37.3% weight loss.
You can see in these picture that for whatever reason the mold i sprayed on it did not fully cover the surface like it did for the bresaola.
On the right is the plain one sliced. It is beautiful. The flavor is fantastic, just perfectly salty, the spices come through (maybe still a tiny bit too much clove!), and it is wonderfully tender and soft without being mushy.
I would say this one is definitely the best coppa I've made. Really really good.
The fennel one that was just a touch drier and the flavor was also fantastic. The fennel was very light in the flavoring, and I would probably use a little more next time so it is a little more pronounced.
I don't think i could be more pleased with both of these coppe!
Well, almost exactly 30 days from when the bresaola went into the curing chamber, it's ready. The mold over the past 30 days beautifully coated the whole piece of meat, developing a nice white bloom. You can see what a nice lean piece of meat the eye of round is. There is just 1 fat vein in the middle, and this is pretty uncommon.
Here is a picture of the uncut bresaola, you can see how nice the mold looks. I have never been able to get this before, so I attribute it to the use of the mold solution I sprayed on them.
The bresaole lost 38-40% of their weight (each one was a little bit different, based on they location in the chamber, and their thickness), and only took about 30 days because they are rather lean. I maintained the chamber at about 54 deg. F, and 75% RH.
Here is a plate of thinly sliced bresaola. Look what a beautiful crimson color it has.
This is my favorite way to eat it. Dabbing it with a mixture of oil, lemon juice and black pepper. Wait about 5 minutes to let it soak in a little bit, and eat with crust bread. So good, so good.
As far as tasting notes, I think this bresaola is one of the best I've ever made. It is just a little bit too salty, but it may just be nit picking. The herbs are nicely balanced, with none of them being overly strong. It is beefy and herby. Really wonderful. Next time I'll leave it in the cure maybe 1 or 2 days less.
The texture is perfect in the thicker, central, sections. Soft, but not raw feeling. The ends are a little drier and harder, but that is impossible to avoid since they are smaller. I think the 38 or 39% water loss is just about right for eye of round bresaola.
Finally a new post! Well, I had told you guys that this is a slow going hobby, and posts would come slowly. Hopefully I haven't lost everyone :)
This is one of the coppe which just came out of the curing chamber, the one on which I used my traditional dry salting method. The other, the wet cured one is still an unknown at this point.
Let me walk you through the process and the formula I used for this one. This assumes you've procured yourself a nice coppa from a shoulder, or by some other means. If you don't know what I'm talking about, use this link, to see my previous post on the subject.Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat Pork Coppa 800 100% Salt ( Kosher) 30 3.75% White Pepper 10 1.25% Cloves 5 0.625% Cinnamon 0.5 0.0625% Cure #2 2 0.25% 
The curing procedure is really quite simple. Crush/grind the pepper and cloves, and massage this whole mixture onto the pork collar (the coppa). Really work it into the meat. Then put the whole thing, and any of the salt and spices which fell off during the massage into a zip lock bag, get as much of the air out as possible, and put it in the fridge.
Leave it in the fridge, massaging the meat every 3 or so days, for about 10-15 days. The length of the stay in the fridge will depend on the thickness and weight of the meat. It is better to leave it too long, than not long enough, so I would go with 15 days. This one cured for 9 days.
Once cured, remove from the fridge, rinse quickly under cold water, and then dry well.
Put it in a casing of the appropriate size. I used 100mm collagen casings. Tie the coppa up, if you want using butchers knots, and then prick profusely with a toothpick while squeezing the coppa in the casing to get as much of the air out as possible. Do this especially at the 2 ends, and anywhere you see pockets of air.
Hang the coppa in your curing chamber. I hung it at 55 def. F and about 75% RH, for 57 days. Until it lost about 36% of its weight.
Once cured I like to put the item (i do with with most of them, coppa, bresaola, salame) in a ziplock bag with a damp paper towel, seal it up and put it in the fridge for a few days. This softens the really hard and dry casing and makes it much easier to peel.
Slice thinly and enjoy.
You can see what makes this piece of meat, and this salume, one of my favorites. The heavy marbling really gives the meat a lot of flavor and unctuousness. The meat really absorbs the flavors of the cure very well and every slice bursts with porky goodness.
So how does it taste? Well, this one in particular is very strong on the clove. I think I used about twice as much as I should have. The saltyness is good. It is dried just about enough to not be too hard to too soft. It is nice and meaty, and tastes pretty delicious. I think next time I'll use 1/2 the amount of clove, increase the white pepper a bit, and maybe add some additional spices like juniper or bay leaf.
