Salame al finochietto translates to "salame with wild fennel seeds", which is exactly what I made last week. I was actually able to make this during the week by doing one or two steps every evening after work.
I wanted to make a simple salame to get back into the hang of things. This one is about as simple as it gets.
The meat and fat I used were not the usual parts of the pig. Normally I'd use pork shoulder, and fat back. This time I used ham meat and pork belly. It was really nice not to have to do much trimming of sinew from the shoulder, these were basically clean hunks of meat. Very convenient. The belly I used was only slightly meaty, as you'll see in the pictures. It is probably much easier for people get get pork belly, than fat back (unsalted), so let's see how it works out.
Unfortunately, because of the whole curing issue, I will not have a report on the flavors, texture and aromas for about 3-4 weeks. The picture above is of the salame before drying. So for now I'll give you the recipe and procedure I used.
One important note is that everything that touches the meat (grinder, stuffer, bowls, counters, hands etc.) should be very very clean. Remember you're not cooking this meat, and you're holding it at temperatures which would allow bacterial multiplication.
Salame al Finocchietto
900g ham meat
380g fatty pork belly
35g salt
6.5g fennel seed - crushed in mortar and pestle
6.5g dextrose
3.1g cure #2
3.5g coarsely ground black pepper
35g reduced wine (see below)
1g (about 1/4 tsp) F-RM-52 starter culture mixed in 30g distilled water with a pinch of dextrose
These are the nice pieces of pork ham meat. You can see they are rather lean, and free of connective tissue. Less trimming and waste for us!
The meat is cubed into approximately 1/2-3/4" cubes.
Here is our nice pork ham cubed up and ready for the grinder right after we add.......
The pork belly! You can see this belly is quite fatty. In fact, the leaner part on the right side of the picture attached to the lower portion, I removed and saved to braise. I used the fattiest portions of the pieces I had. Be sure not to use the pork skin!
Again, I cut them into about 1/2-3/4" batons or cubes.
I combined and mixed the meat and belly and spread on a cookie sheet and put it in the freezer for 1-2 hours to get really cold, almost frozen. The surface should be a little "crunchy" from being frozen. You don't want it frozen solid or you won't be able to grind it.
I ground the meat using the 1/4" plate on the Kitchenaid grinder, and let it drop into the Kitchenaid bowl, then put it back in the freezer to chill again. (Don't leave it in there for longer than 1 hour or so)
In the mean time, I boiled 2 cloves of lightly smashed garlic in 1 cup of wine for about 10 minutes. It reduced to about 3/4 of a cup. I do this because when I used straight wine, without reducing, I could taste the alcohol in the salame. Boiling it evaporates the alcohol but retains the flavors of the wine.
During this time, I added the starter culture to 30-40g of room temperature distilled water in which I dissolved a pinch of dextrose. This is to wake those little buggers up!
I added everything to the ground meat except the starter culture, and using the paddle attachment (you could use your hands) I mixed the mixture. I paddled for 1 minute. I then added the starter culture/distilled water, and paddled for another 30-45 seconds to get a good bind. The meat paste should become tacky, but don't paddle so much that the meat and fat start smearing. You really want the fat globules to stay distinct. Of course I forgot to take a picture of the meat paste before stuffing. Next time.
For stuffing I used 43mm collagen rounds. This is an artificial casing which is soaked in warm water for about 15-20 minutes to soften. Stuff them until they are nicely full, but not super packed or they may burst. Try to stuff them with as few air pockets as possible. Tie them off into loops, and using a CLEAN toothpick poke the casing all over, trying to target any air pockets you may have.
From this batch I got almost exactly 2 full 43mm casings, one weighing 566g and one 596g. I had a little left over.
I matured them in my incubation chamber at 82 deg. F for 25 hours. This is based on experience. You might want to measure the meat past pH using pH papers.
This is what they look like after incubation. They are just a little more red, and have become a little "tighter" or "stiffer".
Now they get put into the curing chamber until they've lost about 30-40% of their weight. Which is why it is important that you measure the before-cure weight. This should take about 3-4 weeks.
As soon as I taste them I'll report on the taste as soon as I can!
Any questions or comments? Just ask away..let me know if you want even more detail or anything else.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Salame al Finocchietto
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Love Controls temperature switch
Yesterday I posted about using a Love Controls temperature switch to regulate the temperature of my incubation box. A comment was posted that the same control could be used to control the curing chamber, as long as it allowed heating and cooling control.
To be sure, i checked the instruction sheet, and this controller CAN be used for both heating and cooling, so this controller can be used instead of the Johnson Controls one, which is only for cooling. It is actually a little cheaper too at $50 + $10 or so for a thermocouple, but it will require you to do some wiring, and doesn't come in a nice neat box.
Thanks for mentioning this option.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Key equipment piece #4: The fermentation box
Well, maybe not really a "key equipment piece", but an important one nonetheless for making salame.
When making salame, a bacterial culture is added to the meat to inoculate it with a beneficial flora, rather than relying on random colonization and hoping for the best. This gives the salame flavor as well as protection against harmful bacteria. To assure that the bacteria added rapidly multiples, the salame has to be held at a certain temperature and high humidity before being dried, this is called the "fermentation" or "maturation" stage. The temperature is dependent on the bacteria added, and its optimal growth temperature. Various cultures can be found on butcher-packer's page, and they also have instructions for use there.
So, anyhow, the salame needs to be kept at a certain temperature and high humidity. In order to do this, I bought a large plastic storage container, added some hooks to the lid from which I can hang the salame, a light bulb for heat, and a small computer fan on some perforated pegboard to circulate the warm air.
To the left you can see my plastic box, and the lightbulb. I lined the corner of the box with foil to reflect the heat from the bulb. 
Right below that picture you can see the pegboard with the fan in place.
The last important part of this box is something to control the temperature. If the light were to stay on the whole time it would get too hot, ruining our meat. I bought a thermocouple temperature switch which has a built in line voltage controller from Love Controls.
This controller is set for the target temperature, and it turns the bulb on and off. It is about $50 for a controller plus a little more for the thermocouple, but I bet a cheaper one could be found on Ebay.
Having said all that, this isn't really necessary. This can be done by putting the salami in a tupperware, and then in an oven with just the light bulb and leaving the door a little open. You'll need a thermometer and keep track of the temperature for a while at the start, but once you figure out what works for you and your oven, you should be fine.
Pretty much you want to put the salame somewhere where it can stay at a relatively steady temperature of about 70-85 deg. F (exact numbers depend on the bacteria you're using, and desired speed of fermentation), and be in a high humidity environment so it doesn't dry out. I'm sure you can figure out a simpler way to do it than what I did...I just set it up like this to be able to specify an exact temperature and have it be repeatable every time. The temperature of your fermentation and how long you leave it will have a profound effect on the final flavor.
The amount of time you ferment is dependent on your temperature, you must get the pH of the meat paste below 5.1 within 36-48 hours. Most of the time I ferment for 24 hours. I urge you to read "Charcuterie" or "Cooking by Hand", as they can explain the process and timing much more clearly than I can, and I don't want to be held responsible for improperly cured salame getting someone sick. Look in my books list for these two books, they're books you should own anyhow, if you're into curing or sausages.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Sometimes it's better to be safe than sorry
Today I decided I'd throw together a quick simple salame tomorrow to get back into the swing of things. So off I went to my local chain grocery to get a pork shoulder. They had no pork shoulders.
What they did have was pork picnics. A picnic is the bottom portion of the pig's front legs. It is the part below the shoulder. I figured this would be perfectly fine, which in theory it is. So I picked one up. This is where things started to go downhill.
Upon opening the cryovac bag, a strong sulfur "aroma" hit me. Sometimes pork in cryovac bags can have a bit of smell to it, so I didn't worry too much about it, but more on that later. I then started dissecting it, and that is really where things got ugly.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, NEVER USE A PICNIC TO MAKE SAUSAGES OR SALAME!! The picnic (and I should have known this) is made up of dozens of really small muscles connected with connective tissue and fat strata. This is a real problem since meat for salame has to be nice chunks of muscle with as little fat or connective tissue as possible to allow for a clean grind. Getting any sort of nice clean chunks of meat out of the picnic is really a big pain. I will not make this mistake again, i'll stick to shoulder/butt or ham chunks.
So after having spent about 45 minutes trimming chunks of meat, the sulfur smell still had not gone away, and I started to get a bit worried. I took a small piece of the meat and cooked it up in a pan and ate it. It was kind of like eating pork steak with some egg...odd. So at this point, after having spent all that time cutting it, I don't think I'm going to use it for the salame. It may be fine to cook, I'm not sure, but I don't think I want to risk using it for something that doesn't get cooked like salame. Maybe the grocery didn't store it cold enough, or mishandled it, I'm not sure. Guess I should have fried up a piece before I had cut it all up and saved myself some time. Better safe than sorry, and I even learned a lesson. Don't use pork picnics for charcuterie.
Tomorrow I might go to a different market and get a couple of thick ham steaks and use those instead.
Friday, August 17, 2007
I'm back and it's time to start experimenting
Back from my nice vacation back home in Italy, done with my MBA and actually have free time on weekends! Time to start experimenting and making some cured meats.
I need to stock up on some supplies from Butcher Packer, some starter cultures, and some casings. I already have a whole slew of experiments lined up to investigate the differences in a few variables when making salame.
First experiment will be the flavor differences for different starter cultures used in the salame making process. There are 4 or 5 different ones available, I have used 2. My plan is to get 2 more, and make a batch of very simple salame and cure them side by side, keeping everything the same other than the starter culture. Taste them and decide if there are flavor differences, and which I prefer.
The 2nd experiment I want to run is using some farmer raised pastured Berkshire pork versus a standard industrially raised pig, and see if there are flavor differences when the meat is cured as salame or as other cured meats. This one will be interesting.
So, hopefully over the next couple of week i'll be able get get my supplies in and start my experiments. Hope you'll follow along.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Key equipment piece #3: The curing chamber
Here we are. This is probably the post most beginners are waiting for. This is the hardest part of curing meat. The necessity to maintain a cool temperature around 50-55 deg. F/ 10-13 deg. C, and a high relative humidity, around 65%, make curing meat at home difficult. Incorrect temperatures or humidity will cause the meat to cure too slowly or too quickly and possibly spoil or yield poor results.
Let me start by saying, making a curing chamber isn't TOO difficult. It will require some spare equipment and some small modifications to the equipment, as well as some money. A complete curing chamber can be built for about $250 of parts. Let me also say, that I assume NO responsibility for anything that may happen, injuries or otherwise.
Basically making a curing chamber boils down to modifying a home refrigerator. Let me start with some refrigeration theory which will allow you to understand why we need to do what we do.
When a frost free refrigerator (pretty much all modern day fridges) cools the air by running air over the cooling coils, it condenses humidity from the air, and delivers cold, very dry air to the inside of the fridge. The air is way too dry (around 20% RH) to be any good for curing meats, so we want to put moisture, the right amount, back into it. Additionally, a fridge normally run at about 33-43 deg. F, which is too low for our uses. This means we'll have to find a way to allow the fridge to run warmer.
A good place to look for a fridge is classifieds. Without too many problems I was able to find a frost free fridge for $80. I might have been able to find one even cheaper if I had kept looking. I guess you could go buy a new fridge, but that seems to be a waste to me. Remember if you buy an old used fridge, it HAS to be the frost free type.
Now lets make the fridge run like we need it to, at 50-55 F and 65% RH.
Lets start with the easier problem: the temperature. Some fridges have an adjustable set screw which would be covered by a panel which will allow you to adjust the fridge to keep the temperature higher than the normal 43. Mine didn't have that option, so I had to rely on other measures. An external temperature controller used to control many things, and often sold as a control for freezers to make them into beer keg fridges, is easily findable. These can be found online. I found mine on Ebay.
The device is quite simple. A remote temperature probe, seen on in the picture on the left connected by a brass capillary tube to the body of the temperature controller hanging on the outsize of the fridge. The temperature is adjustable between 20 and 80 deg. F. The fridge plugs into the piggyback style plug on the controller. The controller cuts power to the fridge when it reaches the temperature setting, and allows power to the fridge once the temperature is at (set point + 4 deg.). It works very well, maintaining the temperature between 52 and 56 deg.
You can order one of these from many places on the web, there is even a reseller on Amazon. Just search for "keg temperature controller" on Google.
The next task is a little bit more difficult. Maintaining humidity. This is done using an ultrasonic room humidifier. I specify ultrasonic since the cool air ones use sponges which in short order become moldy and need to be replaced, which gets expensive. A warm mist one, well, that is just counter productive (I've tried it, believe me, it is a foolish idea:) ) as you're trying to keep the fridge cool.
Any ultrasonic humidifier will work, but you probably want one with a nice large tank so that you don't have to refill it very often. The one on the left is the one I use, it is a Sunbeam model 701, and holds about 2 gallons of water, which allows me to run it, in my fridge, at my settings, for about 15 days before having to refill it.
So you've procured yourself an ultrasonic humidifier, but how do you make it stop humidifying at the right level, instead of continuously going until the water runs out? With a hygrostat. It is a device which, just like the temperature controller above, supplies or cuts power to the attached humidifier as necessary to maintain the correct humidity level. This piece of equipment, unfortunately is quite expensive. I got mine on Ebay for $75, but they retail for about $115.
You can see in the picture on the left, the humidity setting is adjustable between 10% and 90%, and you can hook up a humidifier or a dehumidifier. This one is called the THC-1 and is made by Green Air products, and is easily found by searching for THC-1 on some search engines.
This one is another model I ran across, which can be found here: http://www.control3.com/4190p.htm .
This one was really hard to find, so much so that I can't find it again searching for it, so I'm giving you the direct link. Who knows how long it'll be a good link though.
I have seen, and bought on Ebay, an ultrasonic humidifier with a settable humidity controller on it, but they seem to be rare, I'm not sure why. The cool mist types have them, but for some reason, the ultrasonic ones don't seem to. If you end up spending as much for one as you would as buying the controller separately, I would buy them separately, so that if the humidifier breaks you can just replace that cheaply, instead of having to buy another expensive one.
So now you've got a fridge, a temperature controller an ultrasonic humidifier and a hygrostat. Now what? Well, now you set it all up INSIDE your fridge! You put the humidifier inside the fridge, the controller probe inside the fridge, and the hygrostat inside the fridge. Set your temperature to about 53 deg F, the hygrostat to about 65 and let 'er rip.
You're going to be running plugs into the fridge from extension cords which could be unsafe, so if you follow my instructions, don't email me if you electrocute yourself. This is what my fridge looks like. You can see a nice pancetta hanging in there too.
You can see my humidifier, and the humidity controller, and the temperature probe. You can also see that I made some additional modifications by drilling a hole in the side of the fridge and wiring a plug on the inside wall, instead of having an extension cord going in from the fridge hinge. You can also see a light bulb at the top of the fridge.
This bulb isn't totally necessary, but it allows you to control the humidity level in a tighter band. Without the bulb the fridge runs between 50% RH and 70% RH, but it is at the upper and lower limits for a short time. After the fridge runs to cool the air (goes to about 50% RH) the humidity drops as the air is dried (explained above), and the humidifier takes 10-15 minutes to catch up and rehumidify the air. It is at the top of the humidity level since the controller has a dead band (the point between setting and turning off or on), of about 5%, so it overshoots the humidity by a little bit. By putting a light bulb in the fridge we can introduce a small amount of heat, which will force the fridge to come on more often, drying the air more often. If you do want to do this, use a 25w bulb and run it to an adjustable dimmer do you can adjust the amount of heat you're putting into the fridge.
I'm actually not 100% sure about the necessity of the bulb, so installing one is up to you. It does seem to maintain the humidity in tighter band, but I'm not sure that it is that important.
This is a picture of my connections on the outside of the fridge. I ran 1 main power line to a supply box and put the light dimmer in there. The controller and fridge plug into the box.
Oh, one more piece of necessary equipment is a thermo hygrometer. These are small electronic devices which measure and display the humidity and temperature. You can find them on Ebay for about $8. Just put it in the fridge, and you can measure the humidity and temperature to make sure you're running at the right values. I got one with a remote probe made by Oregon Scientific so I don't have to open the fridge to see what is going on inside. The reader is inside, and the display is outside and receives the signal via radio frequency.
Before concluding, let me mention another method to control humidity. I've tried this method, and wasn't pleased with the performance. In theory a saturated salt solution with excess salt added (water in which as much salt is dissolved to saturate it, that is, so that no more salt will dissolve in it, and then adding more salt, essentially creating a tray of wet salt in a saturated salt solution), will maintain a humidity of about 70%. If the solution is placed in an area which is lower, the water will evaporate until the ambient is 70%, and if it is higher, it will absorb the humidity to lower it to about 70%. The problem I found with this method is that it all happens so slowly (the humidity changes), that it becomes useless. If you want to try this, use an oven tray and make a saturated solution in it, and place it in the fridge.
Wow, quite the blog entry. I hope the why and the how is explained clearly. If you want to cure meats at home, unfortunately for just about everything except pancetta, you'll need one of these. If you have any questions, ask, and I'll answer them if I can. While this is a bit of an investment I hope the components will last a good long while. I've had mine for about 2.5 years now and it still works well.
As far as future modifications I have in mind for the fridge, well, some sort of fresh air inlet. Normally I open the fridge and let it "air out" every few days. I'm trying to think of a way to get fresh air into it, either on a timer, or when something else turns on. Given that the fridge is in my garage, the air isn't so fresh unless I have the garage door open too, so for now I'll leave the system closed and manually refresh the air.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Key equipment piece #2: The stuffer
The stuffer, well, stuffs! It is used to force ground meat, or meat paste into casings. Again, this is a piece of equipment which is only necessary to make cured meats which involve ground meat. I guess I'm saving the most difficult piece of equipment to make, the curing chamber for last!
This is the cheapest stuffer, an attachment for the grinder for the Kitchenaid mixer, and I bought it thinking, hey one less piece of equipment to buy, I have the grinder already. Wow was i ever wrong. Basically for $15 you get three stuffer tubes for different size casings, and a few pieces. You put the tubes on instead of the cutter and grinder plates and, in theory, the meat paste is loaded into the top (like the meat cubes were) and is forced into the tube and then the casings by the auger. Unfortunately, all you end up with is a complete mash of the fat and meat that, with some luck, MAY end up in the casings, if you don't pull your hair out first, and if your wife hasn't killed you for the mess you've made from going crazy trying to do this.
This stuffer is TERRIBLE. Do not waste your $15, it serves no purpose other than making an undifferentiated meat paste which has no recognizable components, AND it is impossibly difficult to even get it to do that well.
This next stuffer was the next one I tried. It is a push stuffer. I bought mine on Ebay, a stainless steel 3 pound model. I don't remember how much it cost me exactly, but it was about $40 after shipping. The theory behind it is sound. You load the meat into the chamber, and you manually push the handle down, which forces the meat paste from the chamber into the stuffing tube and into the casing. Unfortunately, the theory is sounder than the practice. Since the piston is also made of steel, and has no gasket around it, there is a considerable amount of meat which, when you're plunging the piston, is forced out around the piston, instead of out of the tube. The sizing between the piston and the body just wasn't tight enough. For a while I remedied this by making my own rubber gasket which I would put over the meat before plunging, and that worked OK, but using this thing was just not very easy, it slipped around when plunging, and just generally wasn't fun to use. I'd say, if you're looking for the cheapest option (other than spooning the mixture into the casings), this is the one, but it just isn't great.
Finally, once I'd had enough of using the push stuffer, and I got a crank stuffer. What a difference. Now stuffing wasn't something I dreaded anymore. The ground meat retained the proper texture, the meat and fat didn't smear, and it was really easy to use and clean. Wish I had saved the money and aggravation and gotten one of these right off the bat. The best deal can be had from Northern Tool, for $80 plus shipping for one of these, and it is money very well spent if you plan on making sausages or salame.
The meat is loaded into the steel chamber, and a plastic piston with a nice rubber gasket around it is forced into the chamber by the use of a crank. Yay, mechanical advantage! You gently crank, the piston lowers and forces the meat out the piston. It is as simple as it gets. It comes completely apart for cleaning, and running through the dishwasher, making the cleanup simple.
Here are some of the components. You can see the meat chamber which holds about 4-5lbs of meat, the piston and its o-ring, the air valve to allow the air out of the chamber as you press the meat, and one of the three stuffer tubes that comes with it.
Save yourself time, money and a lot of cursing, and buy this one if you need a stuffer.
Next post: the curing chamber. I'll try to get to it tomorrow
