The pancetta has been curing with its spices and salt for about 10 days. It's become pretty firm and the flavors should have permeated the meat fully. Time to move it to the curing chamber.
This is what the pancetta looks like as it comes out of the bag.
The spices get rinsed under cold running water, and then the belly gets patted dry.
Here is the rinsed pancetta. Really pretty uneventful, or uninteresting.
The meat looks darker and definitely feels firmer than it was when raw.
A spice mixtures is made up. For this one I mixed 2 teaspoons of very coarse black pepper, 5 crushed bay leaves, and 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper.Here is the cured pork belly rubbed with the spice mixture. Really press the pepper and spices into the meat. Put a string through it to hang and that's it. Easy.
Now, for people who don't have a curing fridge, the drying is also very easy. Put the pancetta on a cake rack, and then on a plate, and put it in the fridge for about 3-4 weeks. The cake rack on the plate will allow the air to circulate around it reaching all sides of the meat. If you just put it on a plate, the surface touching the plate will stay wet.
If you do have a curing fridge, put it in there. I put mine in, at about 54 deg. F and about 60% humidity.
Humidity for pancetta isn't super critical since it is quite thin and has a lot of surface area, which will allow it to dry pretty evenly even if the ambient is too dry for other cured meats (like in a fridge).
Friday, August 15, 2008
Pancetta - Off to the curing chamber
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Pancetta - The easiest cured meat of all!
If bacon makes everything better, then pancetta makes everything better still! It's similar to bacon, in that they are both made with pork belly, but that's where the similarities end. Pancetta is normally unsmoked and dry cured and can be made flat or rolled into a pinwheel, whereas bacon is smoked and not left to dry and always sold flat.
Pancetta is really very similar to guanciale, and the spices and herbs used could be used on either one. This particular pork product is probably the easiest and most accessible cured meat that can be made at home. So, why didn't I show this one first on this blog? Because I already had some in my fridge at the time! I still don't really need any, but I had a defrosted piece of Tamworth pork belly that had to be used, so I figured I'd make pancetta. After all, is it really possible to have too much cured pork belly? I think not!
The reason I say that it is the most accessible cured meat is that it can be made without a curing chamber. I've done it. It works. I even did a side by side comparison of 2 pieces of pork belly one cured in my chamber, and one in the fridge, and they were almost identical. So...if you're looking to get into cured meats, dive in with pancetta!Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat+Fat Pork belly 420 100 Salt 10 2.4% Black Pepper 7.8 1.9% Brown Sugar 4.8 1.1% Cure #2 1.1 0.26% Juniper 1.8 0.43% Bay Leaves 0.3 0.07% Nutmeg 0.8 0.19% Dry Thyme 0.5 0.12% Garlic 1 clove 
I had a pretty small piece of pork belly, so that's what i used. It's preferable to have it skin on, but if you can only find it without skin...so be it.
All the spices, salts, sugar and herbs are mixed together. The small piece of pork didn't require much cure.
The cure is rubbed all over the pork belly and massaged into the meat. The meat is then put into a zip bag and into the fridge to cure. Allowing the salts and herbs to penetrate the meat.
In about 7-10 days the meat will be rinsed, and hung in the curing chamber for as long as one might choose to wait. 2 weeks minimum though.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Lonzino
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.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Guanciale - Ready to eat
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.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Salame al Barolo
While making the salame tipo varzi I also made a salame al Barolo. I actually didn't use Barolo, I used a Cote du Rhone. Basically it is a simple salame mixture to which a relatively large quantity of wine is added. The alcohol and excess water evaporate leaving behind the flavors of the wine used. Since I've never tried this before, I figured I'd give it a shot. Unfortunately things didn't turn out quite as rosy as one might hope.
I'm not going to go into the detail that i've given in the past since I don't think there is much point in repeating stuff. Just know that the method is the same; grind, add seasoning, mix, case, spray with mold, ferment, and then dry.Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat+Fat Pork ham meat 750 75% Fat back 250 25% Salt 27 2.7% Black Pepper (cracked) 2.5 0.25% Cure #2 2.5 0.25% Dextrose 5 0.5% F-LC Starter 0.4 0.04% Red wine (Cote du Rhone) 250 25%
Everything was ground and mixed, cased into natural beef middles, and sprayed with a solution (1.5g mold to 27g water) of M-EK-4 mold culture. It was fermented at 71-72 deg. F for 48 hours.
As you might immagine the mixture was quite wet after mixing in the wine which made for easy casing.
The salame was dried at about 54 deg. F / 70% RH for about 28 days, until it had lost 45% of its weight.
To the left here is a picture of the finished product, and where I can convey an important lesson.
You can clearly see a fairly sizable "air pocket" that somehow made it's way into the mix. Either there was an bubble in the mix that got pushed into the casing, or the wet mixture left air pockets upon evaporating. I'm not sure.
The problem with this is that it can allow bacteria to grow that could be dangerous. This is something that really needs to be avoided by making sure the mixture is properly compacted and massaged into the casings to force any air pockets out of the mix.
The flavor of the salame while first tasting it was OK. Too winey for my tastes, and just not very exciting. Interestingly, after about a month in the fridge, and retasting, it tasted not so great. It had a very oxidized flavor, which i think might have been caused by the air pockets..but I'm not sure. Either way, it was disposed of.
Friday, May 9, 2008
A month an no post?
I know it's been a month with no posts. Unfortunately time has been very tight lately, even on the weekends. I'm also trying to think of something new that i haven't made before as my next post.
Hopefully it won't be too long, so hang tight!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Salame Saturday! - Faceoff: farmer vs. commercial - rematch. - Results
I know, it's been a long time coming. I'm sure many of you have been wondering what the heck happened since the last farmer vs. commercial post a month and a half ago! Well, it took a good 30 days for the salami to lose about 40% of their weight, so that's where most of the time went. The rest was just my slowness in taking pictures to post!
You can see here on the left side of the picture is the farmer meat salame, on the right is the commercial meat one.
I made sure to remove them from the curing fridge after they had lost an equal amount of water weight. These were at about 43% loss. The farmer one took a good 7-10 longer to lose that weight than the commercial one. I attribute this to the difference in the intramuscular fat.
The commercial one has an obvious, common, defect. You can see that the meat paste wasn't properly bound before i put it into the casing, which has caused the small "cracks" in the salame, leaving small air pockets. This is a dangerous defect, since air inside the salame can cause problems. It doesn't seem to have affected this one though. I'll definitely mix the meat paste longer next time to get a better bind.
There is an obvious difference in color, i'm not really sure why. The textures are also a little difference. The commercial one is a little tougher and chewier.
What about the flavor? The verdict is in! Let me preface this by saying BOTH are FANTASTIC. By FAR the best i've ever made. I attribute this to the F-LC starter i used this time, as well as the lower (72 deg.F), and longer (48 hrs) fermentation. The flavor of both is just outstanding. It is as good as any available, including the best artisinal ones.
So, which is better. I guess i'd have to give the edge to the FARMER one. It is a little richer and deeper in flavor. The texture is a bit better, but I could probably achieve the same texture by drying the commercial a little less.
Would I keep paying 4 times the cost for farmer instead of commercial based on flavor alone? (ignore the whole animal welfare for now). No. Not for salame. For roasts and grilled meats, hell yes, but I think much of the deliciousness of the pork is lost over the drying and spicing and curing. If I could get farmer pork for a small cost increase, I'd use it, but at current prices which are 3-4 times higher than commercial, I don't think i'll use farmer pork.
On a side note, I sort of accidentally removed one of the farmer salami at about 35% weight loss. It is considerably softer than the 43% loss, and also very good. Which do I prefer? I guess if i were making a sandwich, the softer, moister one, if eating out of hand or as an appetizer; the harder one.
I have one more of each type still drying, i expect them to be at about 50-55% loss right now. I'll take them out in the next week or 10 days, and see what they're like.
