This is the salume that started my adventure into curing meats.
These are available from a few Italian butchers in New York, but I haven't seen them anywhere else. They're pretty uncommon here in the US. Cotechino is a traditional, cooked, New Year's sausage that was created in the town of Modena. It's a MUST at every New Year's party in Italy and is eaten with lentils, polenta or mashed potatoes. Alternately, a Zampone is eaten which is the same recipe, except the the mixture is stuffed into a deboned front pig leg, instead of casings. These sausages are supposed to bring fortune in the new year (with the lentils bringing money). The name "Cotechino" derives from the Italian word for pig skin; cotiche, and as you might imagine, it contains a fair amount of them.
The pig skin that's ground in with the meat and fat gives the cotechino a very sticky unctuous mouthfeel after it's been cooked for a few hours very gently in water. The sausage is pretty heavily spiced and has a delicious assertive flavor of traditional Christmas spices and herbs, as well as porky goodness. It's most definitely my favorite cooked sausage.
I've varied my recipe every year I've made this (about 5 or 6 years), and I'm still searching for a recipe that gets me the results I remember eating in Italy, which were made by a small town butcher in Modena. Mine are great, but those were fantastic. This year i decided to use pork belly instead of the usual fatback I use. I'll be cooking mine next week, so I'll see if it was a good decision.Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat+Fat+Skin Pork shoulder meat 1645 35 Pork belly (about 60/40 fat/lean) 1645 35 Pork Skin (fatless) 1362 29 Salt 82 1.7 Cure #1 7 0.15 Dextrose 18.4 0.4 Coriander powder 1.7 0.037 Nutmeg 0.5g 0.011 Clove 1 0.022 Mace 0.5 0.011 Cinnamon 1 0.022 Cayenne 1.4 0.03 Black pepper (cracked large) 6 0.129 White pepper (ground fine) 6 0.129
Since i haven't blogged in a while, I forgot to take pictures for everything, but I think I got all the important stages. Remember to keep everything you're grinding COLD COLD COLD. After i cubed up my meat and fat i put them in the freezer for about 1.5 hours to cool way down. It will grind better and won't smear the fat as much.
Pig skin is incredibly tough, so much so that if I were to try grinding it my grinder would likely explode. It has to be boiled first. I don't know if butchers in Italy do this, or if their grinders are strong enough to grind the skin raw, but somehow I can't imagine they are able to. So the pig skin is boiled until it is fork tender. This takes about 30 minutes. Once this is done remove as much excess fat attached to the skin as possible. This can be done before boiling, but i think it's a little easier to do it after. This picture shows what the skin looks like after boiling and cooling a little.
The pork skin gets cut up into chunks so it can fit into the grinder throat.
The pig skin is ground alone first. I used a 3/16" plate (the small kitchenaid plate that comes with the grinder)
Here is a picture of the pork belly. You can see that it's about 60/40 or 50/50 fat to lean. It was nice looking pork belly.
The skin is removed and the cut up into chunks.
Cut up pork belly. Not very exciting...but delicious!
This is the pork shoulder i used. It was trimmed a little, but I didn't spent a whole lot of time trimming it.
I forgot to get a picture of the ground skin alone. Anyhow, it looked like a big pile of sticky beads:)
Mix the ground pork skin with the chunked meat and pork belly.
Closeup of the belly, meat and skin mixture. You can see the skin looks like little pellets.
This is the spice mixtures i used. The spices were all (except the large cracked black pepper) ground in a coffee grinder, and mixed with the salt.
The spice mixture is mixed into the meats and skin and well massaged to distribute everything.
The mixture is passed through a 1/4" grinder plate (the large kitchenaid standard plate).
Note how the meat and fat chunks are pretty distinct. That's because the mixture was nice and cold before grinding.
The ground mixture is mixed well by hand and sort of gently kneaded to develop the bind. You'll know it's ready to stuff when you get a white film of protein building up on the sides of the bowl.
You can sort of see that in this picture.
This batch made 6 750g cotechini. I think 750g is a good size as it'll feed about 4 or 5 people as a main dinner with lentils or some other side dish. Cotechino is a VERY heavy dish, it sits in your stomach like a brick, so i don't advise eating this and then going out partying:)
I used a pretty large artificial casing. It's about 80mm in diameter. I like the cotechino to be quite thick.
To store, they can be vacuum packed and frozen. I've kept it this way for a year, and then eaten it. It's still great.
Some people dry their cotechini as if it were a salame for 5 or 6 days. I've never done that, but i imagine it would be pretty good!.
To cook it, the casing is punctured with a skewer (a large toothpick) in multiple places (i punctured these about 40 times) to allow some of the fat to come out while it's cooking. It is then wrapped VERY tightly in aluminum foil, closing off the ends like a giant candy, and put into cold water. Bring the water to a GENTLE (190 deg. F) simmer, and simmer for about 2-3 hours (or put the pot of water/cotechino in the oven at about 200 deg. F . After 2-3 hours turn off the heat and let it sit in the water for about 20 minutes. Carefully remove it from the water, remove the casing (which may have burst), and slice into slices about 1/2" thick. Serve HOT over polenta or lentils or mashed potatoes. It has to be eaten hot, otherwise the gelatinous skin hardens and you miss what makes it so good.
This year i think i'm going to try cooking one in one of the vacuum bags. My theory is that there will be less flavor loss to the water it's cooking in. There may also be less fat loss, which may or may not be good! We'll see. When i cook it next week i'll put another post up to report back.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Cotechino - That which started my adventure!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
I'm still here, and a glimpse into the next project!
Hey everybody just wanted to let you know i'm still around, even if not posting right now. I just moved and as you might imagine, my wife thinks unpacking boxes, hanging pictures and painting stuff should take precedence over curing meats! Sounds crazy to me too!
Anyhow, i'm planning my next post. It'll be cotechino, which is a cooked italian new years sausage. It's the salume that started it all!
Stay tuned please!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Long absence
I haven't posted anything in quite a while. I'm running short on salame, and i need to make some stuff. Unfortunately I'm in the process of moving which is keeping my weekends completed busy.
So....sorry for the few posts..i wish i could post more, but i'm not home long enough!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Pancetta - Ready to use
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!
Friday, August 15, 2008
Pancetta - Off to the curing chamber
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).
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.
