The chorizo is ready! Well, it was ready last week, but I'm just getting around to writing about it now. This is the 1st one I've taken out. It's the one that was cased in an artificial round, 43mm casing. It lost about 43% of it's weight. I've left the others in the curing chamber to lose more weight. I think chorizo needs to be pretty hard. This one was a touch too soft really.
As you can see, the fat is nice and distinct. There is the correct amount of it, and it is well dispersed.
The flavor is good, but not great. It is a bit too strong on one or more of the flavorings. I'm still trying to work out which. I think it might be too much garlic, and possibly too much smoked paprika.
The black pepper is right. A friend of mine, who knows Spanish chorizo better than I do, says the black pepper is too prominent, and the garlic is correct. Maybe I'm just used to more Italian salami. Either way, I do like it, and would make it again, but reducing the garlic by about 20%, and maybe reducing the smoked paprika by about 15%, and replace that with a hot paprika. It does need some more heat, the cayenne wasn't enough.
The salt is correct, it's nice and
savory.
I'm looking forward to trying the ones that i've left in the curing chamber. I think they'll be nicer with some "heavier" chew to them, and with the added time in the chamber, maybe the overly strong notes will mellow out.
The mold as you can see did its job. The salame is nicely covered.
I would grade this a C+ for my tastes. Good, but needs work. Not that it's surprising. I've never made this before, and just took a number of recipes that sounded good, and mashed them together:)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Chorizo - Tasting Notes
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Salame di Sant'Olcese - Tasting Notes
It may not seem like long enough has passed from the posting of the recipe for the salame di Sant'Olcese for it to be ready, but that's only because i've been sitting on the recipe for a couple of weeks! Anyhow...it's ready. Or at least, i've taken one of the 3 that I made out of the curing chamber out.
I took one out pretty early, as I wanted to keep this salame pretty soft. By weight, it "claims" to have lost about 43% of it's weight, over 20 days. I say "claims", because it feels rather soft, and i'm wondering if I mis-weighed them when i put them into the curing chamber...all other salami that i've made before felt considerably harder, at less water weight loss. Either way, I felt like eating one.
As i've said, it is quite soft. Maybe a tiny bit too soft, it probably could have used another 4-7 days, good thing I have 2 or 3 more in the curing chamber. If i were to compare it to something in softness, the first thing that comes to mind is a marshmallow, maybe a little bit harder.
As far as the tasting goes, it's excellent. Really is. The pepper is quite pronounced, it's nicely salty, and the garlic is there in the background. It is not sour at all, which is nice, as I don't care for the San Francisco style of cured meats that are prounouncedly sour. I think it's because of the starter culture i used, and becuase i ferment at a low temperature (70F).
The fat is distinct, and is in perfect proportion to the meat. The salame so far does not present any air pockets. Overall I'm really pleased.
Of course, there are some improvements that can be made, there always are. In slicing the salame, one can see, and feel while chewing, about a 1/8" ring on the outer edge which is slightly drier. I attribute this to my humidity not being high enough in the chamber. As such, for the stuff that's still in there, i bumped up the humitiy from about 70% to about 75%. This should also slow down the curing/drying time, which I believe will lead to better flavor as well.
I'd give this salame a solid B+. It's a touch soft, and the dry ring around the edge keeps it from an A :).
Monday, February 9, 2009
Salame di Sant'Olcese
I didn't know much about the salame from Sant'Olcese until i read about it in an Italian cured meats blog. Sant'Olcese is a small town outside Genova. This salame is characterized by a 50/50 mix of beef and pork for the lean portion, and pork fat. It is also traditionally very lightly smoked. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to smoke the salame, so mine will be a Sant'Olcese style salame. This is true for all my salami. None of them can be the real thing, since that requires me to actually be there. They are all "in the style of" the place or region. Anyhow, let's get to the recipe and method.Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat+Fat Pork ham meat 908 37.75 Beef chuck meat 908 37.75 Pork belly (70/30 fat/lean) 590 24.5 Salt 65 2.7 Cure #2 6 0.25 Dextrose 12 0.50 Black pepper (whole) 6 0.25 Black pepper (ground) 2.4 0.1 Garlic powder 2.4 0.1
F-LC starter culture1 0.042
You'll recognize a number of the pictures from the chorizo post. I didn't see a point of taking different pictures for the exact same step. I'm reposting them in case people end up in this post through a link from somewhere, so they can see the whole process.
The usual suspect. A ham steak. This is cubed up nicely.
Pork belly strips waiting to be cubed up as the fat component of the salame. Hmmmm pork belly.......
This shows the beef chuck, which was also cubed, the ham meat, and the pork belly. I forgot to take a picture of the piece of beef chuck, but i think you might have seen one before at a grocery! Buy one, remove fat and sinew and cube it up.
This is mixed with the cure and spices shown below, and put in a freezer to get nice and firm for 45 minutes or so.
This is the spice mixtures and cure that went into the salame. It's very simple. Not a lot of flavors to get in the way of porky beefyness.
The meat was ground on the large kitchen aid plate. Which i think is 1/4"...i don't recall, and i keep forgetting to measure it. I don't know what is wrong with this picture, i couldn't get the white balance on the camera right, and the picture looks blue...anyhow...the meats and fat are ground.
The starter culture was diluted with about 30g of distilled water, and the poured over the ground meat mixture.
The mixture is then mixed for about 2 minutes with the Kitchen Aid or about 3-4 minutes by hand until a nice bind is achieved. I forgot to take a picture of the mixed product. Sorry.The salame was cased into 3 natural casings, and 1 collagen 60mm casing. I figured I'd take the opportunity to to a scientific taste test of salame cured in natural casings and one cured in artificial. Will it make a difference? I don't know! We'll see. I must admit, using the artificial ones is MUCH more convenient. They are shelf stable, even, don't smell, don't require washing, but they do lose the natural appeal and old world look.
The M-EK4 mold mold is mixed with 30 or so grams of distilled water and allowed to bloom for a couple of hours.
The mold "concentrate" is then diluted with about 300g of distilled water in a spray bottle.
The salami were placed in the fermentation box at 70 deg. F. for 48 hours. I was actually able to keep my basement room right around 70 or 71 F, no need to run the lightbulb in the fermentation box.
After the 48 hours, the salami had a nice coating of mold already.
The salami were fermented for 48 hours, and then put into the curing chamber at 54 deg. F and about 70% RH.
Looking forward to trying them in about a month or so.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Spanish Chorizo
I'm an equal opportunity cured meat eater. The product doesn't have to be Italian, it just has to taste GOOD. Case in point, Spanish Chorizo. Chorizo is a salame like cured product redolent of smoked paprika, garlic and oregano. This is the 1st time I've made it, and since it isn't ready yet, I won't know if this formula is any good until I try it. Try at your own risk!Ingredient Quantity(g) % of Meat+Fat Pork ham meat 998 69.8 Pork belly (about 75/25 fat/lean) 431 30.1 Salt 40 2.8 Cure #2 3.43 0.24 Dextrose 2.86 0.2 Sugar 2.86 0.2 Black pepper (ground) 8.58 0.6 Smoked paprika (sweet) 28.6 2 Oregano (dry) 2.86 0.2 F-LC starter culture 0.5 0.035 Cayenne pepper 1.4 0.1 Garlic (fresh) 12 0.9 
I started with my usual ham steak. As I've said previously, I prefer the ham steak to the shoulder/boston butt because there is less sinew and intramuscular fat that has to be trimmed out.
The ham steak was cubed up into about 1" cubes
For the fat component I used pork belly. I tried to choose pieces that were particularly fatty. I'd say they were about 70-80:20 fat to lean.
The belly is cubed up and combined with the ham cubes.
The spice mixture is carefully mixed to get good distribution of everything, and the garlic cloves are mashed through a garlic pressed, in preparation to be put into the meat.
I mixed the spice mixture and the crushed garlic into the meat and fat cubes and massaged it for a while to make sure everything was nice and evenly mixed together.
The mixture then goes to the freezer to get really cold before grinding. I let the meat get to at least 33 or 34 deg. F, before grinding.
I ground the meat and fat through the large Kitchenaid plate, which if i remember correctly is 1/4". Since i kept everything cold, the fat and meat are nice and distinct.
The starter culture was mixed with a pinch of dextrose and a splash of distilled water, and let stand for 15 or so minutes to allow the bacteria to wake up, and then poured over the meat.
I mixed the meat with the Kitchenaid paddle attachment for about 1.5 minutes on low speed. This is done to make sure everything is mixed together, the starter culture is dispersed, and to allow the proteins to form a good bind.
Don't mix too much or you'll smear the fat...not good...not good at all. You want the fat to stay in distinct blobs.I stuffed the chorizo into 1 43mm collagen round casing, and 2 60mm natural beef middle casings. As usual, I tried to avoid any air pockets in the meat mixture by massaging it meat once it was cased, and popping and pricking the casing where there were air pockets on the surface.
Earlier that afternoon i had mixed up about 1.5g of M-EK-4 mold with about 30g of distilled water.
This was left for about 3-4 hours to "bloom".
I then diluted that mold mixture with an additional 300g of distilled water in a spray bottle. Shook it up real well, and let it sit another 15-30 minutes. (Really i don't know if these sitting periods are necessary..but i guess they can't really hurt).
The salami were sprayed and put into the fermentation box at 70 deg F. for 48 hours.
They were sprayed again with the mold 12 hours after being put into the box. The lid on the box was closed for the whole 48 hours to keep it nice and humid. As you can see on the left, the mold after 48 hours was already developing very nicely.
Here are the chorizos and a few other salami i made that day (write up coming soon) in the curing chamber.
The chamber is set at 54 deg F. and 70% RH.
I expect the 43mm chorizo to be ready in about 2 weeks, and the larger ones in about a month. Looking forward to trying something new!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Cotechino - Results
Last week when my brother was in town I cooked up one of the cotechini. I left it in it's vacuum bag, put it in a large pot of water, and slowly brought the temperature of the water up to 190-195 deg.
I then put the pot in the oven set at about 225, so that the heat would be even from all sides. The water stayed right around 200 deg. I let it cook about 2 hours, took the pot out of the oven, and then let it sit another 20-30 minutes.
The bag had blown up like a baloon, i assume from the air in the sausage expanding. It had quite of bit of fat in it that was released from the cotechino. I opened the bag, got rid of the fat, and removed the casing. The cotechino was served over lentils.
It was AWESOME. It was slightly salty, and slightly too cinnamony. I think this is likely because the salt and spices weren't diluted by direct contact with the water. Next time i'll reduce the salt by about 10-15%, and the cinnamon by about 10%.
The flavor was really good. The spices in it were pretty distinct and very tasty. The texture was great, with nice gelatin from the cooked skin, and a good quantity of fat.
Next year I may also try grinding the meat using the fine plate instead of the KA coarse one. I'm worried it might make it too much of a fine ground sausage paste, but i guess it's worth a try!
So..i'm sold. I'll be cooking my cotechini in vac bags from now on!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Cotechino - That which started my adventure!
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.
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!
