Charcuterie Sundays: Salami

Showing posts with label Salami. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Cocoa nib, Hazelnut and Cayenne Salami

Currently our most anticipated salami at the moment, how could these flavors not be great?!? We are always trying to think of new combinations which isn't as easy as it may seem. There are tons of things one could throw into the mix but its important to show a bit of restraint and ease into new transitions. Different ingredients react in different ways. Why does dill hold its colour after months of curing and parsley turns black? Why do some nuts hold in emulsified recipes like mortadella and others seem to jump ship almost instantly when you slice it. You can assume you have all bases covered, make a big batch of something, months later take it down from the curing room and realize you didn't take one little thing into consideration and the finished product is ruined.

Introducing new ingredients is always risky and you never quite know what the final outcome will be until its ready. Certain spices react in different ways. Why does dill make a salami taste so buttery? and why is fennel so pronounced even in the smallest of quantities?

i recently made a salami using 3 citrus peels. lemon, orange and lime with cayenne and coriander. Sounds tasty but really the outcome has the same chance of turning out horrible as it does great. The quantities and the contrast of flavors can work for or against me equally and only time will tell.

Using ingredients your familiar with and ratios of meat to spices is your best bet for success. Every once in a while you introduce something new to expand your knowledge but be prepared for a product you may not be happy with. And do everyone a favour, dont serve it unless your completely satisfied.

This cocoa nib salami is a first for us, but nothing new to the charcuterie game. We decided on the quantity of nibs via rock, paper, scissors.... My suggestion was less, Branden's was more, he beat me with a scissor if i remember correctly and i will be beating him with a rock if it turns out shit.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Suckling Pig Summer Sausage

We've never used suckling pig in a salami before but when we had some extra pieces we didn't have any particular use for we thought why not? It has such a distinctive flavour and since we had the hay from the farm it comes from we decided to smoke it with its own hay.

Summer sausage is a pretty quick process. Grind and mix your meat. Ferment for several days (in this case, only 1 day so we didn't over sour its delicate flavour). Smoke slowly till you reach the optimum internal temperature.

We tasted it already, you can definately taste the hay, we vac packed it and id like to let it rest a little before i give my final thoughts.

Recycled Salami

We go through a lot of cured meats at the Black Hoof and now the cafe. We only use so much of these cured bits of flavor in soups, sauces, ragu's etc.... so we need to find another use for them.

A couple months ago i diced up some prosciutto ends and folded them into a genoa salami and not only did it turn out extremely well, it also gave it an amazing richness that you can only get from a cured ham.

So, the idea here with this "recycled salami" is to use everything from duck ends, pancetta, summer sausage, pepperoni, etc.... everythings fair game. i will only add enough raw meat to bind it plus a little, as for salt, i will minimize the typical 2-3 % by a little and assume the already cured meats may give off a bit. I will not be adding any seasoning other then salt and hope that the flavor from the pre cured meat will be flavourful enough. We'll see......

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

N'duja Update

So i tried the first bit of N'duja the other day. A little early, but its ready nonetheless. My worries of too much powdered hot chili pepper was correct. I've never tasted the real thing but theres some things i would tweak in the recipe.

While mixing this batch, i found it incredibly hard to mix everything properly because i had to work in so much powdered hot pepper. In Italy they most likely use some sort of liquid hot pepper paste, but alas we are in Toronto, and authentic products like that are rare to come by, even in little Italy. Round two, i think i would make my own paste with sweet peppers with a little less hot pepper, because although i like the heat and can stand it, the first taste sends you running for water, but then you just cant stop eating it. Today i cooked out some cubed fat in duck fat with hopes that tomorrow i can fold in the n'duja in a kitchen aid mixer to make it a little more spreadable. I'm not sure it will work but i think its going in the right direction to improve its consistency.

I plan to serve it this week on the menu with some smoked BC spot prawns, crushed cherry tomatoes in a pool of good olive oil with some crusty baguette.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

N'Duja

Put a little bit of tripe in something and you'll make most peruvians smile. In this case it's chef G-Mo. He is holding a bung cap filled with N'duja, a Calabrian salami that is the italian version of the french andouille only much hotter due to the 1.5 kg of hot chili pepper that went into this recipe. The thing that makes this salami unique from most others is that it is spreadable rather then your typical sliced cured meat. This would kick off the beginning to an italian meal with some toasted bread and cheese to wake up the senses.

We used honey comb tripe for this recipe. We brought it up in hot water, then changed the water and brought it up to a simmer for another hour or so till it was par cooked.

We let it cool down before we diced it up and froze it for grinding and the smell of poached tripe was making the whole kitchen wheezy, even the peruvian.

This salami also contained about 5 jowls, 1/2 a pigs belly, and some nice berkshire shoulder meat. The presence of fatty goodness is a must if you want it to spread nicely. The mound of red stuff is the hot chili pepper. I was very weary about the amount that went into it. Just a bit on the tip of my finger sent me running for water. It was the toughest salami i've mixed by hand due to the amount of dry ingredients.

After stuffing it, we dried it for a day to form a pellicle on the casing, which will help the salami take on smoke in the smoker. It's a first for the BH kitchen, were excited as much as we are scared to taste it.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Sobresada

The other day i made Sobresada. Its the spanish version of the italian sopressata, except for that its a ground salami, which then gets pulsed in the food processor and then cures. The end result is more like a pate one can spread, then a salami you can slice. The meat to fat ratio is 1:1 , so its very creamy. I decided not to pulse it for several reasons, the main one being i didn't have enough time to do such a large batch in my dinky food processor. While grinding it, it already looked pretty smooth and mushy so hopefully i get a good product. Like most spanish salami's there is a lot of smoked paprika involved. Infact this salami takes a shitload.

I used beef middles as my casings but my last few casing purchases have really been a disappointment. They seem to break every few inches which is INCREDIBLY annoying. So i stopped 1/2 way through and began using the saran wrap casing above. I'm not sure what its actually called, so i call it saran wrap casing. It looks like a roll of seran wrap, only 20 times more expensive. I just recently got it but i have already planned out my next twelve things id like to experiment with.

Basically, in a nut shell, you lay your meat down, wet the wrap, and roll like you would a roulade of sorts. Tie it up, poke your holes and hang. I'm in the beginning stages of experimenting with it, im sure i will come across some obstacles and i wont get it perfect for another few tries. But anything that doesn't take up valuable fridge space like natural casings is worth a try ...or even two...

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Genoa Salami

Not all the salami's i do try to be different. This is a traditional Genoa salami and its the simplicity that really shines here. Its has a good amount of ground fat so it really keeps its moistness. There's only a few ingredients in this one but the complexity comes from a long fermentation period and good quality pork. I added caraway seed but never measured it, its not in your face but it has brought it to another level in my opinion. The key like any salami is to keep the fat cold. Because of the higher amount of fat in this one, if its not cold, there is more fat to smear and with this ratio it can be a really bad thing. Luckily this batch turned out really well.

The first time i made it i kept thinking it wasn't ready because it wasn't firm enough, i kept aging it and it never firmed up. I finally sliced into it and realized it was already done. Then eventually i figured out that fatty salami's never get as dense as leaner ones. Makes sense, but it took me a while. If you come across some good heritage farm raised pork i would definitely try this recipe.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Noisette Round Two

I really enjoyed the Noisette i made a couple months ago, the only problem is that it went too quickly. So i made a huge batch and screwed around with it in several forms. i had these bladder casings just ligering amonst some salt in the fridge i wanted to use up. I'm not sure if theres a traditional recipe one would use to stuff these with, but pork, roasted hazelnuts and fresh tarragon sounded good at the time. It was my first time using them and it was fun to see how big they stretch out to be. By the end of it i couldn't stop thinking to myself what the heck am i going to slice this on. Either way, it was fun, an experience, and something i needed to educate myself on. They look weird hanging in my fridge and the lining is really thick. It was tough to get the meat really compact so i hope there's minimal gaps between the meat.

I also borrowed a metel pole from a restaurant i used to work at to hollow out a few pork loins to stuff. This just isnt any

metal pole its been sharpened on one end to cut through the meat. i slipped the cured pork loin onto the tube just like you would a casing and then piped the farce meat into the hole just like you would a salami. I then wrapped it up in cheesecloth and fermented it for a day then off to the curing fridge. i'm excited to see if it binds well in the interior.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Noisette

I wasn't sure how this salami was going to turn out. The addition of nuts had me a little worried on how it would slice and cure. As i watched the mold grow and cling to the casing i was curious as to what was happening inside. I'm not really a fan of hazelnuts to be honest but i thought it was better then using walnuts or macadamia nuts and peanuts were definitely out of the question. There was an addition of dried tarragon but in retrospect i really should have used fresh. Similar to the beef and dill i'm sure it would have really shined and really improved the overall flavor. So i have plans to do another one this week using fresh tarragon as i'm on my last stump of the old batch and need to restock.

Bearsoala

So i received three bear roasts from a friend who got them from a hunter. I traded him restaurant credit for 10 lbs of meat and we made it together. I had no idea what to expect from this meat. It was brought to me frozen and wrapped in butcher paper. i had it sitting in my freezer for a week before we made it. It felt like when my parents would put christmas presents out early and you'd have to wait days before you got to open them and see what was inside. I tried shaking the frozen meat but that didn't really give me any hints as to what was inside.

The day finally came when it was time to open up this early christmas present. The meat was a deep red with the whitest fat marbling i had ever seen. It looked and smelled as if the bear had just been skinned it was surreal. I didn't know what bear would smell like but when i did take a wiff it was exactly what i would have thought bear smelled like. It was gamey, but not in a lamb way, not in a bison or deer way either just bear. I had thoughts of it smelling like honey but perhaps thats from watching too many cartoons as a kid. One thing i worried about was whether it would smell like fish or berries, depending on what its diet was prior to its last breath. It would suck to have hints of lake trout in a bear salami. I concluded after many wiffs that it was perfect for curing. Unfortunately there wasn't any big meaty loins for making bearsola but i did manage to salvage a few small pieces. The rest got ground up for salami. I decided to do it in hog casings because i wanted to taste it as soon as possible. Both the salami and bearsola got bear minimal seasonings as i want to taste the bear meat with just the addition of salt, pepper and a little garlic powder.

I'm very excited about the outcome and will report back as soon as its ready.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Wild Boar with Cardamom and Orange rind

So yesterday i had some wild boar defrosting and no plans of what to do with it. I remembered a dish we did at my last restaurant that used cardamom and orange and with no other ideas at the time decided to whip together a recipe. I was fighting back and forth whether to use green or black cardamom and after tasting the two in its raw state i decided to go with black. I also through in some ground ginger, white pepper, garlic, salt and some blanched orange rind in simple syrup to cut its bitterness. I used a decent amount of fat all hand cut into small cubes.

I have a lot of salami's hanging in beef middles and bung caps so i decided to do this salami in regular pork casings. The decision was also made because i'm running out of stock for the charcuterie bar and i need something that will be ready in a month hopefully. I was hesitant to use a lot of orange or cardamom because either of the two in large quantities could surely put you off. So i started this recipe on the conservative side and i will see how the flavors develop and tweak if necessary on my next batch. If all goes well i will post a recipe. My next salami will be a mole inspired salami.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Beef N' Dill

A favorite of most diners and cooks is the beef and dill salami. The combination originally inspired from a japanese dumbling, then transformed into a beef carpaccio with dill and shaved frozen feta, then came the salami. The first one i did was a genoa style salami, which basically meant a lot of ground pork back fat to keep a creamy consistency. The first one i made i really didn't like it, yet everyone else loved it. I used dill seed as well as fresh and a lot of ground fat. i found the dill seed to be off putting and felt there was just too much fat in there which made it a bitch to slice nicely. It just didn't hold together enough for my liking but since everyone loved it and a lot of people thought it would go well with a nice glass of red i decided to give it another try but omit the dill seed and lessen the ground fat content. It still isn't a huge favorite of mine but the customers seem to like it and the customers always right....right?

Smoked Venison Salami

Some people really enjoy this salami and others just really dont get it. I guess its because it doesn't have the typical salami flavor and texture.

It has the addition of dried cherries and when smoked it takes on a really unique flavour. It doesn't take smoke like say a summer sausage or smoked mortadella, both of which really seem to take smoke and keep it. The venison is different, it takes the smoke but it stays in the background, at the same time bringing out the flavour and sweetness from both the venison and cherries. The recipe is really straight forward and the only difference is grinding the cherries with the meat. A fellow cook forgot to grind them once and it was a horrible mistake.

the whole batch was riddled with gaps and holes as the meat and cherries dried out and we ended up having to throw most of the batch out. Live and learn i guess, but it was a big batch and he as well as I was sad to see it go. Originally, we would smoke it a few days after making it, but this batch i was too busy opening the charcuterie bar i didn't smoke it till a month and a 1/2 later. From my observation, it didn't make much of a difference however maybe its just in my head, but i do think that the smoke is a little more apparent with the later smoking, which I guess makes complete sense.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Chorizo Salami

It feels like i've made chorizo a million times before, yet each one always turns out a little different, only because of several ingredients i usually just do by eye. This time i switched it up and weighed all my ingredients rather then measured which can alter a recipe alot. One persons tablespoon might be different from an others. There's a different chorizo recipe out there for every person who makes it. Never have i seen a recipe that was identical to the last one. Perhaps that's because the portuguese and spanish use it to describe any type of pork sausage usually containing paprika. I first made it about 3 years ago and have continued to make it in the last three restaurants i've worked for. It's evolved and only recently has my chef put it in recipe format. So i've used that as my base and basically have changed a few ingredients, amounts and the way its prepared. I've always hand chopped the meat and ground just enough pork and fat to hold it all together, but this becomes very very time consuming especially when your doing a large batch. We usually grill coins of it and serve it with some sort of octopus preparation, but i've always found it to be a little chewy and chunky feeling in the mouth, not to mention the ratio of hand chopped fat and pork belly outweighing actual meat.

So that was my first thing i wanted to fix. The other thing i wanted to change or perhaps just minimize was the amount of pimento paste thats called for in this recipe. If you have never used or heard of portuguese pimento paste i suggest you source some out. It is great on so many levels and is best used while sweating onions, on eggs, steak, and in this case is the secret ingredient in my chorizo. I've found in the past if you use too much of it thats all you can taste and although thats not a bad thing, it doesn't have the balance i look for in a salami. I've also omitted the pork belly altogether, and changed the hand diced pork back fat to a small dice rather then a medium one. therefore it will be a lot more palatable, as i'd like to serve it cut a bit thicker on a bias rather then a thin slice. Although, in the past i have thinly sliced it from one end of the salami to the other and it looked beautiful. I also add some lean beef trim for body and to aid in a deeper colour as well as binding as i find beef binds better then pork when ground.

When looking for pepper paste try to source out the Ferma brand or Melo's and you can choose whether to use hot or sweet depending on your taste.

Chorizo Salami

3000g pork shoulder

700g lean beef, horse, or bison

700g pork back fat, small dice

200g pork back fat, ground

210g portuguese pimento paste, hot or sweet

24.1g kosher salt

7.5g black pepper, ground

26.5g piri piri spice blend, not the sauce

10g smoked paprika

1.6g cumin, ground

4.1g corriander seed, ground

15g dextrose

66g white wine, dry

88g fresh garlic, minced

1.8g dried red chili pepper, ground

11g instacure#2

Starter culture

Distilled water

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Wild Boar Salami

About 3 week ago, i brought in a wild boar shoulder to make a salami i've been wanting to make for a while. I had never seen a boar shoulder before and when it came in i thought my meat distributor had screwed up because what i was looking at looked more like a de-boned venison leg. i called a few butchers i knew and by there description it was infact a boar shoulder. Much leaner and darker then i would have though. Anyways, it wasn't nearly big enough for the three beef bungs that i had for it. So i looked to see what scrap meat i had in the kitchen and the closest thing i could find was some bison striploin trimmings. It wasn't very gamey smelling and the colour was similar and i had everything else ready to make the salami so i ran with what i had.

I based my recipe on several different salami recipes, some of my own, salt levels of bertolli's and fennel ratio from a salami on the cured meats blog.

Wild Boar Salami

5.5 lbs wild boar, Lean

5.5 lbs bison trimmings, lean

19 oz back fat, cubed

1 L red wine

12 gr instacure #2

148.5 gr kosher salt

21.5 gr garlic minced

19.8 gr black pepper, coarse cracked

24.75 gr dextrose

35 gr fennel seed, coarse ground

starter culture

distilled water

First off, i reduced the wine with a few whole garlic cloves down to about 1 cup then discarded the garlic. I do this so the wine takes on a nice garlic flavor which distributes itself in the meat nicely. I weighed out my starter culture in proportion to my meat and fat content and put enough distilled water (preferably room temp) in to dissolve the culture. I also added a pinch of dextrose. Do this prior to grinding so you give your culture enough time to wake all that good bacteria up. After chilling the meat and fat in the freezer till nearly frozen (think crisp), i ground the meat through a coarse die into a chilled hotel pan. I added the cubed fat, spices, salt, and red wine reduction and mixed well. I then added the remaining dextrose and starter culture and gave it a good mix to promote the natural myosin in the meat.
I stuffed the salami mix into beef bung casings and went through the typical process of pricking to get any air holes out. I find this a little tougher with beef bungs as they are so big so what i usually do is hold them up with one hand, prick, and let gravity do the rest as i slowly move the hand thats holding the salami downwards as the casing frees up some space.
Once the salami's were all tied up, i put them in a fermentation chamber, which in this case was a rubbermaid with a resting rack inside. i put a little water on the bottom and left the lid only slighty ajar so it wouldn't get to humid, but humid enough. I fermented these guys for 36 hours and then into the fridge they went.
Its been three weeks now, they've lost about 15% of there mass. I'm guessing another month and they will be ready.

Charcuterie Sundays

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Cocoa nib, Hazelnut and Cayenne Salami

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Suckling Pig Summer Sausage

Recycled Salami

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

N'duja Update

Saturday, May 23, 2009

N'Duja

Friday, May 1, 2009

Sobresada

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Genoa Salami

Friday, December 26, 2008

Noisette Round Two

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Noisette

Bearsoala

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Wild Boar with Cardamom and Orange rind

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Beef N' Dill

Smoked Venison Salami

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Chorizo Salami

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Wild Boar Salami

Blog Archive

Labels

My Blog List

About Me

Favorite Books