Peperone

This recipe is adapted from charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn.  Have you ever had a good peperone?  Don't worry my spell check is working.  I am not talking about the Italian American version of pepperoni, that has been bastardized by the big food makers here in this country.  I grew up loving pepperoni pizza, then I went to Italy and got some and was blown away.  It was not that fatty, mixed meat, mildly spicy salumi that I knew from childhood.  This was robust, meaty, and ridonculously delicious.  This is traditionally made from beef, but here we have added chicken, turkey and other pieces parts to get the cost down.  I think you will be surprised by the ingredients, or lack of them.  The lips and assholes have been left out and only high quality ingredients are left.  This is a pic of what I am talking about.

You are going to have to forgive the lack of pictures for this post.  I pulled a Hoefling during the middle of this and got distracted.  Don't worry the few that know what that means are rolling right now.  As I have discussed earlier in some of my posts, the purpose of the blog is to hope that I can turn people back to look at their roots, to see where the food comes from.  To get away from all of the growth hormones, and processed foods.  I am truly embarrassed as to what we call American cheese.  Hey.. don't think that I don't like this country or that I am not a patriot.  I fought for my country, I spent a large portion of my early adulthood in the Marine Corps.  I love this land, I want to get back to where we used to be.  I have traveled all over this world and have seen some amazing food.  We can get there again.  Okay, back to the Peperone.  Pepperoni is actually a corruption of the word peperoni, the plural of Peperone, the Italian word for pepper. The vegetable not the spice.  When immigrants came to this country they made due with what they had and have made the semi modern interpretation of pepperoni.  What we have on our pizzas is not close, it is so damn mass produced that you lose the flavor.  People think it is more healthy with Turkey and chicken in it.  But wonder what parts are in it, and all of the chemicals and stabilizers put in, and .....  Damn getting side tracked again.  Back to the meat.

I sourced my beef from a the local farmers market.  Memphis farmers market, I go there every Saturday and get my supplies for my charcuterie.  I paid a visit to Neola farms  stand and got some chuck.  This meat is amazing.  I got some ground beef and made a few burgers.... and shut the front door they were awesome. Here is the recipe.

• 1144g Chuck steak or stew beef
• 20g Kosher salt
• 20g dextrose
• 3g cure #2
• 4.5g cayenne pepper
• 4g Pepe Rossa have to check out this site to get your salumi supplies!!!!
• .5g Allspice
• 1g Fennel ground finely in mortar and pestle
• 8g Paprika
• 45g NFD(non fat dry milk powder)
• 15mill Dry red wine, I used Chianti (please no liver jokes, have a post coming for that)
• 7g starter culture Bactoferm
• 30mill Distilled watter with a pinch of dextrose
• 5ft/1.5meters hog casing rinsed and soaked in tepid water minimum of thirty minutes.

First step is to get your meat sliced and into the freezer to get as cold as possible without freezing through.  You need it a little crunchy, this will help you have well defined meat pieces in your salumi without getting fat smear.  This is a very lean salumi, you can see that no additional fat is added it is around 95/5 meat to fat ratio.  Now get your mis en place done.

As you can see there is a lot to go into a small amount of sausage, should be very flavor full. Grind your meat and add all of the spices, except the liquids.  Use the paddle attachment on your kitchen aid mixer, or just attack with a very strong spatula and mix thoroughly, then ad your starter culture and wine.  Mix this completely.  Make sure you incorporate all parts equally.  Stuff these into your hog casings and make 10 inch links.  Use a sausage pricker to get out any air bubbles.

This is the peperone prefermentaion. Weigh and label your sausage to have your starting weight. I then put the salumi into the fermentation chamber and hung at 85F and 80%RH for 12 hours to incubate the starter culture.  The beneficial bacteria will grow and produce more lactic acid.  Hang in your cure chamber till 30% weight loss is reached, approx 12 to 18 days.  You could also hot smoke your peperone, if you chose to do this smoke the peperone at 180F to an internal temperature of 145F about two hours.  This is how the Perone looks after fermenting for 12hrs.

Notice the difference.  The salumi has firmed up, richness of color and lost a little weight.  This is going to be great on some pizza soon, or just on a crostini with stinky cheese.  That's how I roll. Remember, Source local and Love your meat.