Salumi al Finocchietto

I have ventured farther into my Charcuterie obsession and have moved on to a more challenging aspect of the craft.  Fermented Sausages and Salumis.  As you all know, I Love Pork, and all that it encompasses.  And what a better way to showcase some great pork, than to intensify its flavor by curing, fermenting, and drying it.  The beginning to this and quite a few other salumi recipes are going to come from this 19lb, shoulder I got from Mark, from Newman Farms .  I am going to use everything on this beast!!

Before being shaved, skinned, and broken down.  Below is the outcome.

19 pound shoulder, done.  This is going to make Salumi al Finocchietto, Tasso, Soppresseta di Calabria, and some fresh sausages with the mince.  All posts coming soon to a blog near you, actually this one. First one I am tackling is Salumi al Finocchietto, I got this recipe from Jason over at Cured Meats.  He has been doing this much longer than me and has a great blog.  I made a couple minor adjustments to his original.

• 900g Pork shoulder
• 300g Fat back
• 80g Fatty pork belly (you can use all pork belly to total 380g, I wanted to use the rest of my fat)
• 30g Kosher salt
• 6g Fennel seed
• 6g Dextrose
• 3g cure #2 pink salt
• 2.5g Tellicherry black peppercorns coarsely ground
• 1g Pepe Rossa  (click link on where to buy, this is where I get all of my peppers, Thanks Scott)
• 35g reduced dry white wine
• 2ea cloves garlic smashed
• 1g starter culture TSPX Bacctoferm starter culture, mix with 30g distilled water with pinch of dextrose.  Start this 30 minutes before mixing meat.
• Beef middles, soaked in tepid water and white vinegar solution for two hours, flushing regularly.

This Salumi directly translates to Salame with wild fennel.  This is a basic salumi to get me started in the world of fermented meats.  First step was to trim the meat and cut the meat and fat into strips, this helps it feed itself into the meat grinder.

Look at how deep red the pork is.  You don't see that often in commercially reared pork. After the meat is sliced it needs to be put in the freezer to get as cold as possible without freezing thru.  I also put my meat grinder into the freezer at this time.  It is a good idea to get all of you tools together that will be in contact with the meat, sanitize them and then get them cold as possible.  I fill up my kitchen aid bowl with ice and water and put my tools in there to chill. Now take your beef middles that are covered in salt and rinse them in tepid water.  Use the garden hose technique and let water pass thru them like.... well the poo that came out of them.  Piece of advise, don't smell these buggers, they smell like where they came from, the middle of the digestive tract.  After they are rinsed, put them in a bowl with tepid water and a couple tablespoons of distilled white vinegar.  This will help get rid of the stinkyness and prohibit to much mold growth from the casing. I then got my mis en place together for my spices and liquids.

Smash your two garlic cloves and put into a sauce pan with your white wine.  Start with about one cup of white wine, and reduce this down.

This serves two purposes, one it evaporates the alcohol content so that your sausage does not taste like raw alcohol.  Two, it infuses the wine with the garlic flavor.  When you have the wine reduced to 35g, toss the garlic, and put the wine in the refer to cool down before adding to the meat.  Next step is to get the starter culture ready.

Love using my fancy beakers for something!! Mix the starter culture in with the distilled water.  Must use distilled water, there are to many things going on with your tap water.  Remember we are fermenting salumi here, anything we introduce into the meat can provide harm full bacteria.  Also a very good idea to wear gloves!!  Put a pinch of dextrose in with the distilled water, this helps to wake up the culture.  The culture does not smell like roses, little heads up there.  Don't worry about that.  Run your meat thru the meat grinder alternating between the meat and the fat.  Once again you want to do this as cold and as fast as possible.  The longer the fat is in contact with friction and your hands it will thaw and start to smear.  You want defined pieces of fat in your salumi.

Here is the sausage mixture.  I was not able to take any pics of the stuffing process.  I need a sausage partner here to help.  Don't read into that it would just make things easier to stuff sausage and blog about it.  Here is a pic of the finished stuffed sausage.

Notice how white the casing looks.  Much different from when it is fermented.  I then put the salumi into the fermentation chamber, it is a little crowded due to all of the N'duja that is fermenting at the same time.

These were fermented at about 82F and 80% humidity for 24hours.  The result after the fermentation stage was a huge difference.

  Here you can see all of the pieces of fat clearly.  This was trussed and put into the cure chamber until they have lost 30% water weight.  They will hang at approx 57F and 72-75%RH.  They have been in the chamber now for a little bit and have lost 20%.  Stay tuned for a tasting post with this beautiful salumi.  I have gone a little overboard with my cure chamber as of late.  This is how it looks today.

As you can see I need to catch up on some posts.  Remember, Source local and love your Meat!!