Salami Makers

It’s another batch of salami.   This time I’m going with some favorites with the holidays coming up there’s no room for experimentation, at least this week…

The three favorites include 12 lbs of Finocchiona, 12 lbs of Salchichon and 8 lbs of Calabrese.  with a little luck they’ll all be done by Thanksgiving.  the plan is to start another batch in 2 weeks to be ready in time for Christmas, hope for the best.

One thing I learned on this batch… don’t let your humidifier go dry and keep it running.  I’m off to Target this morning to replace that valuable piece of equipment, yay!

The Salchichon will go into the smoker for a few hours tonight at very low temperatures, everything else will start getting it’s mold coat this morning.

Bacon fans don’t fret.  Tonight we’ll be curing 4 bellies (50+lbs) so next week we’ll have fresh bacon for all my friends!

O.K. we had some real fun last night.  My brother was in town and we went to Lost Abbey / Port Brewing for some IPAs.  We both like those.  I had sample bags of the Finocchiona, Tarragon Special, Calabrese and Soppressa Veneta da Friuili.  We were having a good time eating and “tasting” their 4 fantastic IPA’s, when Leslie the beer server was challenged to pair the salami’s with different beers.

The results were somewhat amazing.  Not one of the beers she paired were beers I would normally have ordered, but every one accentuated the salami in a great way.  I really wish I could remember the specifics, I think it was a saison that was paired with the Soppressa Veneta da Friuili, which really matched up with the droga dolce spice blend.  Very interesting.  Then the Finocchiona went with a lager that was very tasty.

The point here is that it was a fantastic experience of taste and it made the beer better and the salami better.  I still like my IPA (especially the Mongo) but the other beers that I normally never give a second look were real eye openers.  It’s also making me think more about new salami flavors and spice blends.

To quote Tom Petty, “The waiting is the hardest part”.  right now there are about 45 lbs of salami hanging in my new used salami case and there’s not a thing I can do, just wait.

So today I took a picture, that’s fun but only takes a few seconds, then I didn’t like some of the shadows, so I used the multi-flash capability of my Canon 7D to shoot a flash up from the bottom of the case and here’s what I got.  Again not that fun since all I really want to do is taste all of these salamis.  And for those that are not into photography the technique of bouncing the remote flash up through the salami is pretty boring too.

So the lesson here is to always make enough salami so you don’t run out, otherwise you end up waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Actually there is an update on the venison salami – taste – nice, a little mild for a wild game, but the white tailed deer of Texas obviously lead an easy life, the meat is just sweat as can be and not that gammy at all.  It will be ready in another week but as you can tell from the one on the right, I did sample it already (shhh don’t tell).

Also the Calabrese Salami is coming along nicely and should be ready by next weekend.  It’s in thinner hog casings so drying time should be much less.  Can’t wait!

At the same time I decided to step up from 15-20 lb. batches to 35lbs, I decided to start this blog.  Great thinking Jeff…

There’s a huge difference between 17lbs and 35lbs of salami,the math is easy, it’s double, but what is required is organization.  I made 5 different types of salami, and I did it very systematically, first grind all the meat, second put all of the spices into separate bowls, then start assembly, one type at  a time, mixing, stuffing then cleaning up, then mixing, stuffing and cleaning up.

Overall I did all the grinding using our 30+year old Kitchen-Aid standing mixer with the grinder attachment.  It’s more than capable of grinding the meat, but when you do that much at a time the motor starts to get a little hot.  I’m not sure you can push that machine to do much more in one session.

The meat was all pork butts, half bone in (bones go to the dogs) and half De-boned.  No particular reason, that’s just what I grabbed at the store.  De-boned is easier, but if I can save money with the bone in I do.  We’ll talk about which meat to buy in another post.

Here’s what I made:

1. 12 lbs of what I call “Finno” – basically it’s a Finocchiona with extra fennel, garlic and pepper and I used sherry.  This is my favorite salami and one my good friend says “of all the salami’s you make,don’t change this recipe”  glad I wrote that one down.
2. 5lbs of Calabrese Salami – a la Len Poli.  This is my first shot at this one so I followed his recipe.  That’s pretty typical, I follow someone else the first time, then modify it if I like it.  This one features lots of crushed red pepper and anise seed, stuffed into hog cassings.  most of my salami is in 2+ inch calogen casings, these are thinner and should be ready faster.
3. 6 lbs of Salami Artigiano – another Len Poli recipe, only modified in the meat mixture – I didn’t use any beef.  What interested me about this was the mixture of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves with garlic powder in a classic Italian salami… we’ll see.
4. 5 lbs Soppressa Veneta da Friuili – the last Len Poli recipe of this batch (anyone who decides to make salami sooner or later will come accross Len’s recipes.  I have never met him but he’s already had a profound influence on my salami making).  What interested me about this recipe was the use of Droga dolce (a blend of cinnamon, cardomom, nutmeg, sugar and galingal(a type of ginger).  He called for white wine and I used madiera, we’ll see.
5. 7 lbs – Tarra Special – this one’s all custom, using tarragon, garlic powder, & sherry.  Tarragon is among my favorite herbs to cook with so I had to try it.  Stay Tuned!

I ground the meat and prepared the spices on Sunday afternoon, then on Monday after work I mixed stuffed and cleaned from 6 p.m. until about 10, then another hour of dishes to stay out of trouble and it’s all in the case.  I’m pretty sure you can’t fit much more into my case, but I’m not opposed to trying.  I believe that when it’s this full they will dry slower but that’s another experiment for this batch.

I can’t wait to taste these!

O.k. let’s back up a little. 12 lbs (dried to 8.5lbs) of Venison Salami is just out of the case and into the fridge for a couple of weeks of final drying. I’ve found that when the salami gets to the correct weight, it seems better after another week or 2 in the fridge, seems to firm up a little more. Anyway before I started this last batch of 35 lbs. of 5 varieties of pork salami, I pulled these venison salamis out. They look nice but I am dying to try one.

The venison came from the owner of our local archery shop. It’s White Tail Deer from Texas. The recipe is basically Len Poli’s recipe with a few extras thrown in. That is one habit I have to stop and everyone should think about, write it down because you won’t remember.  This one has some added garlic powder and fennel seeds and red pepper.  I decided after making some summer sausage with this meat that it was very mild, not a very gammy flavor at all so that’s why I added the pepper and fennel.  We will see!

Anyway, that’s about ready to taste, the only thing about it is I don’t get to keep it all, have to give most of it back to the owner, but that’s part of the fun.