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This was removed just this morning. It looks great, smells wonderfully and tastes pretty good, too(I just ate about 2 oz and had to put it away). I cured this with fresh sage, juniper, nutmeg, salt, pepper, dextrose and cure #2. It was cased in a 90mm collagen casing, then fermented for 48 hours @ 70 degrees. It was then placed in my drying chamber on 4/6. It was removed at about 39% weight loss. This was the first time I used fresh sage in a cure, and certainly not the last, it is really quite delicious. I'm not a real back patter, but, I'm going to go ahead and pat myself.
Second chance for these same recipes I previously posted. I had issues with both salami, so, I figured I should tweak them each a bit. With the oregano, cardamom, lemon zest, it was the overwhelming cardamom. So, cardamom was decreased by 2/3. Sicilian wild oregano was increased from .33% to .5% and some fresh oregano was added as well. The only change made to this recipe was the welcome find of blood oranges at the supermarket, so, I used blood orange zest in lieu of lemon zest and blood orange juice in the place of the lemon juice.
With the Porcini, sage salame my problem was with it's consistency. It never hardened the way it should have. In fact, my 60mm I made was hung on 3/23 is still hanging, while the 60mm oregano salame hung the same time was removed a week ago. That being said, the taste was so terrific it had to be made again, correctly this time. Looking over my notes, I may have accidentally omitted the dextrose last time, other than that I can't see why it would never harden. Both these salami were stuffed in 70mm collagen casings, sprayed with M-EK-4 mold culture and placed in a tupperware container with the lid closed. The tupperware was placed in the oven with the light on and door ajar where they will stay for 48 hours. The temperature fluctuates between 70-75. The porcini salame is pictured on top.
As requested the following are the ratios used for the porcini salame:
salt-2.75%
porcini powder-.65%
dry sage-.45%
fresh sage-.3%
black pepper-.26%
fresh garlic-.3%
cure#2-.25%
F-LC starter-.09%
1/4 cup marsala(about 2.5lbs meat)
1/4 cup distilled water in which starter was dissolved