Suspend disbelief, please, I know I'm closer to California than Alto Adige. I cured this with caraway seeds, juniper berries, and anise seeds(salt, black pepper, sugar, and cure #2 as well). After poring over as many references as I could find, I used spices that seemed recurrent to many of the recipes found in the Sudtirol cuisine. Looking at Len Poli's site, I see he calls for Alpine herbs, which consists of hyssop, melissa(lemon balm), marjoram, and sage. Since I have neither melissa nor hyssop, I went with the more readily available, more frquently mentioned spices. This lonzino is pictured less than 24 hours after it was hung following a near 48 hour fermentation period. It was stuffed in a 90mm collagen casing. I promise as soon as I burn through these collagen casings I'll shift over to the more authentic, natural casings. I'd really like to be able to "speck" this lonzino. However, I have no way of cold smoking. Also, even if I did have the means to cold smoke, I don't have any juniper wood, nor do I have any way of obtaining any. If anyone has any ideas on either, I'm all ears.Sunday, July 26, 2009
Lonzino al'Alto Adige
Suspend disbelief, please, I know I'm closer to California than Alto Adige. I cured this with caraway seeds, juniper berries, and anise seeds(salt, black pepper, sugar, and cure #2 as well). After poring over as many references as I could find, I used spices that seemed recurrent to many of the recipes found in the Sudtirol cuisine. Looking at Len Poli's site, I see he calls for Alpine herbs, which consists of hyssop, melissa(lemon balm), marjoram, and sage. Since I have neither melissa nor hyssop, I went with the more readily available, more frquently mentioned spices. This lonzino is pictured less than 24 hours after it was hung following a near 48 hour fermentation period. It was stuffed in a 90mm collagen casing. I promise as soon as I burn through these collagen casings I'll shift over to the more authentic, natural casings. I'd really like to be able to "speck" this lonzino. However, I have no way of cold smoking. Also, even if I did have the means to cold smoke, I don't have any juniper wood, nor do I have any way of obtaining any. If anyone has any ideas on either, I'm all ears.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Scott,
ReplyDeleteRe: Speck
What smoking facilities do you have? Careful fire management can get you the lower temps (~90) needed for cold smoking. You can even use a cast iron skillet on a hot plate covered with a large box. Make sure that your meat is nearly room temp with a dry surface before you try it though. Otherwise you'll get smoke condensation (taste = soap).
Are you sure that they use juniper? I always thought juniper was an evergreen/pine. Evergreens are a strict no-no in the barbeque world. The smoke is uber-bitter and the resinous pitch is a major fire hazard.
Maybe you could try a neutral wood (fig, persimmon, apple) and then put a handful of juniper berries wrapped in perforated foil.
David
I have 2 smoking vessels. I have the Big Green Egg and a small, cheap Brinkmann water smoker. I have read that the Egg can smoke at about 100 degrees effectively. As far as the juniper, I know it's a resinous wood. All the information I've found states that speck is cured, cold smoked for several hours a day for several days with juniper wood, then dried. Funny you mention using the berries in foil. I was going to do that exact thing. I have a couple bags of apple wood and a boatload of juniper berries. Since this lonzino is already hung, I will speck out some belly next week.
ReplyDeleteIf you are concerned about the apple wood smoke tainting the flavor, build a slightly larger fire than you need and let it burn down before you add the meat. The smoke gets more neutral as the fire burns. Or just use charcoal in the BGE with the foil-wrapped berries on top. Don't soak the berries. I'd wrap a handfull of them in foil and poke a bunch of toothpick holes in it. Then add the foil pack to the fire a few minutes before you add the meat.
ReplyDeleteDavid
Nahh, the apple is tame enough, it's the juniper that seems like it would be a bit overwhelming. The option with the berries in the foil seems to make the most sense. I have 2 weeks off coming up, needless to say, there will be a lot of meat experimentation.
ReplyDeleteHelp me out with the fermentation period thing. For a salemi this makes perfect sense as you are trying to promote the development of favorable bacteria that will eventually ferment the mince. It goes hand in hand with using the starter culture. For a whole muscle this step is confusion for me because we aren't dealing with preferential bacterial strains, we are essentially dealing with controlled dehydration. I know Len Poli's recipe says to do this but still....why?
ReplyDeleteMy salumi are sprayed with the M-EK-4 mold culture. This long fermentation process is to develop a nice mold. Reading through "Charcuterie", I see their fermentation periods of only a couple hours. But, they aren't proppinents of the artificial mold spray, I guess.
ReplyDeleteScott, Ruhlman actually loves the M-EK-4, but it was not commercially available when he and Polcyn wrote the book.
ReplyDeleteI never case my lonzino and let mold get on it if it wants to.
Never been able to understand the whole "ferment" thingie on a whole cut of meat -- it doesn't make sense biologically.
Yeah, Hank, I agree that there is really no reason to ferment outside of trying to develop a nice mold bloom. I case mine to allow this mold, also I try to avoid hardening the outside of the item.
ReplyDeleteHey Scott, I have a question for you:
ReplyDeleteWhen stuffing whole muscles into casings (coppa, lonzino, bresaola, etc.), how do you get all of the air out?
I stuffed two coppe into collagen casings tonight and spent over 30 minutes trying to get all of the air pockets out. I got most of them, but there are still a few tiny spots that I refused to cooperate.
How critical is it to get *every* bit of air out?
David
I stuff them into the casing. I get them in as tight as possible, then tie the end off. I poke the air pockets before tying it off. If you look at my most recent post, you can see how tight I tie them. Reading "Cooking by Hand," Bertolli suggests the use of forceps. When tying my salumi, I make one half hitch super tight and secure it with a forceps. I then make a second hitch and secure that with a second forceps. I then remove the previous forceps and repeat the process. When the muscle is stuffed in like 10lbs. of shit in a 5 lb. bag, I poke the air bubbles out. As far as it being important, I try to get them all out, but, it's near impossible. I haven't had any problems to date.
ReplyDeleteI think I am OK. I'd say that I am getting 99.9% of the air out, but I end up with a few tiny gaps and pockets. I have made Lonzino and Bresaola this way and both came out fantastic.
ReplyDeleteDavid