Salumi talk

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What I've been up to

Long lag between posts.  Anyone following me on twitter and/or facebook has seen this picture.  This is some of the salumi I've produced with the mosefund mangalitsa I've been using.  The 2 larger salami were the result of laziness at the end of casing.  I decided to case what was left in the stuffer in a bung as opposed to cleaning more casings.  Turns out, stuffing salami in bungs is just as time consuming as it is in their normal casings.  After all the smacking and massaging, it may have even taken longer.  The 2 stuffed in bungs are finocchietto(originally, becomes finocchiona in the bung). and soppressata.  The smaller salame is ciauscolo.  I could probably do a post on it, if anyone's interested.  Pardon the appearance of the coppa, it appears to be a bit more firm than I would usually allow.  Finally, the star of the show, culatello.  Absolutely stunning to look at and even better to eat.  Nothing out of the ordinary, just figured I would post a Mosefund "money shot."

Mosefund Speck di spalla/schulterspeck

I just realized that I posted about this as a 'before' item as well as used it as the header pic for the blog without posting the results.  Sorry about that.  So, after a touch under 4 months, it was ready.  Really not much I can say about it, that the picture can't tell you.  It tastes just like it looks......amazing.  The recipe is different from my normal speck made from a ham.  This has just fresh rosemary, allspice and garlic.  Nice and austere.  It was smoked for the typical 5 days using beech dust.  I'm starting to believe that the wood used for smoking really does make a huge difference.  Everything I've smoked with beech tastes exactly like what I ate in Ortisei.  I don't suggest any other wood if you're doing this at home.  This is really quite simple(casing aside, read the original post to see why it was cased), start with top quality raw ingredients and anyone can produce the same results.

Mosefund Krauternschinken/Prosciutto alle erbe

Yes, I found yet another obscure salume from South Tyrol.  This one called prosciutto alle erbe or krauternschinken.  For this exercise, I used top rounds.  The top rounds were cast off as a result of speck butchery.  Just as fiocco is a result of culatello butchery, I decided to come up with something to do with the scraps created from cutting speck.  Turns out, this particular salume actually uses a leaner cut, which is exactly what the top round is.  I managed to find this while looking through a multitude of sources, mostly Italian language books and websites.  I happened upon a prosciutto disciplinary which listed every region in Italy and the prosciutti specific to each region.  Impossible to find any type of recipe, aside from "erbe," I made up my own.  This was dry cured(as opposed to brine) with salt, pepper, fresh rosemary and sage for 3 weeks as it was being pressed.  After the 3 weeks, it was smoked for 5 days with beechwood, and then cooked.  This was done sous vide to 155 farenheit.  However, it can be poached or steamed as well.  It tastes only gently smoked and nice and fragrantly herby.  Quite nice on a sandwich with crusty bread and a slice of emmentaler.

Mosefund speck di coppa/nackenspeck

Well, I found yet another way to turn something into speck.  In this case coppa/neck.  Going through all my literature, I came across this.  It is officially listed as nackenspeck in the South Tyrol and speck di coppa as it's secondary name.  Always up for something new(especially from South Tyrol) and an extra coppa lying around, it was a no brainer.  Aside from typical spices used for speck, this was no different than every other coppa I've cured.  You can look back at my other speck posts to see about the spicing.  Smoking was the same protocol as in previous speck projects.  I've been using beech wood dust exclusively to cold smoke all my speck recently.  One thing of note I failed to mention was pressing during curing.  The speck di coppa/nackenspeck I've seen from South Tyrol have been pressed and uncased.  Seeing as I don't care for uncased whole muscles that are skinless and/or unprotected by a thick fat layer, casing it was automatic.  Cured 3 weeks, rinsed, cased, smoked 5 days, hung to dry.  Roughly 8-10 weeks later(I can't recall exactly and I didn't write it down), 33% weight loss and it got cut down.  That's exactly what you're looking at.  That dark edge around the circumference of the coppa has given me cause for concern in the past, as it appears to be case hardening.  However, pictures I've seen of almost all speck varieties from South Tyrol have this.  Since it's not dry, it can logically be described as a smoke ring.  This thing is great, think luscious coppa meets smoky, delicious speck.

Mosefund Bauernschinken Südtirol

Also referred to as Prosciutto contadino in Italian, I stumbled across this salume while researching more sudtirol salumi.  The diversity of the salumi in that area is stunning.  I'm repeating myself at this point, but, damn, it really is amazing.  I was fortunate enough to have 2 mosefund speck hanging when I found this.  For all intents and purposes, this is speck cotto or cooked speck.  If you've made speck following techniques I've set forward, you should have no issue making this.  Here is my previous post on mosefund mangalitsa speck.  Same goes for this, cure 3 weeks, smoke 5 days using beech wood(in South Tyrol it's a more gentle smoke over the course of about 20 days), hang to age 2-3 weeks and steam, poach or sous vide to 155 degrees Fahrenheit.  I steamed it, took 3-4 hours to get up to temperature.  In corresponding with a gentleman from Val Pusteria in South Tyrol, I came to find out that their Bauernschinken recipe was a bit different than their typical speck recipe.  It seems they use quite a bit of fresh rosemary.  For my next effort, I will adjust accordingly.  As for this effort, once again, I am quite pleased. This particular leg weighed about 12lbs.  I quartered the finished product, leaving 4 pieces of roughly 3 lbs.  To show how good I thought it was, I demolished a quarter in a little over a week.  Additionally, I have 3 legs currently earmarked for this.  

Mosefund Coppa Piacetina

As I have stated many times, this is in the style of Piacenza, due to the fact that I'm not actually IN Piacenza. Of course, this is true, even in Italy of DOP items, which Coppa Piacenza is. Piacenza is a town in Emilia-Romagna in the Po river valley which also lays claim to another DOP salume, pancetta Piacentina.

I've wanted to make something in this style for quite some time, however, I have something of an aversion for several of the spices in this. I've used some of them before and I felt they were overwhelming and unpleasant, clove and cinnamon, in particular. But, I was eager to try something different, and I surmised that by using scant amounts of said spices, it would turn out palatable. I went with the usual sea salt, black pepper, sugar combo, along with the spices cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, ginger and coriander. The coppa(again, provided by Michael at Mosefund) started at 2.41kg. After close to 3 months, I removed it at 33% total weight loss. I eagerly cut into it, hoping for the best. I was beyond pleasantly surprised, I was amazed. All those challenging spices together are actually very pleasant. Absolutely nothing overwhelming about any of them. No Christmas recollection at all, which most of these spices do for me. I can aver that this salume will be a mainstay in my repertoire.