Handmade Bologna Mortadella

The real Mortadella(Mortadella Bologna PGI) emerged in northern Italy, in Bologna, capital of Emilia-Romagna and is produced only with pork of good origin, no trimmings, soy or offal are used, only pork. Since 2001, the real Mortadella Bologna has been a product of controlled origin by the European Union and can only be produced according to the specifications of the consortium of producers in the region. The first records of Mortadella Bologna are very old and date back to 1661.

In Brazil, mortadella is almost always made with a mixture of beef and pork in a 50/50 ratio. I consider Bologna Ceratti's mortadella to be the best large-scale Brazilian product, as it is the only one I have found that does not contain mechanically separated meat, starch, and/or isolated soy protein. It is an excellent product, but because it contains beef, it does not follow the original Bologna recipe.

How is mortadella made?

Mortadella is a type of sausage or meat emulsion that is smooth and soft, highly seasoned and usually has a spicy flavor accentuated by the aggressive inclusion of black pepper, white pepper and Jamaican pepper. Traditionally it has a very large caliber because it was stuffed into a bovine bladder, but nowadays the artificial fibrous inedible casing is more commonly used because it is a cooked product that has its casing removed after preparation, thus avoiding the need for a natural casing that is expensive. In Brazil, it is almost always sliced very thinly to stuff snacks, but in Italy and other countries it is widely consumed cut into cubes and served in salads and appetizers. It has visible pieces of fat and may also contain pistachios and olives, whole or in large pieces. Visually, it is a very attractive and eye-catching product.

This recipe was mine first test with homemade mortadella. Lots of things went wrong and at the end I will explain the difficulties encountered during the process.

Ingredients for Mortadella Bologna

• 1800 grams of boneless pork shoulder or leg
• 350 grams of rigid pork fat
• 400 g crushed ice
• 100 ml red wine
• 10 grams of minced garlic
• 48 grams of salt
• 6 grams of curing salt 1 (6.25% of nitrite and 93.75% of salt)
• 6 grams of ground black pepper
• 2 grams of nutmeg
• 4 grams toasted coriander seeds
• 1 gram of powdered bay leaf
• 100 grams of powdered milk
• 150 grams of pork fat cut into cubes, boiled (bleached) in water for 1 minute and refrigerated.
• 50 grams of seedless olives
• Bovine fundus, bovine bladder or other artificial casing between 80mm and 120mm

References

1800g of Ham = 64%
350g of incorporated fat = 12.5%
150g of Fat cubed = 5.5%
500g of ice and wine = 18%

Total weight of dough 2800g = 100%

48g of salt = 1.7%
6g curing salt = 0.21%
100g of powdered milk = 3.5%

Preparation of Bologna Mortadella

1) Remove the skin and separate the fat. Part of the fat will be used in the emulsion and the rest will be cut into cubes to add at the end. If necessary, purchase a piece of pork belly or jowl and use it as an additional source of fat.

2) Clean, separate the fat, remove the skin, cut the meat into cubes and mix well with the salt and curing salt. Leave in the refrigerator for 48 hours for the curing action.

3) Grind the meat and fat separately using the small disc and refrigerate again. Leave some in the freezer so that it is almost at freezing point. This helps to keep the mixture cold for longer while you process it.

4) Place the meat and all the seasonings, except the powdered milk, in the food processor and process for about 5 minutes or until the dough reaches 5ºC. Add crushed ice periodically to keep it cold. Add the chopped fat (to be incorporated into the dough) and continue processing until the dough reaches 8ºC. Add the powdered milk and process until the dough reaches 14ºC.

The video below demonstrates the extraction of fat from meat and leather and the beginning of processing.

Photos of the meat emulsion.

5) Transfer the dough to a well-chilled container and mix in the bleached cubed fat and olives.

6) Stuff it into a beef casing, a cow bladder or another artificial casing between 80mm and 120mm. Tie the ends tightly as the cooking will puff up the dough. In this case, I used very strong fibrous casing of two sizes, 60mm and 90mm.

7) Cook the mortadella in hot water at 75ºC until the internal temperature reaches 65ºC. Approximately one hour.

8) Remove from cooking and cool immediately in a cold water bath.

Final considerations

What went right

– It tasted good! That's all!

What went wrong

– The large amount of dough required processing in two stages, which caused two problems. The first was the difficulty in separating the fat, liquids and seasonings that had already been weighed beforehand. The second was that it doubled the processing time, overheating the processor, forcing me to add more ice than planned. At some point, which may have been due to the low amount of fat, overheating, incorrect separation of the ingredients for the two stages or the lack of processing, I’m not sure which, I broke the emulsion, resulting in a slightly crumbly, grainy texture. This made it impossible to slice it thinly, but despite the texture, the mortadella was very tasty when eaten in cubes.

– The color was weak, the curing salt was not enough to guarantee the reddish color, I will test with carmine dye on the next attempt.

– One of the mortadellas burst while cooking. If anyone is brave enough to try it, tie it tightly. If possible, tie it around the entire mortadella.

– Air bubbles. I believe this problem is difficult to solve with homemade equipment because it is very complicated to stuff something with such a large caliber without a vacuum stuffer. Anyone who wants to invest in a modern production plant can try this special stuffing machine for mortadella.

– The amount of olives and fat in cubes was small, it was barely visible, I will increase it a lot.

Conclusion

I will repeat the experiment with proportionally more fat incorporated and in cubes. I will do it with a reduced amount of dough, thus better controlling the process.

Sources: mortadellabologna.com, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortadella, Charcuterie – The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing