SIMPLE SALAM FOR BEGINNERS

Want to make a salami? This recipe is the simplest to start on this journey. Salami is one of the simplest and most exuberant forms of meat processing. It's an alchemy that transforms a piece of raw meat into an extremely tasty and durable product. Creating a quality product by exposing a piece of meat to time, without any type of cooking, is fascinating!

Preparing a salami is something that requires time, attention to detail, hygiene and a close eye on problems that may occur during the process. It is an art that requires a minimum of technical knowledge and care in execution. Anyone can make salami, but it takes motivation and patience, both in acquiring information and in the preparation process. Making mistakes, throwing it away, researching the source of the error and starting again is part of the process!

If you have never embedded anything, read the post about how to make sausage, which is the simplest and easiest product in charcuterie. But if you want to make salami at home, this recipe is the simplest and most recommended to start on your journey. It's a basic recipe that only uses salt, curing salt, black pepper, wine and garlic, but the result is surprising, especially for those who have only eaten industrialized versions.

Steps to make a salami

1. Meat pasta: choose the meat, chop or grind it and season it;
2. Embed: embed the meat mass in the casing using a bagger or a wide funnel;
3. Ferment: use a bacterial starter culture, but in this salami we will skip a step to simplify the process;
4. Aging: hang in a refrigerated environment so that the salami loses the necessary weight.

Ingredients

• 1kg of pork, containing approximately 80% of meat and 20% of fat;
• 15g of salt;
• 3g of type 2 curing salt*; (6% of nitrite, 3% of nitrate and 93,75% of salt)
• 3g black pepper;
• 5g of garlic powder;
• 50ml of wine;
• 26 gauge collagen casing.

*curing salt is a pathogen-inhibiting preservative, and it also helps with the reddish color and flavor of the salami.

Grind the meat or chop it very finely with a knife, mix all the ingredients until the meat is well combined and sticky.

Embed

The casing we recommend for a very simple salami is 26-gauge collagen casing, which is thin and will have a much shorter maturation time. Thicker salamis require much more time and a well-controlled maturation environment.

Using a bagger/sausage cannon or a funnel, place the meat inside the casing, trying to compact it well, leaving as little air inside. Make holes in the casing with a needle to remove any air bubbles that remain inside the salami. Tie the ends well. Each salami should be approximately 30cm long.

Fermentation

Salamis generally undergo fermentation, which consists of, immediately after embedding, hanging the salamis at room temperature for 72 hours. But this process should only be carried out when a bacterial starter culture is included in the ingredients. As the objective of this salami is simplicity, we will not perform this step.

Maturation

Weigh the salami and write it down. Hang on the refrigerator. It will be ready for consumption when it has lost 40% of its initial weight. It usually takes between 15 and 30 days, depending on the humidity and air circulation conditions in your refrigerator.

Result

This salami has a very simple process, aiming to get started in home production. Some problems can be noticed, the main one being the drying out of the exterior of the salami due to the low humidity in the refrigerator. The ideal is to use a more humid place to mature the salami, but to simplify this recipe we recommend using a common refrigerator, which has a drier environment than ideal. See the other recipes on the website if you want to use a more specific room for the more elaborate salami.

Mold

It is common for mold to appear on salami during maturation, if this occurs, follow the instructions in the post Mold on salami and other sausages.

Conservation

The ideal is to remove the casing, clean it, apply olive oil, pack it well, preferably in a vacuum and refrigerate it, this way the salami will last for at least 90 days. If you don't have a vacuum sealer, wrap it twice in plastic wrap.