Salame Calabrese

[redzed]

Salame Calabrese
Recipe for 1kg of meat

Meats
820g class I pork, no fat or connective tissue
180g hard back fat

Ingredients
22.5g salt
2.5g Cure#2
2g garlic
2g white pepper
2g anise
2g sweet Hungarian paprika
3g Calabrian peppers
3g dextrose
25 ml red wine
0.5 sodium erythorbate
B-LC-007 starter culture

Process
1. Cube meat and fat, mix with salt, Cure#2, dextrose and refrigerate in a sealed container for 48 hours.
2. Place cubed meat and fat in freezer for one to two hours and semi freeze everything.
3. Revive starter with small amount of distilled water and a pinch of dextrose. Add to meat within 20 minutes.
4. Grind everything through 6mm plate.
5. Mix starter culture and spices with the meat. Keep ground meat cold, mix throughly, taking care not to over mix to avoid fat smearing. You may want to refrigerate the meat between the grinding, mixing and stuffing steps.
6. Stuff into 60mm protein lined casings or beef middles.
7. Ferment at a temp of 20-22C for 36-48 hours, until pH drops to 5.2. Be careful not to let the pH drop below 5 so that the salame does not taste sour. The micrococci are also not as effective in a high acid environment.
8. Mould starter optional, but recommended.
9. Hang for approximately 6 weeks at 12C and 80% RH, until a weight loss of 35%.

[Bob K]

Lookin Good Chris! Yet another one to try in the future.
The staging/composition of your pictures makes one want to reach out for a taste!

[LOUSANTELLO]

Looks great. Do you tie them or net them at all? Also, can you remind me what the sodium erythorbate is used for? I assume it goes IN the meat. If so, when? Thanks.

[Bob K]

Lou
Sodium ascorbate or erythorbate are cure accelerators that increase the nitrite reaction and help deplete the amount if nitrite.
Its arguable if its necessary or even beneficial for dry cured products in a long term drying process, as it can deplete the nitrite rapidly.

http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?t=6780

Just add it when you add the salt and spices.

If you use Ascorbic or erythorbic acid ( vitamin C) do not add directly with cure as it will react and cause fumes

[redzed]

Also, can you remind me what the sodium erythorbate is used for? I assume it goes IN the meat. If so, when? Thanks.

Bob answered the question as to the primary purpose of the sodium erythorbate. Below is a link that summarizes it well and advises you on the amount to use.
http://www.malabarsuperspice.com/ref_sodiumeryth.htm

Also take a look here where s. erythorbate is mentioned along with with other additives:
http://www.nassaufoods.com/index.php?co ... sresources

I know that some are very much against using it since it is an ingredient that was not used in traditional sausages. I am also not a fan of additives used by commercial processors, but it essentially, s. erythorbate ((isoascorbate) is an ascorbate but is not a vitamin C. If used in small quantities it will assist in breaking down nitrates/nitrites, and not only improve in creating that nice red colour but also in retaining it during the storage period.

Igor Duńczyk, one of our members who works in the industry in Europe, put forward numerous, and in my opinion crdible arguments for using s. erythorbate. We had a very discussion about it here:http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... rythorbate

As to when do we add it to the meat? That is a very good question! Bob already pointed out that you should not mix ascorbic acid it with the nitrates/nitrites when adding to your meat. I almost always cure my meat two days before I make salami, that is I cube the meat and fat, add Cure # 2, salt and dextrose into the meat, salt only into the fat, mix well, pack tightly into a plastic container with a lid and refrigerate. Sodium erythorbate is then added with the spices after I grind. Below is a quote from a meat industry manual, Gerhard Feiner, Meat Products Manual, Practical Science and Technology, pp.154-155.

The most commonly applied colour enhancers are ascorbic acid, ascorbate
and erythorbate (isoascorbate).
Sodium ascorbate is the sodium salt of ascorbic acid whilst erythorbate is
the salt of erythorbic acid. There is no difference from a technological point
of view between erythorbate and ascorbate in a cured meat product regarding
the stabilization of curing colour except that around 10% more erythorbate
has to be introduced than ascorbate in order to show the same impact with
regard to stabilizing the colour. The enhanced addition of erythorbate is
based on the difference in molecular weight. Interestingly, ascorbate stabilizes
the red curing colour in cured non-cooked meat products which are packed
under vacuum but speeds up discolouration if the same cured non-cooked
product is stored under the impact of O2 (non-vacuum packed) and light.
Under the impact of O2, the unstable nitrosomyoglobin turns into a buffer
(antioxidant) for NO radicals and ascorbate supports this process. As a result,
NO separates from myoglobin and the impact of light speeds up the separation
of NO from myoglobin even more.
Ascorbic acid is a strong reducing agent, enabling the fast and direct
formation of NO from residual nitrite, and enhanced levels of nitrosomyoglobin
is the result, thus stabilizing the curing colour obtained initially. It is primarily
utilized in cured cooked sausages at around 0.4-0.6 g (400-600 ppm) per
kilogram of meat product. Ascorbic acid also reacts with the temporary
HNO2 during the conversion of nitrite into NO, speeding up the formation of
NO in this way. Ascorbic acid is vitamin C but in most countries this vitamin
image cannot be promoted as a marketing or sales tool. Isoascorbic acid has
exactly the same effect in stabilizing the developed curing colour but is not
a vitamin. Ascorbic acid also acts indirectly as an antioxidant as it stabilizes
hydroxyperoxides, which are obtained by the formation of metmyoglobin, as
well as being an oxygen scavenger in its own right.
Greening in cooked sausage can be caused by bacteria but can also be due
to excess addition of colour enhancers such as ascorbic acid. Excess levels
of this colour enhancer cause the formation of large amounts of HNO2 within
a short period of time, which ultimately causes myoglobin to turn green or,
in severe cases, even yellow. Excess levels of acids can denature myoglobin
prematurely and extremely pale or slightly yellow-green colours can be seen
in the finished product.
Ascorbic acid must never be applied at the same time as nitrite to meat
products such as cured cooked sausages, and must never be mixed into ham
brines containing nitrite. When nitrite and ascorbic acid come into direct contact, an instant chemical reaction takes place resulting in the formation of
nitrogen oxides (NO). The main nitrogen oxides formed are NO and NO2.
NO and NO2 are the only two stable forms of nitrogen oxides at room
temperature and NO turns into NO2 in the presence of O2 (2NO + O2 Æ
2NO2) as NO is a highly reactive substance. Both NO and NO2 are toxic and
NO2 has a brown-red colour. NO and NO2 must not be confused with other
nitrogen oxides such as nitrous oxide (N2O), or laughing gas, which is used
in combination with O2 as an anaesthetic. The nitrite required within the
meat products is used up if nitrite and ascorbic acid are added together, and
discolouration will be seen in the final product owing to the lack of nitrite.
Therefore, sausage premixes for cooked cured sausages cannot contain nitrite
and ascorbic acid at the same time and compounds for ham brines cannot
contain those two additives either. When producing a cured cooked sausage,
nitrite and ascorbic acid have to be added separately into the sausage mass.
A possible solution for the simultaneous presence of nitrite and ascorbic acid
in a premix would be the use of encapsulated (fat-coated) ascorbic acid but
such attempts did not prove to be successful in the commercial world.

[redzed]

I made another batch of Salame Calabrese since the last batch was extremely popular. With a bit of cheese, some fresh fruit and a glass of your favourite red, happy hour does not get any better than that!

I made it according to the recipe above with a couple of changes. Instead of anise seed I used star anise. It is the first time I used this spice. From what I read it is more intense in flavour than anise seed, so I cut back to 1.5g/kg. Even with that, the prepared meat had a very pronounced licorice scent, so we shall see what transpires after a few weeks. And for a starter I used the last of my Bitec LM-1.


Class I pork sourced from ham, picnic and loin, not fat or connective tissue. Cured with coarse sea salt and #2 for 48 hours. In the freezer for two hours just before grinding.


Hard back fat. Cured with sea salt only for 48hours, completely frozen before grinding.


One half of the meat mixed together with the fat and ground with the 6mm plate. The rest of the meat ground with the 10mm plate, then everything mixed together. Notice how well the the fat is defined and not smeared into the meat.


Stuffed into a beef bung and 45-50 beef middles. Does size matter? We shall see.

[Steve Schroeder]

Very nice, Chris. Thanks for posting the progressive photos.

[redzed]

Thanks Steve, the Calabrese is coming along nicely and maybe there will be some left when you visit this summer!

[bolepa]

redzed,
would it be OK to add T-SPX instead of B-LC-007 starter culture for this particular recipe ? If yes, fermentation time should go up to 72 hours? Thanks!

[redzed]

T-SPX will work well here, as would other cultures designed for cooler fermentation temps and a softer Southern European flavour. 72 hours might be too long. If you are unable to check the pH, ferment at 22° (71-72F) for 48h. Use 3g/kg of dextrose or 2g dextrose and 2g sucrose. This is an excellent recipe, everyone likes it.

[Bob K]

That does sound good! It's similar to a Pepperoni recipe, something about the anise/heat combo.

[bolepa]

This is an excellent recipe, everyone likes it.

This is exactly why this salami is #1 on my list. Sounds sweeeeeet! Thank you for sharing with us!

[Bumper]

Looks awesome. How would smoked pepper and paprika go in this recipe as subs?

I have some (read glut of) cherry wood smoked chillies - ghost peppers and a bunch of others, and loads of apple wood smoked hungarian paprika.

I find smoked chillies are the best for all sorts of dishes but yet to give them a run in salami.

[redzed]

Calabrian peppers (chilies) are medium hot in taste, (25,000 to 40,000 Scoville units) so you can certainly substitute them with something similiar. A hint of smokiness would probably go well with the rest of the spices and aromatics. As far as the paprika, I used sweet Hungarian, but as you can see in the recipe, a relatively small amount, 2g/kg. Spanish chorizo contains around 20g/kg.! The key here is to have a good balance in the flavour panel. You don't want to have an overly spicy sausage where the chilies dominate and force you eat the sausage quickly and not even taste the other ingredients. A good salami is like drinking a fine wine, you consume small amounts slowly, enjoying the bouquet and all the complex flavours that you discover before swallowing.

[Bumper]

Thanks red - makes sense - a little smoke is good, a lot of heat probably isn't. I might do my first batch with some cherry wood smoked cayenne or just the smoked paprika at your rates and go from there.

The hungarian paprika I grew this year has a heat profile at a guess of around 30k scoville so might fit the bill nicely. Just looking to combine hobbies wherever I can!