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Making Salami


If you are killing your own pigs, making salami is one of the best ways of extending the shelf life of your meat. In my experience, the end results are also among the most delightful and satisfying of anything I do with my pig. So much so that I urge non-pig keepers to give salami making a go. It's fun to do, and easier than you might think, provided you follow a few simple rules:

1. The golden rule for all cured sausages is simple: they must contain 2.2 per cent salt, by weight. As long as you get this bit right, you can experiment with all sorts of flavourings and additions. You therefore need an accurate set of scales when making salami.

2. Unlike sausage meat, the meat for salami should be as lean as possible. Mine is usually taken from the shoulder of the animal (i. e. the spare rib and the hand) and trimmed of excess fat.

3. Fat is then added to the mix and the best kind is finely diced back fat - the thick, gristle-free fat from just under the skin of the pig. It doesn't have to come from the back but it must be from this firm, evenly textured subcutaneous layer. Don't use rendered fat or lard.

4. Always use natural casings. These are available by mail order (try The Natural Casing Company Ltd, tel: 01252 850454), so order well in advance. The best all-round size is the one called ox-middles - about 5-10cm in diameter when just filled, they'll shrink to 3-4cm when dried and ready to eat. Larger salami can be made from the next size up (ox-bung) and small, peperone-style ones from ox-runners. Any casings left over from a salami-making session can be frozen and used next time.

5. For large quantities of salami, a sausage-making machine, either with a crank handle or a modern electric variety, is invaluable. But if you're making just a few, you can use a plastic funnel to fill your casings.

6. Acidophilus is a natural enzyme that helps the skin of the salami to develop the correct (non-threatening) mould. It's available as a powder in chemist's and health-food shops (if you can only get tablets, they can be ground up in a pestle and mortar). It's not essential, and an alternative way to encourage the mould is to hang your salami with mature specimens that already have a bloom of mould on a natural casing.

7. Make sure you have a cool, well-ventilated place to hang your salami.

The recipe below is for the simplest possible salami. Make up your batch of salami mix in multiples of the quantities given. The only flavourings are a little garlic and some red wine. This is the basic mixture to which all extra flavourings are added (see Variations below).

400g lean pork, coarsely minced
100g chilled back fat, cut into small, pea-sized pieces
11g fine cooking salt
100ml red wine
1/2 garlic clove, crushed to a paste (1 clove for every kilo of mix)
1/2 teaspoon acidophilus

You will also need:

Natural casings (see above)
Butcher's string

Before you get to work on your salami mix, put the casings to soak in a large bowl of cold water for half an hour or so. Slosh them about to rinse off the salt, then run the tap through the inside of them to flush them clean. When they are slippery, flexible and thoroughly rinsed of salt, they are ready to use.

Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly - with your bare (but clean) hands, if you like - so that the salt and fat are well distributed throughout the mix. Load up your sausage-making machine with the mix, slide a length of casing on to the nozzle and tie the end of the casing into a knot, as you would tie a balloon. Then tie a short length of butcher's string in an ordinary granny knot inside the knot in the bung. Fill the casing with the mix until you have a filled length of 40-50cm. Then cut this length off, leaving enough unfilled casing at the end to tie another knot.

Hold the filled casing up with the knotted end at the bottom and squeeze the mixture down the casing gently, so it is nice and tight. Then tie another knot in the top of the casing, and another length of string inside that knot. The compacted sausage, tied securely at both ends, will now be about 30-40cm long, although you can make shorter ones if you like. It's useful to have two people on the job for an efficient production line: one to do the filling and cutting off of lengths, the other to do the knots and hang up the filled casings.

The filled casings should be hung individually by the string loops in a cool, well-ventilated place where the temperature is not likely to rise above 12°C. Make sure they are not touching a wall, or each other. Over the coming weeks a number of moulds ranging in colour from grey-green to white and even orange may form on the casings. None of these should worry you.

They may take anything from four to ten weeks to mature, depending on the conditions - and indeed, on how you like them. They can be tried as soon as they are fairly firm to the touch, and dry looking, but they will continue to dry out and harden until they are practically rock hard. I like them 'medium hard'. When they reach the stage you like, the process of further hardening can be slowed down by rubbing off the mould with a screwed-up piece of dry paper, then rolling the salami in dry wood ash. Then wrap loosely in paper and store in a cool larder or the fridge. Eat within a month of this process.

I cut my salami into slices 2-3mm thick with a sharp knife, and I peel off the ring of casing from each salami before I eat it, although it is perfectly safe to eat.

Variations

You can add all kinds of things to the basic mix above, such as hazelnuts or pistachios, herbs and spices, wild mushrooms, even cheese. Personally, the only embellishments I like are a sprinkling of cracked black peppercorns (about 1 teaspoon per kilo) or the same quantity of whole dried fennel seeds.

Chorizo

This spicy, Spanish-style sausage is flavoured with paprika, and the very best version with smoked paprika, which gives it a wonderful taste. You should be able to find this magical substance (which makes it taste as if the whole sausage has been smoked) from good Spanish-run delis. The mix for chorizo doesn't have to be quite as lean, and I usually add about 500g regular sausage meat to 1kg salami mix. It is important to keep the salt level at 2.2 per cent, so add an extra 11g of salt for your 500g sausage meat To this 1.5kg of mix, add a generous tablespoon of paprika (smoked if you can possibly get it), 2-3 more garlic cloves, crushed to a paste, and a generous teaspoon of fennel seeds. Fill up the casings and hang as for regular salami.

Chorizo can be eaten raw when fully matured, like regular salami, but it is also delicious sliced and fried after hanging for just a week.