Salame Toscano This recipe is drawn from a manuscript dated to 1772.

lapizzanapoli@gmail.comSalame Toscano: A truly classic cold cut that will work very well as an antipasto, or on a picnic.
This recipe is drawn from a manuscript dated to 1772.
Salame Toscano: A truly classic cold cut that will work very well as an antipasto, or on a picnic.
This recipe is drawn from a manuscript dated to 1772.
Ingredients:
•Pork (precise amounts given below)
•Pork fat
•Herbs
•Spices
•Casing
Preparation:
To make salami proceed as follows: take the leanest pork, and for every 25 pounds season it with 2/3 pound of salt, an ounce of cracked pepper, and a half-ounce of spices, by which we mean cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg. Then take a head of garlic, grind it in a mortar with an ounce of wine, and squeeze it through a strainer and into the meat. Add a pound and a half of diced fat, and put it in the casings.

This is very cursory; the 18th century author assumed the cook would then know how to season the salami, a process that's crucial to the success of the endeavor (these kinds of assumptions were common in recipes of the time, and also correct, because the authors were professionals, as was their audience).

Begin by coarsely grinding the meat and cubing the fat. Turn the mixture out on your work surface, spread it to a thickness of 4 inches (12 cm), add to it the salt (you'll want 2.5% by weight, i.e. 2.5 pounds salt per hundred pounds meat) and spices, and mix it very well with your hands to guarantee that the salting and spicing is uniform. Next, put it in the casings (you'll want large intestine, and will need to soak them briefly first), tamping it down layer by layer as you add it, until the casings are almost completely filled.

Press the filling down from the inside and squeeze down from the outside so as to obtain enough free casing at the top to be able to tie it tightly shut with strong string. Soak the filled salamis briefly in hot water to further soften the casings, and then massage them, while puncturing the casings uniformly with a fine-pointed tool to drive out any air that may have been trapped inside the salami. Next, you should tie the salami vertically and horizontally, using the same string used to close off the end.

Now begins the delicate and difficult aging of the salami.

The process must take place in a cool (18 C, 65 F) place with neither drafts nor heat sources, because an open window or a hot pipe will be sufficient to ruin everything: the casing will pull away from the filling, the fat will become rancid, and everything else will oxidize.

One can check the progress of the ripening visually:

•After a month the salamis should be lightly covered by a soft greenish mold;
•After a month and a half, the filling should begin to shrink, and as a result the strings will loosen;
•After two months the mold will be more evident and begin to turn gray;
•After four months the shrinkage will be more evident, as will the mold: the salami is now ready;
•After 5 months the mold is thick, dry and uniform; the salami is at its best.
•Don't let it age more than 9 months, because it will become too dry, too hard, and loose its aromas.