Poorly chicken

[WitchHazel]

We've been making sausages for a couple of years now, and we've decided to try our hand at Salami.

 

As I trype, DH is busy mincing the meat, fat, spices, salt etc, the casings are soaking, and I'm disinfecting the stuffer.

 

It'll be 6 weeks before it's ready.... we've bought what seems like a lot of meat (2kg shoulder pork, 1.5kg lean beef, 1kg hard back fat), so I hope it'll be OK.

 

We're sausage making immediately afterwards.

 

UPDATE:

All done! We now have 4.5kg of salamis hanging from hooks in the kitchen. They'll be here for 36 hours until the fermentation is well underway, then we need to move them to dry them for 6 weeks.

 

We started with 1.5kg lean beef, 2kg pork shoulder, and ikg of hard back fat. The hard back fat was minced and put in the freezer to chill. The rest of the meat was seasoned, then co"Ooops, word censored!"ly minced.

 

THe natural casings were rinsed and soaked

The fat, culture and curing stuff was added, and the whole lot minced again, finely this time.

 

Meanwhile, I washed and sterlilised the Stuffer.

 

Next, we were ready to stuff. Bit of a hitch. The large stuffing horn didn't fit the machine properly. We decided to use the next size down. Started stuffing.

 

We thought 3m of casing would be far too much...but it went on, and on and on. In fact, we used ALL the casing and still had a small amount of salami left

We discussed our options, and decided to use some of our collagen sausage casings. Because salami is cultured and cured, you can't just fry and eat leftover mix, as one would with sausages.

 

We hung the salamis from hooks over the kitchen workbench. The longest one is 45cm.

 

They already smell authentic, so it'll be interesting to see how they develop.

 

Anyone else made salami?

[bluekarin]

They look amazing! I haven't made it, but I do love it.

 

Is that a cat eyeing the salamis up in the third picture?

[Chucky Mama]

Oooh they look fantastic. I will look out for updates with interest. I haven't had our sausage maker out for a while. Where do you get your casings from?

[WitchHazel]

Is that a cat eyeing the salamis up in the third picture?

 

Well spotted! We moved the bar stools away from the breakfast bar so we could do the salamis and sausages, and the cat got up to watch. Nosey thing she is. Well out of paws reach, fortunately.

 

Where do you get your casings from?

Usually from Weschenfelder as I get their cumberland mix as well, probably my favourite sausage seasoning mix. We've also bought from sausagemaker and designasausage, and I see you can now get them from Ebay.

 

We've always used collagen for sausages, but now we've used this beef middle for the salami, I think we'll go for natural casings for the sausages next time.

 

Thanks for your interest. I'll update this thread when there is any news

[Egluntyne]

Yum. Love the chickenalia on the window ledge.

[scarlettohara]

I'm really impressed - they look great

[WitchHazel]

Yum. Love the chickenalia on the window ledge.

Do you know, I swore that I would never have chickenalia in my house.... It started with that ornament thing in the corner, a thoughtful present from my brother - which I have grown to love. Once I'd let that in, there was no stopping it!

[WitchHazel]

Well, twenty-four hours on, and the colour has now changed, The whiteness of the skin has gone, and the skins are translucent. They look like salami would look if you peeled off the skin.

 

It's also stopped dripping now. We're leaving it in the kitchen util tomorrow morning, then it's going into the loft. Our loft is well kitted out and very clean, and DH has put up a hanging rail towards the back so we can hang them up out of the way.

 

Not sure if it'll be quite the right atmosphere - we're looking for dry with some humidity (which sounds like a contradiction in terms, to me).

 

I'll update the thread with more pictures when there is any news.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Daphne]

Very interesting - I've never thought of making salami. We have a sausage making friend so I'll mention it to him as well. We have made chorizo 'mix' from a HFW recipe but not stuffed it into skins, so I suspect maybe its not the same as salami, we made it into patties and fried bits I seem to remember. I much prefer natural skins on my sausages, but I've never thought about what a salami skin is made of. Thanks for posting

[Calamity Jane]

It all looks very interesting and enterprising, well done you. I can almost smell them here, yum yum.

[DebC]

Wow, they look really impressive . Please let us know how they mature.

 

I've also been making sausages for a couple of years now. My OH bought me a sausage stuffer for my birthday - oh what a romantic!

 

I use natural casings and never really got on with the collagen ones. I have bought from ebay before, but I now get them from our local butcher. They are more expensive, but are really a lot better. Every now and then we have a sausage evening and make big batches of various flavours that we then freeze. I like to experiment and have had successes (caramelised red onion and pork is my favourite) and some failures - the duck sausages and sun dried tomatoes were not a success!

[Chucky Mama]

Just wondered how these turned out. I made some sausages to day with DD, the first time in ages. Quite hilarious making sausages with a 15 year old girl as you can imagine Quite fancy the idea of making salami now or perhaps chorizo.

[kinsk]

Would love to find out how they turned out.

 

I, or should I say we, got a mincer and a sausage stuffer as a wedding present so am looking for some projects.