Dry Cured Calabrian Pork Tenderloin - Dry Curing Meat for Beginners

hey everybody welcome to the channel my name is eric and i hope you're ready because we have got a treat for you today we're going to be making a dry cured calabrian pork tenderloin and this easy to follow recipe is not only perfect for anyone who loves good charcuterie but for anyone who's just getting started into dry curing meat let's make the calabrian pork tenderloin [Music] to get started we need a pork tenderloin and this is what we got from our butcher and the very first thing you're going to do before you get started is weigh that piece of meat and record the weight so in the description box below you'll find a link to the recipe and this is what it's going to look like when you click on that link if you scroll down to the recipe itself you're going to notice a little box that says how much do you want to make in that box you're going to type in the weight of your tenderloin and i wanted these recipes to be as easy as possible to take all the guesswork out of it for you so let's say your tenderloin weighs 745 grams as soon as you type that in the ingredients in the recipe are going to adjust based off of the weight of your meat and voila no more guesswork it's all figured up for you so carefully weigh each one of those spices and place them in a container the method of curing that we're going to be using for this tenderloin is called the equilibrium cure what that means is that we are adding the exact amount of spices that we want our tenderloin to take in nothing extra so we're just going to use 100 of the spices make sure that we rub it onto our tenderloin and then before we put it in our vacuum seal bag anything that's fallen off of that tenderloin we're gonna scoop up and we're gonna place it in the bag as well [Music] vacuum sealing is the best way to cure your meat but if you don't have a vacuum sealer you can always place it in a ziplock bag try to remove as much air out as possible fold the bag over just like that and then you're ready to place this into your refrigerator so we're going to place this into our kitchen refrigerator for six days and every day we want to make sure that we massage the meat and we want to flip it and that's going to help the seasonings penetrate the meat allowing it to cure evenly so after six days this is what your cured pork tenderloin is going to look like and now it's time to start drying you're going to notice that it's firmed up a little bit it smells amazing all of those seasonings have really penetrated and infused into the meat so what we're going to do now is rinse off some of these herbs that are on the outside of our tenderloin because we want to prepare the surface for that calabrian pepper powder we're using cool water to rinse off our tenderloin and once it's mostly clean we're going to blot it dry and then apply enough pepper powder to cover the entire surface of our tenderloin once our surface is coated let's talk about how we're going to dry it we have two options and the two options that you have for wrapping your meat are going to be completely determined by how you choose to dry it so option number one would be drying your meat inside your home refrigerator if you're going to choose option number one and you're going to dry your meat inside your home fridge with your milk your butter your deli meats your lettuce whatever's in there you're going to wrap your meat in a wrap known as the dry aging steak wraps these particular wraps are designed to be used inside your home fridge it controls the moisture loss it keeps your meat from drying out way too fast and it's absolutely perfect so in the home refrigerator you're going to use the dry aging steak wraps option number two is hanging your meat inside of a dedicated drying chamber so if you're going to choose option number two to draw your meat you're going to use these dry curing wraps these dry curing wraps are micro perforated they're made out of collagen and they act like a casing around your tenderloin so it's going to control the drying better in a higher humid environment so remember if you're going to use your home refrigerator to dry this tenderloin you're going to be using the dry aging steak wraps if you're going to be using a dedicated chamber to dry this tenderloin you're going to be using the dry curing wraps in today's video i'm going to be using my chamber so we're going to use the dry curing wraps but regardless of which wrap you use the process is still going to be the same let me show you so we're going to take our wrap out of the package and each package has three wraps and you'll notice that the wraps are actually fairly large which is great if you're doing you know large cuts of meat but in this case we're just doing a small tenderloin so we're going to cut our wrap to fit our tenderloin and each wrap will probably do four to five tenderloins so we're just gonna take our tenderloin that's been coated in our pepper powder and we're gonna place it right in the middle of our wrap i'm gonna sprinkle a tiny bit of sambuca on our tenderloin now you could use white wine if you'd like to and the reason we're doing this is to add a little external flavor and to moisten the outside so that wrap adheres properly you do want to be careful because as the wrap gets moist it gets quite delicate so just be gentle and careful as you begin to wrap that wrap around your tenderloin as you're wrapping your tenderloin try and press out any air pockets that might form this is going to give you a much better seal between the wrap and the meat and it's going to keep any kind of unwanted molds from growing in those little air pockets once we get the wrap completely secured and onto the tenderloin we're going to place an elastic netting onto that mussel this particular netting is going to keep everything nice and tight it's going to make sure that that wrap binds to that meat properly and it's also going to allow that tenderloin to keep its shape during the drying process so you do want to be careful but delicately and gently you're going to want to get that netting around that tenderloin and now that it's properly secured we're just going to go ahead and tie it weigh it so that we can record our weight and because we're using a collagen sheet and we're going to be hanging this in a drying chamber we're going to prick it with a sausage pricker if you're using a dry aging steak wrap and you're going to be placing this into your home refrigerator so that it can dry there's no need to prick it when it comes to recording the weight i want to record my actual weight and then my target weight and for this muscle we want to target a 35 weight loss so as soon as i hit 352 grams which is 35 percent less than what it weighs now this tenderloin will be ready to eat and remember because this is going into a drying chamber and i'm using a collagen sheet i'm going to prick this tenderloin but if you're using a dry aging sheet and it's going into your refrigerator there's no need to do this step it's now time to dry your tenderloin and you have two drying options the first option is a drying room or a drying chamber where you can maintain an average temperature of 55 fahrenheit or 13 celsius and an 80 relative humidity and you're gonna hang it in there until 35 percent of the weight has been lost now this can be a basement or seller or it can be a modified refrigerator as you'll see in just a minute the second option which is a much easier option especially if you're just getting started and you don't have a drying chamber is to place your meat in your home refrigerator and the only difference is that you're not going to be using the dry curing wraps you'll be using the dry aging wraps and you're not going to prick with a sausage pricker you do want to make sure that your tenderloin has air flow on top and bottom so unless you can hang it you'll want to place it on a grating until you lose 35 percent weight this is what our dedicated chamber looks like and this is where i'm going to hang my tenderloin and this is just a modified refrigerator where we make all of our charcuterie i've got salami we've got a prosciutto in the background and if you'd like to know how to build one yourself stick around to the end of this video i'll post a link to that tutorial and you'll see it's actually quite easy so our tenderloin is in the chamber yours may be in your house fridge either way it's going to do the exact same thing and now we wait our target is 35 weight loss and in my opinion that's going to give you the perfect silky texture without it being too tough what's great about dry curing a tenderloin is that it's fairly small and it generally doesn't take very long for it to get to its target weight the one we did in this project weighed a little over half a kilo and total drying time was about four weeks so we've hit our target it's time to cut into this and see what it tastes like and i just want to mention that the reason our tenderloin is covered with mold is because it was drying in an environment that has been inoculated with this beneficial edible mold if you're going to be using the dry aging steak wraps in your refrigerator you're not going to have mold covering your tenderloin so at this point we're just going to remove all the wrapping from the tenderloin and give it a slice [Music] all right let's see what this tastes like and this is what 35 weight loss looks like great color great texture it's not too firm not too soft it's got a prosciutto quality it's going to give you a great mouthfeel all right let's give it a little taste that's delicious this is truly exquisite the texture is perfect and the hints of rosemary and garlic with the whispering flavors of sambuca coming up in the background just to let you know it's there without being overpowering and then there's the spicy and smoky calabrian pepper crust it just takes this to a whole other level and that's how you make the dry cured calabrian pork tenderloin if you have any questions leave them in the comment section below and if you are new to our channel we'd like to say welcome thanks for being here we appreciate you watching don't forget to subscribe like comment and share we post new videos each week we'll see you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: 2 Guys & A Cooler

Views: 157,270

Keywords: Calabria, salami, easy sausage recipes, dry curing meat for beginners, how to dry cure meat at home, Italian cured meats, how is salmi made, making sausage at home, how to make deli meats

Id: vd9M_ZDDWdA

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Sat May 01 2021