Hungarian Salami | Celebrate Sausage S03E10

hey there folks welcome to the channel and welcome to celebrate sausage a series sponsored by the sausage maker if you like sausages you've come to the right place because you've caught us in the middle of a month-long series with daily sausage recipe uploads and we're just getting started yesterday's recipe was an absolute riot and today we're gonna see if we can top it as we make the Hungarian salami the Hungarian salami is an absolute flavor Masterpiece I mean it's fermented it's cured it's heavily smoked and dried it's spiced with the most amazing spices like Hungarian paprika and so on and so forth and these spices get concentrated during the drying process and what's left is a shelf stable dry cured piece of meat that is absolutely Sublime in today's episode I'm going to share with you the entire process on how to make this amazing salami let's get it going Hungarian salami here here we come it's going to be a little intense but you know what I think we got this this is an all pork salami we're going to start off with some pork back fat I've also got some pork belly you know that's a pork belly left over from a different project and I thought you know what let's go ahead and toss that in here and we've got some pork shoulder basically this is a 70 lean 30 percent fat salami so however you want to mix and match the pork you could certainly do that but you want to try to end up with about 30 fat so we're just going to go ahead and cut this up into pieces that are small enough to fit into our grinder I like to cut mine up relatively small because I'm using a number 12 grinder and the motor is not incredibly powerful so if you do have a let's say number 22 or number 32 grinder you got a really strong motor on it you could cut these up into nice big chunks nice big strips not a problem it should take care of it we're going to pop this into the freezer we want it below 32 degrees Fahrenheit before we grind it and let's take a look at our spices we've got salt and cure number two we're also going to be adding just a little dextrose that's going to help feed our bacteria we've also got some granulated sugar and some Caraway check the description box below if you want to see the full-blown recipe you know we got to have that Hungarian paprika and we've got both hot and sweet Hungarian paprika that we're going to be adding to this recipe and then we've got a little black pepper and we're going to finish it off with some minced garlic and that's what our spice profile looks like let's look at the bacteria that we're going to be adding to ferment our salami this is called flavor of Italy if you've been watching my channel for any length of time you'll know this is my absolute favorite because it's fast and very predictable so it's a great starter culture if you're just getting into salami making this little pack will make a bunch of salami and you can get it exclusively from the sausage maker so to use a bacterial starter culture we're just going to add the necessary amount to some distilled water and I'm going to let it rehydrate for 30 minutes that's going to wake up our bacteria so that by the time we add it to our meat they're going gonna begin eating the sugar and they're going to start fermenting our salami meat which is exactly what we want it's going to give the good bacteria a head start over the bad bacteria so Let's Fold that back up I'm going to place that into a vacuum seal bag and stick it into my freezer both mold cultures and bacteria cultures should be kept in your freezer at all times if you have a vacuum sealer I would recommend vacuum sealing that when you put it into your freezer and it's just going to help extend the shelf life so we're just going to give that a little mix swirl it around and leave it on our counter for 30 minutes that's all you really need so in 30 minutes we'll be using it and while that's rehydrating let's look at our casing we're using a synthetic casing this is a 62 millimeter protein line casing from the sausage maker and what we want to do is we want to tie off one of the ends and we want to tie it in such a way that the meat doesn't come spilling out whenever we hang it in our drying chamber so let me kind of show you one way there's lots of different ways you could tie your casing I'm going to start off by doing like an accordion fold at the very end of it this is a more sophisticated style of bubble knot and so once we have our accordion fold that's what it's going to look like I'm going to take some butcher's twine and we're just going to tie a simple knot about two inches from the edge so nothing special here just a regular simple knot and notice how one piece of string is longer than the other that's kind of what we're looking for all right so we're going to tighten that up really nice and now we have our simple knot on that accordion fold what I want to do now is pinch it about an inch from the top so I'm just pinching that according fold and I'm going to take the longer string and I'm going to wrap it around the casing right where my finger is so let me get a little bit closer so you can see what I'm talking about so I'm pinching it about an inch from the top and we're going to wrap our string around that casing right above where our fingers are and do another simple knot let's tighten that up and if you've done this correctly what you should be looking at are two knots at the end of this casing one a little bit higher than the other what's left to do is to Simply connect the loose strings together by tying them off so we're just going to take one string tie it off to the other with a regular knot and the moment you tighten that you're physically going to create a little bubble see that you're going to create a little bubble that's going to prevent your casing from opening up and your meat from spilling out while it's hanging in your drying chamber see as more pressure is put on that bubble knot it actually gets Tighter and that's the beauty of this knot so great not to know for salami making I'm just going to go ahead and tie it off by adding another knot and there we go that is going to be the bottom of our salami so let's go ahead and rehydrate this this is a really easy and quick casing to rehydrate takes about 10 or 15 minutes in some lukewarm water we want to make sure that we get this casing completely wet inside and out and fully submerged so lukewarm water 10-15 minutes that's really all we need we're going to set this to the side because at this point our meat should be proper really chilled and it is this is semi-frozen it's about 30 degrees Fahrenheit and for me this is the perfect temperature to grind your meat when making sausages or salami let's get it ground up on a number six grinding plate [Music] this looks great let's give it a quick temperature check because if it Rose too much we want to re-chill it but we are still at 30 degrees Fahrenheit absolutely perfect we've got our starter culture our spices and our meat and look at that meat nice and loose the fat in this grind looks absolutely perfect let's get a closer look so you can see what I'm talking about I mean it is firm it's defined it's going to give us great particle definition and beautiful marbling once we get this salami finished so let's go ahead and get this into our mixer mixing your meat for salami is not very different than mixing you meat for sausage so if you're familiar with sausage making this step should come pretty easy we're going to add our spices and we're going to add our starter culture and really that's it the goal here is going to be the same we're looking for a nice sticky meat batter once it's done that's going to let us know that we have proper protein extraction and so with the KitchenAid I believe we've only mixed for a couple of minutes maybe two minutes and this is what our meat mixture looks like very sticky smells incredible and you know we're gonna grab a little handful and see if it sticks to the bottom of our hand so here we go let's turn our hand upside down there we go nice and sticky let's go ahead and move on to the next step which is stuffing it into its casing now we're just about finished with the preparation of the salami but I do want to talk about one thing check out the fat you know this is what I was talking about earlier when you grinded mixture meat and it's very cold the fat stays solid which is going to give us gorgeous marbling our casing size like we said earlier is 62 millimeter this is going to take about two months but you know you can find Hungarian salami in many different sizes a very traditional size is about 30 millimeter so if you want to do a smaller diameter Hungarian salami use like a hog casing it might only take anywhere between four to five weeks to be prepared when it comes to stuffing our meat into the casing no matter what size you use you want to get it in there as tight as possible we want to really pack it in there and that's one of the reasons I like these synthetic casings so much is because they can really really hold up to these very tight stuffings you do want to be careful if you do use a natural casing like beef rounds beef middles hog casing things like that because they could bust pretty easily but this synthetic casing is not a problem we can really pack that meat in there without any worries of it rupturing okay are salamis formed and we've got a little bit of meat inside our stuffing horn and so what we want to do is we want to get that into that salami as well so I'm just going to stuff that horn back in there and I'm going to use a sausage stuffing horn cleaner from the sausage maker this is one of those tools that I use every time I make sausage or salami and we're just going to push that meat all the way through which is going to allow us to get the most out of this salami no there we go nice and clean next thing we want to do is tie off our salami it's packed in there nice and tight and what we're going to do is we're going to create the exact same type of knot that we did for the bottom for the top so we've got another bubble knot but for the top I'm going to create a little hanging point for my hook I'm going to take a sausage picker and prick out any air pockets that might have formed you don't want any air pockets between the meat and the casing once the air pockets have been removed let's go ahead and weigh it right now it's 1045 grams that is our starting weight and I want to Target a 40 weight loss for the salami so 40 minus 1045 is 627 grams so when the salami chub hits that Target of 627 it is ready to eat if you like a softer salami you can Target anywhere between 30 to 35 percent if you like a more firm 35 to 40 percent so we're targeting 40 627 is our magic number let's go ahead and get this tied off and we need to ferment our salami this is the last step of the preparation when it comes to making salami and there's really only two rules you need to follow when it comes to fermenting your salami keep the right humidity and keep the right temperature humidity is critical for proper fermentation we want the humidity above 90 percent and you can either create a chamber for fermenting your salami or do what I'm doing here and it's just wrap it in some cling film that cling film is going to lock in that moisture it's going to maintain a very high humidity which is going to be perfect for fermenting our salami the next thing I want to do is grab a little extra mince meat now there was some at the very bottom of my hopper in my sausage stuffer and so I'm going to grab some of that minced meat and I'm going to wrap it up in some cling film as well this minced meat is what we're going to use to test the pH of our salami so we don't disrupt that chub that we've got over there wrapped up so we're just going to wrap that up no problem and we'll test the pH here in a second now the next thing we want to focus on is temperature the starter culture that we added likes the temperature range between 70 Fahrenheit and 85 Fahrenheit and currently in my kitchen it's about 72 degrees Fahrenheit so for me all I'm going to do is leave the salami on the kitchen counter just like that and it's going to firm it for 18 to 24 hours you could stick this in a built-on box you could stick this in an oven with a light on it really doesn't matter just as long as you're in that Timber aperture range so remember to ferment your salami we're looking for a temperature range of 70 to 85 Fahrenheit or 21 to 29 Celsius we want high humidity at least 90 percent and so you know wrapping in cling film is absolutely perfect and we're going to let it ferment for 18 to 24 hours now these parameters are for flavor of Italy and we're going to be targeting a pH of anything between 4.9 and 5.2 so that's considered the safe zone for this salami let's see what we've got it's been about 20 hours it's the next day and let's go ahead and open up our little sample piece this looks amazing proper fermentation will change the texture of the meat so notice that it's more firm it's not gooey and sticky like it was when it was raw it's got a beautiful color and the smell is incredible I'm using an opera instruments pH meter to check the ph and Link will be in the description box this is a very reliable tool and a worthy investment if you plan on making this a hobby so let's see what our pH is we're looking for anything between 4.9 and 5.2 looks like I'm at 4.88 I should have checked it about an hour ago but you know what this is totally fine it's not the end of the world if you happen to overshoot your pH Target just make a note and then next time check it a little bit sooner the lower your pH goes the more acidic or Tangy your salami will taste but the difference between 4.88 which is mine and my target at 4.9 is virtually insignificant so I'm not worried about it let's go ahead and unwrap this salami because we are just about finished now what's left to do is to cold smoke this salami but if I do it now it will continue to firm it so what we're going to do instead is place this into our chamber for one day that's going to bring the temperature of the meat down which is going to slow down that bacterial activity and then tomorrow and probably for the next four days we're going to take this salami out and cold smoke it during the coolest part of the day for about three hours and that's never really going to give this meat a chance to get back up to fermentation temperature which is going to be absolutely perfect so let's recap because this can get a little confusing this is going to go into the chamber for one day after one day in the chamber so 24 hours in the chamber we're now going to start a cold smoking cycle and we're going to cold smoke this salami during the coolest part of the day for only about three hours after it's done cold smoking we're going to place it back into the chamber and then repeat the process for a few more days all right does that make sense let me know in the comment section if I happen to have lost you so just let me show you what it looks like we just took it out of our chamber it's been in there for a day we're firing up our Cold Smoker from smoking it and right now it's the coolest part of the day it's about 64 65 degrees Fahrenheit we're going to be cold smoking this for about three hours and then after three hours we're going to take it out of our smoker and place it back into the chamber and that's it now I chose to do this for four days in a row you could do this for one day or two days or you can just omit the smoke altogether it's completely up to you but this particular salami is traditionally smoked this is what the salami looks like after doing this process for four days beautiful smoke beautiful color and now we're ready to complete the drying process so we're doing this in a dry curing Chamber from the sausage maker but you could do it in a Cellar a basement a DIY chamber it really doesn't matter what you're targeting is an area that has an average temperature of around 55 Fahrenheit or 13 Celsius with a humidity of about 80 75 to 80 percent that's kind of like the ideal zone for drying uh salami and we're targeting a 40 weight loss now anything technically between 30 and 40 is acceptable I like mine to be a little bit more firm so 40 is what we shoot for and it's been roughly about 65 days or so since it's been hanging in our chamber and it's now ready to eat it's lost 40 percent of its weight and we're gonna go ahead and give it a cut and see what it looks like and this salami feels incredible when you give it a squeeze you could tell that it's firm throughout which is always a good indicator that it dried evenly let's go ahead and cut the tips of our salami off and you can see right here on the tips that we had a nice even drying this is typically the most difficult part of the salami usually people cut this off and toss it uh because it doesn't dry properly but look at that absolutely beautiful great looking color of the salami no dry ring very encouraging let's go ahead and open it up and give it a taste [Music] thank you foreign the Hungarian salami I mean this looks amazing very pleased with the way it came out we've got beautiful marbling we've got a great bind on this nice protein extraction keeps it all together it dried evenly and I wish I could take credit for that but that was actually the sausage Maker's dry curing chamber it just kept the right temperature and humidity and we've got a really nice looking salami yep that's the stuff let's just go ahead and give it a taste um there is just something so satisfying about having a high quality piece of salami but then you add smoke to it you add Hungarian paprikas you have a fat that's so creamy it just melts in your mouth and that's what I'm eating right here guys this is absolutely incredible um that is definitely in my top five best tasting salamis of all time absolutely incredible texture wise it's perfect so we dried it exactly to where I like it you remember if you want it a little softer you can pull it from the chamber a little bit sooner you know maybe 30 32 percent if you like it a little bit more firm you can let it dry a little bit longer but for me this was perfect I'm going to put a recipe Link in the description box below it's going to have all the ingredients the whole entire process and if at any point you ever have any questions you can always reach out and just to let you know if you would like a place where you can submit your sausage or salami successes or failures or questions we now have a subreddit page be sure to check the description box and jump on that subreddit so that you could be a part of the two guys in a cooler community on Reddit that'll be pretty exciting if you thought this video was helpful be sure to smash that thumbs up button and if you're new to this Channel and you liked what you saw you're going to love what's coming next because tomorrow and every day for the rest of the this month we've got a daily upload I don't want you to miss a single episode do me a favor click that subscribe button and that notification Bell and be a part of celebrate sausage I look forward to seeing you tomorrow bye [Music] thank you

Channel: 2 Guys & A Cooler

Views: 4,498

Keywords: Celebrate Sausage, Easy Sausage Recipes, sausage, cured meats, meat preservation, pork sausage, hungarian salami, fermented foods, spicy, smoked meats

Id: y8MqJdDLHi4

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 10 2022