Dried Italian Sausage

[MarkD51]

Having been born-raised in Chicago, am Italian, many local cheese stores in the little Italy area, a couple of uncles, and a once close friend used to make a regular, run of the mill dried Italian Sausage.



I even made it myself on a number of occasions.

Some I've seen, was nothing more than some fresh bought sausage from the local butcher, they'd poke holes in the casing with a toothpick, and hang in a cool place, where temps wouldn't swing (basement-cellar-etc)

And some butchers, and cheese-deli shops would hang such in refrigerators, some had large walk-in units.

My friend, would buy 150 lbs of pork, grind, make dried sausages, soppresatas, Cappocollos.

But, I never seen any of them add anything more than just basic Salt, Pepper, Fennel, and that was it!

With my limited experimentation years ago when I lived in Chicago, I'd do such in the wintertime, and had hit or miss results.

I presume this is probably a dangerous way to dry-cure such. But, in truth, I never got sick.
They told me, that more salt should be added, that was the trick, but I suspect more should actually be done to make a safe dried sausage.

What is needed? What will properly cure such sausages, without overly influencing flavor-texture?

Again, I suspect cool temps are needed, something very hard for me to achieve here in the desert southwest New Mexico. I might need a spare junker Fridge to accomplish such? Or?

[Dingo]

Hi MarkD51,
Welcome to the forum. Go to the Curing FAQ section...the info there will give you a good start.

Meat safety is achieved through a combination of salt, nitrates/nitrites, temp, humidity and available water. It true that in the "old days" things were done differently. Even myself, i used to not use curing salts on my biltong. As one of the other members put...it' playing russian roulette.

You can certainly cure/dry age in NM..i live in SW Colorado. Temp control is easy enough..we generally have to raise humidity.

[crustyo44]

Hi Mark,
Dingo is correct with his advise. Make sure you use cure #2 in your salamis. My Italian friends still make salamis the old way, personally I think it's too dangerous.
Cure #2 is like buying life insurance, especially if you hand them out to friends as gifts.
Buy an upright frost free deepfreeze which has removable shelves and the electronic controls required to set your temperature and humidity.
Good Luck Mate!!
Cheers,
Jan.