Chilli Salami

[Wilf]

Recipe from "Preserving" by Oded Schwartz, ISBN 0-7513-0345-3
Slightly adapted to use Cure2, and different chillis

1kg Pork Belly or (Shoulder and Fat)
1.5 tbsp salt
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
50ml brandy
4 large red chillis ( I used 1 large red habanero) finely chopped
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 tbsp sweet paprika powder
1 tbsp chilli powder ( I used a mixture of flakes we had)
0.5 g franco's starter culture
2.2g Cure 2
about 6 feet hog casings

Coarsely mince the pork but cube some of the fat up for texture, add all ingredients and rest at room temp for 12 hours and refrigerate overnight, before stuffing into hog casings, should take between 4-6 weeks. We shall see just hung them in garage.

[aris]

Did you not let them stand at room temperature for 24 hours first to let the starter culture do it's work?

[Wilf]

Whoops sorry aris I did, but forgot when copying recipe out as recipe in the book goes into the fridge with saltpetre in straight away, I left out during the day to develop as well as the flavours mingle and refrigerated overnight before stuffing the next day, have edited the recipe above

[deb]

Wilf, I like the look of this. I guess by looking at the recipe it's a bit on the hot side, I'd have to temper the heat a bit for me I think. I love the taste of chillies but unfortunately I seem to be one of those people that can't take too much heat.

I've copied it and am keeping it in mind to be on the next "to make" list (assuming my first dried sausage attempt goes well - they're hanging in the shed at the moment).

[Wilf]

I'll let you know deb, how hot they turn out, I have used only 1 habanero instead of 4 long red chillis as I'm after the flavour of the habanero more than the heat, I'm guessing at the moment that it should have a chilli bite to it but not too severe!

[deb]

Cheers Wilf, would be most interested.

[aeddon]

i was pleasantly suprised with the flavour of the hab. i grew red sun or big sun? very fruity.

[Wilf]

All habs have that unique fruity flavour, if you can get past the heat

[aeddon]

the hab has a diff kind of heat, a bit like the difference between a pink grapfruit and a lemon. both are sharpe but one is v.distinct. I know you will understand wilf, trying to explain to the non-chilli mad head addicts whose house and garden arnt crammed full of chill plants

I will exepreiment with the different balances of heat and flavour. i am continuly amazed at the variety of heat and flavour of the chilli. would love to taste the hot lemon chilli.

i made a simple chilli jelly/jam and used cyanne for warmness and flavour and 1 hab for the spice. the fruityness from the hab balanced really well with the vinegar and sugar. i've gone into semi-ful scale production to satisfy the damand from my peers

[Wilf]

Due to the sudden cold weather, had to remove from the garage, and I'm finding the unheated back bedroom fairly OK to use, its fine for humidity, over the week max and min has been between 60-80%, could just do with the temperature down a bit lower as its ranging 12-18�C.

This is 2 weeks on the Chilli Salami.

[aris]

They certainly look the business Wilf. How cold is your garage that you felt you needed to bring them in?

[Wilf]

Aris the garage was going down to 2�C but not getting back over 5�C, and also the humidity was about 90, with that sort of cold, the air was also feeling damp so thought it was a bit too much to hope to dry them in.

[aris]

Interesting - you might try a biltong box with a 40w bulb in there to warm things up. In my garage, it brough the temperature up from 7 to 14 degrees C - but it did lower the humidity from 55 to 45%. As you already have high humidity - it just might do the trick.

[Wilf]

Might try that on the next batch, may be a good back up when the garage drops too low

[Wilf]

Its been 5 weeks, and they have lost 50% weight, tried one this morning and they had a fairly good habanero flavour to them, which gave the mouth a mild glow so the recipe is about right for a medium kind of heat.
The only alterations I would do for next time is to mince the fat in with the meat like a german salami, stuff the casings a bit firmer, or firm them up when making the links as a couple were a bit looser textured in the middle, and lastly but more importantly cure the meat for a couple of days before starting as it looked a bit uneven in colour in some, but apart from that it worked OK for my first go!