I'm going to make mortadella, and I thought I'd use the recipe and procedure from Charcuterie (Ruhlman, Polcyn). I'll be using a food processor as outlined in the recipe.
I am a beginner, and I'd like to be successful, so I have a few questions.
Has anyone tried the Ruhlman/Polcyn mortadella recipe from Charcuterie? How did you like it? Are there any recipes you like better from a flavor perspective?
The meat ingredients in the recipe consist of 1 pound of pork shoulder, and a total of 22 ounces of back fat, which is about 913 grams. That doesn't count the weight of spices and water. Does the 3 grams of cure #1 (6.25% nitrite, 93.75% salt) seem reasonable for that amount of meat? Using online calculators, I get 206 PPM nitrite, which is over the US limit of 200 ppm. Would it be better to back that off a bit, say 2.25 grams of cure #1?
In the book, the recipe calls for stuffing the emulsified meat mixture into a "large beef middle". Is that a typo? The beef middles I've found online are in the range of 55 to 60 MM, much smaller in diameter than bologna or mortadella at the deli. Should that be a beef bung?
Due to the cost difference, I'd rather use one of those 100+ mm red fibrous bologna casings instead of a natural casing. Is there any reason to prefer a natural casing, other than it is edible and may look better?