Hobbyko's "Salame estivo con finocchio"

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 700 g pork, from the leg or lean loin
• 300 g bacon, fresh and unsalted back bacon
• Spice(s) per kg sausage mixture
• 26 g curing salt
• 2 g cane sugar, brown
• 2 g pepper, white, freshly ground
• 1 g black pepper, freshly ground
• 1 g pepper (cube pepper), freshly ground
• 4 g fennel, wild Sicilian, whole seeds
• ½ g starter cultures (please refer to the package leaflet)
• 30 ml red wine (Chianti)

Instructions

Working time approx. 3 hours; Rest period approx. 14 days; Total time approx. 14 days 3 hours

a recipe for smoked summer fennel salami

Explanation: Since it’s summer now and the season for raw sausages is really over, I decided to make a thinner and smaller version of fennel salami. The Italian name translated into German actually just means summer fennel salami. I didn’t air-dry it, but smoked it; I was intrigued by the idea of ​​smoking a version like this. Thanks also to Alberto, who helped me come up with the name. This recipe can’t be found anywhere else; it’s my own creation. This time I used the smaller, darker wild fennel from Sicily for the fennel. The mixture is stuffed into smokable Naturin R2 – 50/30 artificial casings or 45 caliber beef crown casings. Preparation: Cut the back bacon into slices, then cut into cubes and freeze hard. Cut the lean meat into strips suitable for grinding and freeze for a few hours. Preparation: Before preparation, soak Naturin casings for 10-30 minutes in a cold to lukewarm 10-15% saline solution while completely submerged. Freshly grind the spices (except fennel) and mix with the curing salt, starter cultures, and cane sugar. Mince 4/5 of the frozen strips of meat using the 8mm disk and 1/5 using the 3mm disk. Important: only mince using the three-part cutting set! Then mix the proportional amounts of the spices, salt, and sugar mixture + fennel, Chianti, and the bacon cubes together well, making sure there are no air bubbles in the mixture. (I used my dough kneading machine for this; the mixture was too cold for me.) Form the mixture into a ball (the air needs to be released), ie repeatedly throw it on the table and gather it together again, then shape it like a loaf of bread and refrigerate. After a few hours, throw the loaves into the sausage stuffer, press down firmly, and then stuff them into the prepared natural casings/ring casings, then tie them off. Hang them up for the next 2-3 days at a temperature of around 20°C and a relative humidity of 80-90% to allow them to redden, then gradually reduce the humidity over the next few days. Here I again used my tried and tested method of using a linen cloth that I sprayed with water every day. On the 5th day, remove the linen cloth and let it dry a bit. When they feel good, cold smoke them until the casing has taken on a nice color. I moistened the back 2/3 of the smoking wood chips to prevent the sausages from drying out any faster. A few days after smoking, I vacuum-sealed the sausages, spraying them with pomace schnapps every day beforehand. After 1-2 weeks, remove them from the vacuum, rinse them, hang them up to dry, and enjoy.