Hi Redzed: I am trying my hand at your Salame Calabrese recipe. I had a couple of questions to ask if you don't mind. I was able to obtain pork back fat from a local amish farmer's market. I cut it up, but then took a look at your photo above. Mine has striations of meat mixed with the fat. See the Class 1 pork and back fat in the curing container.
Do you think I should try to trim the meat off of those pieces and get more fat to make up for the weight loss or increase the quantity of back fat to approximate the 18% fat in the recipe?
Second question has to do with adding dextrose to the cubed meat during the 48 hour cure Your initial instructions have dextrose added to the pork cubes with the salt and cure. Your photo from the 2nd time around indicates just salt and cure in the pork for the 48 hour cure. I left the dextrose out in my version since I am intending on the dextrose being available to feed the culture, not whatever bacteria might be present during the 48 hour cure. And, so that leads to another question, why the 48 hour cure when the culture is to be added after grinding? I am doing it anyway, but would like to understand the need for this step.
And how did the star anise work out? I have both anise and star anise pods. Did you grind up the full pods or did you extract the seeds and just grind them? Cutting back to 1.5 grams/kg. Was that good, or would you go to 2 grams/kg?
Thanks for your insights and any recommendations. I have Calabrian dried peppers and am really looking forward to this recipe!