Cheese in your dried sausage?

[Sherri]

Has anyone had any experience adding cheese into your dried sausage formulation? Hubby and I were in Quebec earlier in the summer and there were saucisson sec with a wide variety of “flavors” sold there. I recall mushroom and I recall cheese for example. Anyone have any advice on adding ingredients like those?

I do owe you all an update. Have been away from the site for a while, but have been regularly playing with our Umai bags and casings.

[Rick]

Yes cheese will work.

[Sherri]

nepas, thanks. Do you have any guidelines to keep in mind?

[Bob]

To add flavor fermented sausages you can add grated cheeses like Romano and Parmesan or there are also dried cheese and mushroom powders available :

http://www.myspicesage.com/search/go#p=R&w=chee&url=http%3a%2f%2fwww.myspicesage.com%2fsearch%2fgo%3fw%3dcheese%2520powder%26ts%3dajax&rk=1&uid=265373025&ts=rac&rt=racsug&rsc=5-dI79Kfxe2RRSKV&asug=chee&apelog=yes

2.5% is a good starting point

Have made this one and it good!

Mushroom Salami

2.5 kg class I pork
500g. backfat
7.5g Cure #2
75g salt
6g dextrose
9g sugar
6g. white pepper
15g coarsely ground black pepper
3tsp thyme
3g garlic powder
75g grated Romano cheese
75ml chilled red wine
40g mushroom powder
4g T-SPX starter culture

[Sherri]

Hey Trebor,

Thanks for the link for interesting ingredients as well as the recipe. I appreciate your sharing those. That is definitely a recipe that I will give a go to. The sausicon, that I had in Quebec and I am dreaming about, had actual chunks of blue cheese in it. If you enjoy blue cheese, it was amazing. What I was thinking I would need to do it crumble and freeze the cheese chunks, but I also assume that the percentage of back fat in the salami would possibly need to change due to the fatty chunks of cheese. This is definitely a sausage with figuring out. We also enjoyed a lovely one with chunks of mushroom.

In my two months of MIA, I have been playing around a bit. I have tried new recipe for the Lomo (loin) and Lonzino (tenderloin) also known as Lonza and Filetto (for extra internet searches) but am still not convinced that I have a cure I fully enjoy. Reviews on my first batch, the Umai recipe, included that it “tasted like church” meaning that the cloves tasted like the chapel incense smelled. I found another recipe for a Lomo Embuchado which I used on both tenderloins and loin. It was more in the right direction, but I am still not blown away. Currently, I have a loin drying using the Umai capicola cure (corrected for salt and time) and we’ll see what comes of that.

I did the saucisson sec from the Umai site with a four spice blend (they vary) of 7 parts white pepper, 1 part cinnamon, 1 part clove, and one part nutmeg. It is just beautiful. We will be trying it again with reduced cayenne for the few that don’t like the cayenne kick.

I also am breaking in my local butcher. They now let me into the cutting room to extract those coppa muscles. I have two capicola curing and drying. One is with a new hot recipe and the other using the corrected Umai recipe. Looking forward to reporting on those.

This past week, I found a recipe in “The Roaming Gastrognome” blog for a truffled saucison sec. Here is his link: http://theroaminggastrognome.com/2014/01/30/truffled-saucisson-sec-taking-the-next-step-on-my-charcuterie-adventure/#more-2578 From my few previous umai salami, the fat and salt ratios did not seem right and the recipe lacks the instacure #2 and TSPX so put together another recipe using what I think I know. I have yet to try the outcome (drying began on friday) but I would be happy to list out what I did if you are interested. Based on the scraps from the stuffing, we are making a second batch this Tuesday as the truffle sauce, once opened, only “lasted 10 days” in the refrigerator. I bought the sauce from The Gourmet Online (http://www.thegourmetonline.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=blue+cheese) and I received amazing customer service from them (I needed clarification on the nutritional facts which they rapidly obtained from the manufacturer in Italy).

Lastly, I found out that Whole Foods sells duck breast so I also have some duck proscuitto curing. I used concept of the salt and spices from the Umai site but did some corrections as the meat and cure did not look like a match and added in a first step of a 12 hour soak in liquor. Fingers crossed.

[Sherri]

Update. So it turns out I did keep the wrapper from the salami with blue cheese like I planned. Had misplaced it until this afternoon. Here is the list of ingredients in case anyone else is inspired: pork, blue cheese, salt, maple sugar, pepper, sodium nitrite, fermenting culture, natural casing.

Also, the truffled saussicon sec was well received. I do believe that batch 1 has some dry rim (I knocked over my pan of water and neglected to replace) but they are each vacuum sealed and I expect will equalize. The taste was good and daughter picked up on the truffle without me explaining. And, she said it was a nice amount as she stated that truffle can tend to be overdone. Batch 2 (had to use up the jar) appears to be drying at a better pace. I’ll be more certain in a week.

[Author]

Posts