mortadella

[Alan Lierz]

My daughter-in-law, Italian as she is would love some good ole mortadella. Anybody got a good recipe. The other question I have is do I cook it before aging? How do I know if I get it to the correct temp? If I insert a thermometer don’t I goof up the seel? Big Al

[Jim]

Hello Big Al,

Mortadella is a cooked sausage made quite differently from dry fermented types of sausage. In fact the only similarity is they both have meat as main ingredient. To our knowledge, real Italian Mortadella is not fermented or aged and the meat has to be made into an emulsion with chunks of pork fat and sometimes pistachios mixed in at the end. You can probably use UMAi Dry casing to make it, but we have never tried doing this, so if you end up doing this please share your results.
Here is a link to a recipe by our favorite Stanley Marianski: http://www.meatsandsausages.com/sausage-recipes/mortadella-bologna

[Jan Ooms]

Hi Big Al,
[b]Mariansi’s Mortadella recipe is very nice. Just make sure you don’t OVER emulsify the mix otherwise you will have parts of the sausage
look and feel like mousse, quite the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
Good Luck,
Jan.

[Jim]

Thats a really good point Jan, I guess thats why they use those vacuum bowl choppers in factories to keep those air bubbles out. Otherwise you end up with a meat meringue.

[Jan Ooms]

Yes, it would definitely be that. Quite edible though!!!!!!! with a spoon. I prefer mine freshly sliced.
Good Luck,
Jan

[Alan Lierz]

Ok, thanks for the encouragement. I’ll let you know how it turns out. You all have been very gracious for the help.

[Alan Lierz]

Jan and everyone
Hopefully this link get you a picture of my mortadella. Of course mine is the darker picture. I had purchased some Boars Head Mortadella and laid a piece next to it. I put pink salt in mine, so the darker color is likely from that. And I probably cured to to long 8 hours for one log and 24 hours for the others. I didn’t have time to cook it for three hours. I had a much larger batch than I thought. The texture was not as emulsified as Boars head, but hey, I don’t even have a grinder. I had the butcher do it and obviously not as find. I used pistachios and I don’t think Boars Head did at least not what I bought. The taste was similar, though mine had a more distinct flavor or more intense. The pliability was a little firmer, but again Boars Head likely didn’t cure theirs. Thanks for all the help. I used a UMAi bag to cook the mortadella in, but could probably have gotten by without a bag, because the dry steak bag started adhering but once in the water cut loose. Certainly was using it for a purpose not intended for the bag, just saying that. This is my first sausage of any sort. So lots of learning for me. I started with 7 lbs of meat, so you can say I am full of bologna.

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[Alan Lierz]

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[Alan Lierz]

I’m too computer illiterate to attach the picture

[Jim]

Hi Big Al,

We finally got around to making Mortadella in UMAi Dry and it exceeded our expectations:
Here is the blogpost on it: http://www.drybagsteak.com/blog/?p=548

[Pat Long]

Jim-Great looking Mortadell-I can almost taste it!

I am curious as to why you used Instacure #2 instead of Cure#1?

Thanks for the “Show and Tell!!

Pat

[Rick]

Looks real good

[Jim]

Hey Pat,

Thanks for your question. We screwed up, the recipe should have said InstaCure #1, that is what we used. Just corrected it. Thanks for the catch.

[Jan Ooms]

Hi Jim,
I have worked out why you used cure #2. It was no mistake. The Mortadella looked that good and tasted even better obviously.
You wanted to keep it so you could keep on slicing it up for the next 6 months. 😛
Cheers,
Jan

[Rick]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

If used with cure #2 you could use it for a torpedo :laugh:

Mortadella is a semi dry luncheon meat type of bologna which uses cure #1

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