Finocciona is a dry cured sausage that has lots of fennel seed in it. Used this recipe for two different batches in order to compare the difference between Heritage Pork and Costco pork. Its my first attempt to make a fermented sausage. Look for a later post that will contain the results of the comparison side by side pork quality challenge. This recipe is adapted from the cookbook Salumi by Ruhlman and Polcyn. I use gram weights in this recipe for accuracy.
Ingredients:
5 lbs pork shoulder or but 75/25 split meat/fat
30 g sea salt
7 g curing salt #2
6 g course ground black pepper
6 g course ground white pepper
12 g corn syrup
14 g fennel seeds, toasted and cracked. (I used my toaster oven for 1 minute 15 seconds)
8 garlic cloves crushed thru garlic press
125 ml red wine, pinot noir
Bactoferm as per the package for 5 lbs of meat
3 tbsp distilled water for the bactoferm
Mold 600 for spraying the links when in your drying chamber
Beef Middles as needed for stuffing soaked in water for 20 minutes. I needed about 6 feet.
Steps:
1. Make sure your pork is well chilled and grind it thru your course grinding plate. Put it back into the fridge to rechill it.
2. Create your Bactoferm culture with the distilled water and let it cure for the recommended time on the package.
3. Add all herbs, cure and spices except for the garlic in a small container and mix them thoroughly.
4. Add the garlic, and spice mixture to the ground pork and mix it with your hands until evenly mixed.
5. Add the red wine and the bactoferm culture to the sausage mixture and remix until fully incorporated.
6. Stuff your sausage into the beef middles
7. Allow the sausages to rest in a warm moist place for 18 hours. This allows the bactoferm to ferment and flavor the sausage. (78 degrees, 80% humidity)
8. Weigh each sausage and mark down the its initial weight.
9. Hang the sausage in your drying/curing chamber. Spray the sausages with the Mold 600 culture at this point (use the package instructions to dilute and cultivate it)
10. Dry at 58 degrees and 70% humidity until each sausage loses at least 30% of its weight.
