Charcuterie_ The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Michael Ruhlman [79]
Once again, salt is the key component in rendering raw meat safe and edible. Whole cuts, such as hams and hog jowls, are salted, often with added aromatic seasonings, and left to cure for days or weeks. The salt substantially reduces the microbe activity that would otherwise cause rancidity and rot, the drying finishes off the dehydration process.
All dry-cured sausages must include a curing salt, often sodium nitrate. A nitrate (not nitrite) is used to prevent the possibility of botulism contamination in sausages that are stored at above refrigeration temperatures for long periods. The nitrate over time turns into nitrite, which then does the curing work. These sausages may contain pungent spices, or they may be seasoned with just a hint of garlic and pepper. They may be smoked, or they may simply be hung to dry, perhaps for a couple weeks, perhaps for a year. But, as ever, the three basic foundations of this kind of preparation are shared by all: Some form of salt cure reduces the bacterial activity that would cause spoilage; a nitrite prevents botulism spores and other harmful bacteria from growing within the meat, as well as flavoring it and keeping it appealingly red; and the sausages or meats are hung to dry. Humidity is necessary for proper drying. If the air is too dry, the surface of the meat can dry out, harden, and then prevent the interior moisture from escaping, resulting in a rotten sausage.
Dry sausages begin no differently from fresh sausages. Meat, salt and seasonings are ground together and stuffed into casings. But instead of being heated, they are dehydrated. Dry-curing results in a beautiful type of sausage, the most individualistic, idiosyncratic, and temperamental sausage there is, precisely because of its reliance on atmospheric conditions, which change all year round, and the presence of varying microflora in the air.
Because these are so temperamental and idiosyncratic, they can also be the most frustrating sausage to attempt. Some friends and I visited Georges Reynon, one of the most respected charcutiers in Lyon, France, a city famed for its dried sausages. Reynon gave us a tour of his shop, where we watched his butchers trimming very thick, exquisitely white back fat of all glands and nerves and impurities (the keys to great dried sausage, Reynon said, are beautiful fat and skillful butchers), and a tour of his drying room. There, where more than a thousand sausages hung, the humidity and temperature were perfectly controlled. Still, Reynon expressed his frustration at being unable to achieve a consistent product. The sausages were never the same, he said, and it drove him crazy. He pointed to some that were perfect, and others that had a thick coating of white mold on them, not harmful but something he considered to be an imperfection. He had no idea why they should be different, but they were.
The process is elusive. You cannot see the water leaving the sausage, but you can feel the sausage becoming firmer and denser, and you can weigh it to gauge the water loss. You can’t see the bacteria generating acid, and you’d need a pH meter to know how much acid was actually in the sausage. What is it that is attaching itself to the skin? Hard to say. Smooth white stuff tends to be good, fuzzy is definitely bad, as are any colors other than white. And what’s going on inside the sausage? Impossible to say until you cut it open. Dry-curing sausage takes time and patience, experimentation, and a willingness to get it wrong at first.
But when your sausage has dried just right, and you slice it thin, and the interior is a glistening deep crimson red with bright pearly chunks of fat, it is incredibly exciting.