Today, let’s see how we can prepare at home the Finocchiona, a typical Tuscan Fennel salami.
Actually, since I haven’t made this cured meat in Tuscany but in Salento, and I haven’t used pork meat from pigs raised and bred in Tuscany, I couldn’t call it Finocchiona but rather a salami similar to Finocchiona.
Enough with the talk, let’s see what we need to prepare our homemade Italian Fennel Salami.
INGREDIENTS
PORK SHOULDER 1400 g
PORK BELLY 600 g
SEA SALT 60 g
GROUND PEPPER 2 g
WHOLE PEPPERCORNS 6 g
WHITE WINE 1/2 glass
GARLIC 1 clove
FENNEL SEEDS 8 g
SUGAR 10 g
WATER 700 ml
WHITE VINEGAR 1 tablespoon
SALAMI CASING https://amzn.to/48TrCxE
INSTRUCTIONS
- The evening before, place the garlic clove inside the wine to allow it time to release its aroma.
- Clean the meat from any bone or rind pieces.
- Now that everything is ready we can mince the meat (recommended hole size 6 mm).
- Add all the spices, the salt, the wine flavored with garlic, and give it a good mix to thoroughly blend all the ingredients.
CASING PREPARATION
5. In a container with water and white vinegar, we soak our casing until it becomes soft and easy to work with.
6. Once the casing is softened, we give our meat mixture a good stir and then proceed to fill our casing, trying to avoid the formation of air bubbles.
7. Tie the end tightly, and then give it the typical salami binding, as shown in the video.
8. We pierce our salami with a needle to release the air.
Now, let’s move on to the curing process.
CURING PROCESS
Once our fennel salami is stuffed, if you want to help the formation of white molds, the noble molds, you can simply rub a salami with white molds over it, so you don’t have to buy any kit to make salami.
We need to hang our Finocchiona salami at room temperature for at least 8 hours; if it’s winter, it’s fine even for 18 hours to start the fermentation.
The best temperature for aging is 14°C – 57°F with humidity at 70%. Since I don’t have a cellar or a dedicated fridge, I aged my Finocchiona salami in the home fridge, set to the minimum power to maintain a temperature of at least 6°C – 43°F.
After 48 days, I could enjoy with great pleasure my spectacular homemade Finocchiona, the Italian Fennel salami.
For this recipe, I tried to follow the guidelines, but advice is always welcome. Feel free to leave your comments below the video on YouTube.
