As a child, I grew up eating European cold cuts that my dad would bring from his trips to Cyprus back to Egypt in the 80's. He'd acquired a taste for many fine foods, among them mortadella. He would bring back an assortment of things for us to try by freezing them and bringing them back in large suitcases.
So, mortadella was among the cured meats that became a staple in our household. Over time, after moving to the US, we'd seek out specialty Italian shops and try the different offerings to find the best mortadella we could find, sliced impossibly thin.
Naturally, this is a cured meat I've been wanting to attempt for many years but have been somewhat intimidated to. You see, unlike curing a whole muscle, making mortadella requires a delicate emulsion with a specific spice blend, gentle cooking and a difficult to find large diameter casing.
They say the name for mortadella comes from both the fact that it used to be made with mortars and pestles and that it used to contain myrtle. The history of making this meat product is well documented and goes back over 600 years in Bologna. I've been lucky enough to go to Bologna several times and have tried some of the best mortadella in the world. Additionally, I've had a chance to witness its production at a demonstration factory at Eataly world.
The professionals use specialty vacuum stuffers that don't contain circular augars, which reduces aeration and guarantees a more uniform product. Also, after talking to some mortadella makers, they say tripe is used as a binder and contributes to the pink color. While I didn't use tripe in my first attempt, I may try to do so in future attempts.
Another factor that makes the mortadella intimidating is the large size diameter for which a casing must be found. While I looked for these casings many times over the years, they seemed impossible to find. Then I came across a resource that simply wrapped the mortadella blob in plastic wrap and tensioned the ends to get a log or loaf shape that was 4" in diameter or greater.
As far as seasoning goes, I know from tasting mortadella over the years, that some of the most prominent flavors are mace and garlic. I knew I wanted these to be frontrunners in my recipe. Also, some people use Instacure #1 while others do not. I decided to use it in my recipe to get a pink rather than grey color. I also froze some wine and added it to the food processor for this purpose.
By using a sous vide wand, I could also eliminate much of the guess work of cooking the mortadella properly.
My overall results, while acceptable for a first attempt, left much room for improvement. While the seasoning was pretty close, I wanted to add more caraway than I did. I never really expected for caraway or coriander to be in there, but they play more of a role than I expected, and next time I will up their proportions.
Here's how I made my first one:
| 2.12lbs boneless pork chops (3 pieces) |
| .82lbs pork belly (1 piece) |
| cube the fattiest pieces from the pork belly and reserve for blanching. |
| 17grams or 3 tsp salt |
| 3 grams or 2/3 tsp Instacure #1 |
| 1/2 tsp cane sugar |
| 1 tsp garlic powder |
| 1.5 cups ice water |
| 1 Tbsp whole black peppercorn for blanching |
| 1 tsp whole white pepper |
| 2/3 tsp ground coriander |
| 2 tsp whole mace |
| 1 cup frozen wine |
| 1/4 cup pistachio for blanching |
| 1/8 tsp anise |
| 1/4 tsp caraway |
| 2 cloves |
To start, this is a 2-3 day process. The first thing to do is to make the spice blend and cut up the pork and fat into 1 inch cubes for freezing. I cubed about half of the pork belly, the fattiest parts, into 1/2" pieces to use as the cubes of fat that are found in each slice. These were reserved separately in the fridge. I added the spices to the large cubes before putting them into the freezer for about 20 minutes. This allows the cure and spices to start working on the meat. I also put my meat grinder attachments into the freezer at the same time.
Once chilled, I used my biggest grinder plate to grind the meat coarsely and then put the ground meat back in the freezer for another 20 minutes. I then ground the meat and fat a second time on my finest grinding plate. After that I put the ground meat back in the freezer along with my food processor blade. Also about 1 cup of red wine was placed in the freezer.
Before beginning the emulsion, I poured boiling water on the small fat cubes along with the pistachio and whole black peppercorn so they could adhere in the emulsified sausage better. I set aside for 20 minutes and strained the liquid afterwards.
To begin the emulsion, I placed half the ground meat in the food processor and slowly pulsed it on. I added half the frozen wine, pulsed some more, and added about 1 cup of ice water to try to emulsify the mixture even more. I didn't know it at the time, but I think I added too much water because it later affected the texture of the final product. Once sufficiently smooth, I emptied out the food processor and repeated with the second batch.
Once both batches were processed, I combined them in a bowl and added the blanched fat cubes, pistachios and pepper. I mixed thoroughly and dumped the blob onto some overlapped pieces of plastic wrap to tighten into a log. Ideally, the mixture would have been left overnight to set before cooking, but I didn't have the time to do that, so I only let it set for about 3 hours before cooking.
To cook, I vacuum sealed the log wrapped in plastic wrap and dunked into a sous vide water bath at 158˚ and left it there for 4 hours. After that, I removed, let cool and placed in the fridge overnight. The next morning upon tasting the meat was still soft and nearly pate like, the flavors hadn't quite melded yet, but the following day, the texture was firmer and the spices were much better incorporated. So, I recommend waiting at least a day after cooking it before starting to consume it. I was overall happy with my spice mix, but in the future, I will add more garlic, coriander, caraway and less black peppercorn. Also, the 1 cup of wine might be reduced to 1/2 cup and the water with large ice cubes would be replaced with crushed ice.
Overall, I found this to be much more doable than I had previously thought. I bought a 1 pound bag of Instacure #1 for under $10 which was one of the limiting factors for getting started on this, otherwise the rest was pretty straightforward with an otherwise well-stocked kitchen. Let me know if you try it and if you have tips or tricks on how to do it better. Buon appetito.
