Mortadella
The third and final meat at the meat slicer party this past weekend was a homemade mortadella. Making the mortadella was quite the undertaking but I had a lot of fun doing it! I used a recipe from Marco Canora that was published in Lucky Peach #4 and it came out absolutely delicious. Big thanks to Moody’s Delicatessen for selling me the sausage casings in an emergency!
Milk powder, salt, paprika, and a whole ton of nutmeg go on to the diced up pork shoulder. I put this into the freezer before blending it.
Outfit your food processor with some ice or cold packs to keep everything cool.
Then really just crank it out. There was some frozen milk and a dash of almond extract in each processor batch.
Is this bubble gum? No its pureed pork. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Boil a meatball of your pork to check for seasoning. Mine tasted great but it came out so grey that I added a few drops of red food coloring. I don’t love using food coloring in recipes but I didn’t have any other options and didn’t want it to look unappetizing at the party!
I couldnt get my hands on fatback so I used the fatty part of pork belly for the white chunks in the sausage. You blanch these for a few minutes first.
Then mix the blanched fat with pistachios and peppercorns. Stir in some egg whites before adding it all to the meat. I think I need a bigger bowl!
The meat needs to sit in the fridge for 4 days to cure.
I made a few different batches of pickles for the sandwiches.
Ok, Time to stuff the sausages!
Beauties. These get boiled until they reach an internal temp of 155.
Finally it’s time for the party. Here I am with my meat slicer and some mortadella. The casing needs to come off before you slice it.
This is what it’s all about.
I might have gone a little overboard on the pistachios but can you blame me?
Time for some sandwiches!
There are thoes spicy pickles I mentioned, and some homemade mustard to go along with it.
I also put a little coleslaw on the sandwich and it added a nice crunch.
One final shot of it in all it’s thin sliced glory.
A few nights later I cut some thick to use in pasta and thought it looked great as well.
I am not really into publishing a recipe that is in a magazine and not available on the web, so I’m not gonna. If you want to buy that issue of lucky peach, you can get it here. This isn’t a beginner recipe though, so if you are planning on tackling it, you probably have enough skill and expertise already to tool it out based on my pictures and a few smart google searches.
I like to follow your recepie, it does look cool! I have few questions:
1. The frozed meet is almost like ice. How come the food processor or blades did not crank?
2. Had you tried w/o ice packs, does it make a lot of difference?
3, Where to by the causing, could you recommend any other place? I am not in Boston area.
Thanks
Hi Oleg! Thanks for reading. To answer your questions, The meat wasn’t fully frozen when I put it into the food processor, it was just a little cooler than it would have been in the fridge. Second, I think doing it without the ice packs woudnt make too much of a difference, but the idea is that you want the fat to stay solid in the food processor. So if you don’t freeze the meat or use the ice packs, there is more of a chance of the fat melting in the food processor.
As for the casing, you can order it online, or try calling around some local butchers.
looks awsome can’t wait to try this! i’d recommend to you next time forgoing the added food color. i’m guessing your meat turned grey in the water because your meat hadn’t yet cured fully.generally takes a couple hrs for pink salt to really do its thing, i could be wrong though
God damn this looks good!
Wait so is there a recipe?
If you dust your solid ingredients (pistachios etc.) They will adhere better to the emulsion after cooking. This is done in commercial process.
If you dust your solid ingredients (pistachios etc.) in soy protein powder, They will adhere better to the emulsion after cooking. This is done in commercial process.
récité mec
This is … I just …. (passes out on top of keyboard) Wakes Up several hours later with uhm, no other way to put it but ‘wet-dream’ pants, entirely inappropriate for a man in his late 30s. Apologies, and can you make this and FedEx to Ireland?