Bresaola and Biltong are the two pure beef Salumi I regularly make. Winter is always busy, getting enough Salumi processed for the rest of the year. This week I made both Bresaola and Biltong

RECIPE

Get yourself a good quality Beef Silverside and cut decent chunks of steaks for the Bresaola (About 250 mm long and 100 mm in diameter). Remove all sinew and fat and leave clean cut surfaces on all sides. Dry the meat well.

Mix the following spices together (Quantities for 1 Kg of meat)

28 g Salt

7 g Brown Sugar

3 Juniper Berries – Crushed

1 Glove – Crushed

2 Cloves of Garlic – Finely chopped

2 Dry Bay Leave – Crushed

3 g Black Pepper – Ground

1 g Nutmeg – Grated

1 g Cinnamon – Crushed

Mix the spices well and rub thoroughly into the meat. Place the spiced meat covered in the fridge for 5 days and turn and rub twice daily. You can also use a food bag for this as it allows for easy mixing and the meat is always covered.

After 5 days, remove the meat from the fridge and wash thoroughly in cold running water and then rinse with a good white wine, then dry the meat properly – The photo above is at this stage of the processing.

Now comes the fun part. Wrap the meat in natural sheep casings. If you are lucky enough, you may find a large enough Salame casing and you can just slip it inside, provided it is a tight fit. I cut the casings open and carefully wrap it around the meat and tie it down with string. Make sure there are no exposed meat. You can now either tie it down further or slip it into a stretchable meat netting, which I did.

Prick very well on all sides and hang the Bresaola in a cool place of about 15 C for 3 days and then hang inside the fridge until ready to use, which may be about 100 days. I am fortunate that my pantry is well ventilated and always a couple degrees lower than the ambient temperature and I hang my Bresaola there and not wasting fridge space. Dunedin being cool during June, July and August and my well ventilated pantry with average temperatures of less than 10 C at all the times, which is ideal, makes the perfect curing house. As my curing temperatures are about 6 C, my Salumi cures a bit faster than in the fridge. Make sure you do not have wind (draft) over the meat as it will cause case drying and rotting in the core. Well ventilated without drafts is very important.

I made 5 Bresaola, starting with 11 Kg meat in total and after cleaning the 5 was 7Kg in total. The 4 Kg meat, not used for Bresaola, was well used for minced meat and the sinew, excess fat and poorer quality cuts made wonderful beef stock

Bresaola is more than often part of my antipasto platters and goes down very well with a glass of HOME MADE RED WINE !! ENJOY !!