Homemade Mortadella

Mortadella is the famous cooked sausage from Bologna. We've changed the original recipe a bit so you can make it at home. In the classic version, natural pork or beef casing is used - thin pork or thicker beef intestines. They are not so easy to find in markets, and even more so in stores, so we decided to use cling film. Don't be worried about safety - the temperature at which the sausage is cooked is too low for the film to "share" its ingredients with food or melt. Spices can be varied, such as substituting anise seeds for cumin or adding garlic to minced meat.

Ingredients

• lean pork pulp - 2 kg
• raw pork lard (preferably from the neck) - 700 g
• beef tenderloin - 500 g
• dry white wine - 50 ml
• peeled pistachios - 1 large handful
• whole nutmeg - 1/4 part
• ground white pepper - 0.5 tsp.
• black pepper (peas) - 2 tbsp. l.
• zira (seeds) - 1 tsp.
• salt - 2 tbsp. l.
• sugar - 1 tbsp. l.

Directions

1. Cut pork and beef into random pieces. Pass the pork through a meat grinder (with lattice holes 2-3 mm), add 1 tbsp. l. salt and all the sugar, stir, put in a bowl, cover tightly with foil and keep for 12 hours or a little longer in the refrigerator at 3-4 ° C.
2. Separately, in the same way, in a meat grinder with 2–3 mm lattice holes, grind the beef, add the remaining salt, mix, put in a bowl, cover tightly with foil and keep in the refrigerator for the same time as pork.
3. Thoroughly mix both types of prepared minced meat and mince four times, each time gradually (about 2 tsp.) Adding white wine to the minced meat.
4. Put cumin seeds in a dry frying pan, heat over low heat and cook, shaking the frying pan, 1–2 minutes, until the aroma appears. Then crush the seeds in a mortar as fine as possible and add it to the minced meat. Mix thoroughly.
5. Pour the pistachios over with hot water (but not boiling water!) To remove excess salt and dust from them and dry them completely on a paper towel. Add to the minced meat together with freshly ground white pepper.
6. Grate the nutmeg on the finest grater and add to the minced meat. Add black peppercorns. Mix thoroughly again.
7. Wrap the pork lard in foil and put in the freezer for 20-30 minutes, so that the lard hardens and is easy to cut. Using a sharp knife, dipping it in hot water, cut the bacon into cubes with a side of 10-12 mm.
8. Add the chopped bacon quickly, while it is still cold, to the minced meat and stir gently. This time, you do not need to thoroughly knead the minced meat - it is enough that the pieces of bacon are distributed more or less evenly.
9. Fold the cling film 4 times. You should have a rectangle measuring 30x40 cm. Put the minced meat on the film in the form of a "loaf" so that its short sides do not reach the edge of the film by at least 5 cm, along the long edge closest to you - by 5 cm, along the far - by 15 –20 cm.
10. Twist the edges tightly, the sausage should be 15 cm in diameter. Tie the edges with twine or strong thread. Put the tied loaf of sausage in a saucepan with water and cook at a temperature of 80–85 ° С (for this, the fire should be minimal, and the pan should be on the divider) for about 2 hours, until the temperature in the middle of the loaf reaches 68–70 ° С.
11. Cool the boiled sausage under running cold water. Additionally, ready-made sausage can be smoked with thick cold smoke at a temperature of 40–45 ° С for 5 hours. Mortadella can be stored for up to 15 days in a refrigerator at a temperature not exceeding 5–8 ° С.