2Lbs 85% or leaner Ground Beef
2t Liquid Smoke
2t Ground Black Pepper
2t Mustard Seed
1 1/2t Crushed Fennel Seed
1-2t Crushed Red Pepper
1/2t Garlic Powder
1t Paprika
1/2t Sugar
2t (heaping) Tender Quick Curing Salt
Dump your meat in a bowl and throw spices on top.*
See the spice mix at 11 o' clock? That's my fennel and
red pepper. I put it in my coffee grinder because I found
it really hard to crush. I sold my mortar and pestle at a garage
sale a few years ago. Who knew it'd finally come in handy!?
With very clean hands (and NO rings on**), mix the meat and
spices very well, kinda like making meat loaf.
Slap a lid on and put it in the fridge for 48 to 72 hours, remixing once per day..
I'm assuming this allows the flavors to meld and the curing salt to do its magic.
On the day you will be cooking them (start early...it takes 8 hours!),
wrap a small pan with foil and use a rack to cover it. I originally used
the contraption below, then figured out...duh! I can use the pan and rack
in my trusty little toaster oven! That way, my big oven is free for dinner!
After 48 hours (I cheated and it was only about 36 hours), I took out my
pepperoni mix and shaped it into really gross turd looking things, uh logs.
Pop in the (toaster) oven at 200 degrees and bake for 8 hours.
You need to take them out every two hours and turn them a 1/4 turn.
After 8 hours, remove from oven and you have two little pepperonis!
They don't so much as cook down as they seem to be dessicated.
I wrapped one up in foil to throw in the freezer right away. The other,
I cut open the end to see if it looked red like pepperoni does. It does!
I decided to pop this one in the fridge for a bit,
then slice it up and freeze it! Sorry for the bad pix.
Notes:
*You will note that the Tender Quick is not in this picture. When I first mixed it, I did not have any as of yet. Earlier in the day, I had gone to the store and looked at the ingredients on the package...salt, sugar, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite. All for about $4.00 yikes! I then thought....mehhhh, I can make that! Yeahhhh, righhhhtttt! Read on. You see, I (stupidly) thought I could just use some sea salt, some sugar and some msg or meat tenderizer, LOL! (There may be a fine line between arrogance and frugality, lol!) JUST AS I was going to plop these on top of the meat, a moment of rationality hit me...hmmmmm, what if this was dangerous somehow? I stopped what I was doing and headed to the trusty internet. I figure it's always good to trust your gut...never steered me wrong yet!
Well, my oh my, did I find some stuff! You cannot, I repeat CANNOT make your own salt cure safely. Key word here, people like me who think they can do it all themselves, SAFELY! Turns out the average home cook/non-scientist type person cannot possibly measure out the miniscule amounts of the nitrate/nitrite mixture. And even if you could, you couldn't get it to mix properly where the ratios would stay suspended properly in the mixture.
It also turns out that the nitrates form some kind of gas (Nitris oxide? Maybe I should have sniffed my meat mixture for a good night's sleep, ha ha ha...just kidding...really.) and that gas turns into nitrites or some silly thing like that, making the meat appear nice and pink like we're used to in cured meats. There's your fancy, most likely incorrect science lesson, because I'm going off of memory from 2 days ago's internet search. Turns out, if you don't do things correctly, and I'm assuming this means for people who are doing a dry cure over weeks/months, not the cooked kind like we're doing, you can actually get botulism! I wasn't taking any chances, even if I was cooking the darn thing! I ran right to the store and happily paid $3.98 for a bag of Tender Quick. I did find some people online talking about how they just use their own mix of stuff, but invariably they were barraged with "What?! Are you crazy? Do you have a death wish?!" kinds of feedback. I don't want to be one of those people...or a dead one. Moving on...
**Okay, I gotta say it! Everyone who knows me knows I'm a major germaphobe! No, not the kind who washes their hands 837 times a day....just particular in some ways. For example, I'll eat something I've dropped on my (usually clean) floor, depending on what it is, but I WILL NOT touch a bathroom door handle with my bare hands to if my life depended on it! Speaking of creepy things...people with rings on, plunging their germ-infested jewelry into food products. Not to mention, say the person makes this (pepperoni) product...gets meat lodged in their rings in tiny places you cannot see, it sours, goes rancid, produces toxic little germy things. Then the person makes something else they plunge their hands into, essentially contaminating the next thing they're making! Ughhhhh! {{{Shivers}}} It's just gross. People, I promise you, if you knew what kinda crud is trapped in your jewelry, you really wouldn't do this. (Unless you have your rings professionally cleaned each time you make a meal, then forgive my rant. You're rich, smart and very attractive!) Save yourself and your family from getting sick. Take your lovely jewelry off and set it aside (somewhere far away from the sink, lol!) Your food will be relatively contaminant-free and your family will be alive. It really is a win-win situation. Thank you. I'm done now.
Back to the pepperoni...while the texture was a little drier than I am used to, this is really pretty good. The pepperoni from the store is just slick with fat. Mine is not. I kinda like that slick fat. It's funny. When it was in the bowl raw, I thought it smelled just like pepperoni. After I tasted the cooked product, it was just a little different than I imagined. Still quite good, still pepperoni-like, but just different. I used a little more red pepper than I probably should have. It is pretty spicy...hence the name...spicy pepperoni. If you are not a fan of spice, add just a little, or omit altogether. I haven't tried it on pizza yet, but I'll let you know what we think of it.
The good news about this is that I made one pound of pepperoni for about $2.50 (15.6 cents per ounce)! (Had I used the beef I just got at Aldi for $1.39/Lb, it would have come in at about $1.50!!! But I had to use up some old stuff first.) I looked online at 5 different places for Hormel (7oz) Pepperoni to compare prices. The average comes to $3.29 for 7oz (47 cents per ounce...yikes!). I made over twice that for less money! I'd say that's a pretty good savings, 66%!
This really was simple to make, so don't let the several day recipe fool you. Just do it on a day when you'll be home all day and be sure to set your timer for every two hours to turn it. That's it! Easy peasy! If you give it a try, let me know what you think! Recipe courtesy of Tammy's Recipes.
This is how we make our homemade summer sausage except we use different spices and seasonings. Finished product looks yummy can't wait to hear your review on it when you make some pizza!
ReplyDeleteIf you are cooking the pepperoni don't get all paranoid about the cure, the low temperature cooking or smoking would be fine on its own. You also CAN make the cure yourself, you'll find those salts at the pharmacy or online, not the grocery store.
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