Ferrara Style Salama da Sugo | Salama da Sugo Ferrarese
Salama da sugo is the strangest thing Ferrara does with a pig, and the best. It looks like a dark, misshapen salame tied into segments, and it is the only cured pork product in Italy that is inedible until it has cooked for most of a day. Inside that thick casing is a matured paste of pork shoulder, neck, belly, liver and tongue, bound with red wine and heavy spice and aged a year or more.
This recipe starts from a salama somebody else has made, and that needs saying before a single measurement. Maturing one means controlling humidity, airflow and temperature for months in a room built for the purpose, and it is not a thing to improvise without that equipment and knowledge. Buy from a Ferrara producer or a good salumeria and spend your skill on the cooking.
The cooking is a suspended water bath held for hours under a simmer: the salama never touches the bottom of the pot, it is wrapped in cloth, and the water never boils. What comes out is not sliceable. You open the casing at the table, spoon the interior onto soft potato puree and pour the dark juices over. In Ferrara that is Christmas.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings. Active prep: 30 minutes. Soaking: 10 to 12 hours. Cooking: 4 to 5 hours. Total: about 16 hours. Difficulty: intermediate, and entirely a matter of patience. Course: secondo. Region: Emilia Romagna, Ferrara and its province.
The Story
Ferrara is a city built by one family, and salama da sugo tastes like it. The house of Este ruled here from the thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth, and under Borso, Ercole and Alfonso the kitchens of the Castello Estense were among the most inventive in Europe. Cristoforo di Messisbugo, steward to the Este and author of a great Renaissance cookbook, worked in them. A sausage needing a year of maturing is a courtly idea.
The documentary trail is unusually good for a regional sausage. Ferrarese records of the fifteenth century list salame da sugo among goods worth naming, and the most quoted evidence is a letter in which Lorenzo de Medici thanks Ercole I d'Este for a gift of them. By the late Quattrocento this was a prestige food, sent between courts.
What goes inside is the reason it needs so long. Shoulder, neck and belly go in for meat and fat, with liver and tongue for depth, worked with red wine, black pepper, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon. The paste fills a thick bladder, is tied into segments and hangs at least six months, often beyond a year, until the liver stops tasting of liver and turns dark and sweet. The result belongs to the feast, to Christmas and the autumn sagre, and the potato puree is the other half of the dish, a plain buttery bed for juices too intense to eat alone.
Ingredients
For the salama
Whole matured salama da sugo from Ferrara, 2 to 2 1/2 lb (900 g to 1.15 kg)
Cold water, enough to cover by 2 inches (5 cm)
Dry red wine, 1 cup (240 ml), optional, in the cooking water
Bay leaves, 2, optional
For rigging the pot
Cheesecloth or thin cotton cloth, 1 large piece
Butcher twine, about 3 ft (1 m)
Heatproof saucer, to invert on the bottom of the pot
Long wooden spoon, to lay across the rim
For the potato puree
Floury potatoes, Yukon Gold or similar, 3 lb (1.35 kg)
Whole milk, warmed, 1 cup (240 ml)
Unsalted butter, cold and cubed, 6 tbsp (85 g)
Fine sea salt, 1 1/2 tsp (9 g)
Freshly grated nutmeg, a small pinch, optional
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For serving
Coarse sea salt, for the potato water
Crusty bread, coppia ferrarese if you can find it
Preparation
Step 1
Choose the salama and read it with your hands. A good one is firm and heavy for its size, evenly dark, tied into clear segments and dusted with the pale mould any long matured salume develops. It should give slightly under the thumb and feel uniformly dense, with no soft pockets and no hard dry patches. Under six months of maturing is not ready.
Step 2
Brush the mould off, wash it, then soak it. Brush the whole surface with a stiff dry brush, working into the creases between the segments, then wash it under cool running water and dry it. The mould is harmless but it tastes of cellar. Soak the salama whole in cold water for 10 to 12 hours, changing the water two or three times.
Step 3
Wrap it in cloth and tie it. Lay the cheesecloth flat, set the drained salama in the middle, gather the cloth around it snugly and tie it along its length, leaving a long tail at the top knot. After a year of maturing the casing has lost its elasticity and can split, and wrapped, a split casing costs you nothing.
Step 4
Rig the pot so the salama hangs clear of the bottom. Invert a heatproof saucer on the base as a platform, lower the wrapped salama onto it, and tie the twine tail to a wooden spoon laid across the rim so it hangs with a gap beneath. Either method works alone and both together is better. What you must never do is let it rest on the bare metal base.
Step 5
Cover with water and bring it up slowly. Add cold water to cover by about 2 inches (5 cm), with the wine and bay leaves if you use them, over low heat for 30 to 40 minutes. You want 180°F to 190°F (82°C to 88°C), a barely trembling surface. Hold it there 4 to 5 hours, topping up with hot water, never letting it boil.
Step 6
Make the puree in the last hour. Boil the potatoes whole in their skins in well salted water until a knife slides through, 30 to 40 minutes. Drain, peel them while still uncomfortably hot and pass them through a ricer into a wide pan. Over low heat beat in the warm milk in three additions, then the cold butter cube by cube, and season with salt, nutmeg and pepper. Keep it soft and pourable, because it has to receive the juices.
Step 7
Lift it out, unwrap it, then open it at the table. Turn off the heat, let the pot stand 10 minutes, then lift the salama by its twine with a wide slotted spoon underneath so nothing takes its weight at one point. Set it in a deep warmed bowl, snip the twine and peel the cloth away, keeping every drop that runs out, and let it settle 10 minutes. Cut a disc from the top of the casing and serve the interior with a spoon, never sliced: puree on each hot plate, a spoonful of salama on top, the juices poured over.
Plating
Heat the plates hotter than you would for almost anything else. The interior is between a third and a half fat, glossy at serving temperature and pasty about ninety seconds after it meets a cold plate. Warm the serving bowl too. This is the commonest failure of an otherwise correct salama.
Build it in two layers and no more. A wide spoonful of puree first, spread into a soft hollow rather than a flat disc, then the salama set into the hollow so the juices run into the potato instead of across the plate. Portions are small by intention, about 3 oz (85 g) of salama against a much larger quantity of puree, because something this concentrated stops being a pleasure quickly.
Then leave it alone. No herbs, no oil, no reduction, no garnish. Ferrara serves this as a dark spoonful on white potato and that contrast is the whole presentation, which is why a green leaf looks wrong. A grind of pepper over the puree is fine, and bread on the side is expected.
Professional Technique
The whole technical content of this recipe is one idea: the salama must cook surrounded by water and touching nothing. Set it on the bare bottom of a pot and the metal base sits far hotter than the water above it, because that is where the burner delivers its heat. The paste against that hot spot melts and expands faster than the paste around it, pressure builds behind a casing that spent a year losing its elasticity, and the casing fails at its weakest tie. Hanging it from a spoon, or lifting it onto an inverted saucer, removes the hot spot, and the salama cooks only in water, evenly, from every direction.
The cloth is the second half of the same insurance. A matured casing is thick but brittle, and as the interior liquefies over four hours it has to contain a mass behaving more like a hot sauce than a sausage. Sometimes it splits anyway. Wrapped in cheesecloth, a split salama keeps its shape, and the only trace of the failure is a seam a spoon will cover.
The third element is temperature, and it is the one that changes the eating. Inside that casing is a paste matured for a year, and the long gentle heat melts it: the fat renders and becomes the sugo, the connective tissue softens into gelatine, the liver loses its mineral edge. All of that wants hours at 180°F to 190°F (82°C to 88°C). A rolling boil drives the rendered fat out into the water instead of leaving it inside as sauce and turns the interior grainy rather than unctuous. If the surface of the water is moving, the heat is too high.
That also settles the old question of pricking the casing. Some Ferrarese instructions call for piercing the salama so it cannot burst, but a puncture is a drain: the fat, the wine and the spice leave through it over four hours, and you keep a dry interior and a pot of liquid you throw away.
Texture and Moisture Control
The target texture is spoonable and glossy, between a coarse pate and a thick meat sauce, with the fat in suspension rather than pooled on top. Undercooked, at three hours or too low a heat, the centre is crumbly and tastes metallic from the liver. Cooked in boiling water, the fat breaks out and floats and what is left goes dry and granular.
Moisture is regulated mostly by what does not happen. The soak rehydrates a casing and a paste that spent a year drying, which is why an unsoaked salama stays tight in the middle. During cooking nothing is added and nothing is allowed out, so the water level matters: if the top breaks the surface it hardens, and topping up with hot water keeps the bath in range.
The puree is the moisture partner and needs to be looser than one you would serve alone. Ricing the potatoes hot and beating in warm milk before cold butter gives an emulsion that absorbs a fatty juice instead of shedding it to the rim, while a stiff puree repels it. Temperature closes the loop: a salama at 150°F (65°C) is silk, the same salama at 120°F (49°C) is paste.
Professional Mise en Place
Almost everything here is waiting rather than working, so the planning is about the clock: soak the evening before, salama in the pot five and a half hours before service, potatoes last.
Equipment and tools
Tall heavy pot, deep enough to cover the salama with water
Heatproof saucer for the base, long wooden spoon for the rim
Cheesecloth, butcher twine, stiff dry brush
Potato ricer and a wide pan for the puree
Deep warmed serving bowl, small sharp knife, serving spoon
Prepared ahead
Salama brushed, washed and soaking from the evening before
Salama wrapped in cloth and tied, ready to lower in
Pot rigged with the saucer and the spoon across the rim
Potatoes scrubbed, milk measured, butter cubed
Service setup
Water holding at 180°F to 190°F (82°C to 88°C), kettle alongside for topping up
Puree finished in the last 30 minutes, held warm and covered
Plates and serving bowl heated well above what feels normal
A ladle of cooking liquid held warm
Chef Tips
Buy from a producer who will tell you the maturing date. Salama da sugo carries a protected designation and the serious Ferrarese makers are proud of their timing. Between two of the same weight, take the older.
Taste the cooking water before you pour it away. If the casing held it is a mild spiced pork broth, a good base for lentil soup the next day. If it split, the water tastes of everything you lost.
Plan it for a table of six or more. Once opened it neither keeps nor reheats with grace, and a whole salama at a table of two means days of tired leftovers.
If the interior looks tight when you open it, loosen it with a spoonful of reserved cooking liquid and send it straight out. Do not put it back on the heat and do not correct it with butter or cream: a burner drives the fat out of suspension.
Common Mistakes
Resting the salama on the bottom of the pot. The base of a pot over a burner runs hotter than the water above it, and a matured casing pressed against it splits. Invert a saucer under the salama, hang it from a spoon, or both.
Letting the water boil. A rolling boil drives the rendered fat into the water and leaves the interior grainy. Hold the bath at 180°F to 190°F (82°C to 88°C), where the surface barely trembles, for the full 4 to 5 hours.
Piercing the casing to stop it bursting. A puncture drains the fat, the wine and the spice into the pot and takes the sugo with them. Suspension and a cloth wrap prevent bursting without costing you the sauce.
Trying to slice it, or serving it cold. A properly cooked salama has no structure to cut and a knife smears it, so open the casing and use a spoon. Heat the plates hard, because the fat sets the moment it meets a cool plate. Also soak it first: unsoaked, a salama matured for a year stays tight at the centre.
Wine Pairing
Lambrusco di Sorbara DOC: The classic answer, provided you buy it secco. Sorbara is pale, high in acidity and lightly sparkling: the bubble lifts the rendered fat off the palate while the sharp red currant acidity cuts the salt and the sweetness of the liver. A sweet Lambrusco would collide with the spice.
Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro DOC: The darker, firmer Lambrusco, again dry, and the choice when the salama is old and heavy with pepper and clove. Grasparossa brings blackberry fruit and a tannic grip Sorbara lacks, and that tannin gives the fat something to bind to. Serve it at about 55°F (13°C).
Gutturnio dei Colli Piacentini DOC: From the western end of Emilia, a blend of Barbera and Bonarda made to be drunk with rich pork. The Barbera gives a piercing acidity and the Bonarda softens it with plum fruit, so it slices the fat without tasting austere. The frizzante version is the better match here.
Romagna Sangiovese DOC: The still red option, for when bubbles are not wanted. Savoury rather than fruity, with sour cherry, dried herb and a firm acid spine that makes it viable against something this fatty. Choose a young medium bodied bottling: oak and high alcohol magnify the richness instead of cutting it.
Colli Bolognesi Pignoletto DOCG: The white outsider, and better than it sounds. Dry, crisp and often lightly sparkling, with green apple, pear and a bitter almond finish that works against a fatty spoonful. It will not match the intensity of the meat, but poured cold it resets the palate.
Storage & Reheating
Before cooking, an unopened salama keeps as any matured salume keeps: hanging in a cool airy dark place at around 55°F (13°C), where it goes on improving for months. It wants neither a refrigerator, too humid and too cold, nor a sealed bag. If the refrigerator is your only option, wrap it in paper.
Once cooked it is a two day proposition. Spoon the leftover interior and its juices into a container, cover and refrigerate up to 2 days; it sets solid and dark when cold, which is normal. Reheat it in a bowl over barely simmering water, stirring until fluid and loosening with a spoonful of water or red wine. Never over direct heat and never in a microwave.
Leftovers are better redirected than reheated alone. A couple of spoonfuls stirred into soft polenta, through tagliatelle, or spread on grilled bread, hides the change in texture. Freezing works up to 1 month but it comes back grainier. The puree does not keep.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 8 servings of about 3 oz (85 g) of salama with puree:
Calories: 610 kcal
Total Fat: 38 g
Saturated Fat: 16 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 20 g
Cholesterol: 140 mg
Sodium: 1180 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 34 g
Fiber: 3 g
Total Sugars: 5 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 27 g
Lactose: 2.5 g
Principal micronutrients: vitamin A and vitamin B12 from the liver, iron, zinc, selenium, phosphorus, niacin
These figures are estimates. Producers vary widely in fat and in salt, and the vitamin A and B12 figures are high for a pork dish because of the liver. Sodium is the number to watch, and it is why the puree is seasoned lightly and the plate needs no salt.
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