Home-Made cured hot leg

CULATELLO

Culatello is one of the most prized and expensive cured meats. It is made by salting an entire hind leg of pork and letting it age for over a years. (The duration of the aging process has been reduced with current industrial technology). It is advisable to let Culatello stand in white wine for over a week before serving to enhance its flavor and aroma.

Other information : Culatello is a very particular type of salume, produced in a small area around Parma in the villages of Soragna, Zibello, Colorno and Busseto, all along the Po River. The most singular,aspect of culatello is that it has the seme characteristics of proscintto but is aged into a casing. Only the best part of the hog leg is used, which is boned and rubbed immediately following the slaughter with a compound of salt and other herbs and spices. It is then wrapped into a layer of fresh hog fat, and stuffed into a natural casing of the hog and securely fastened with a strong thread.
Culatello is hung in the cellar and slowly aged for at least a year and, at times, eighteen months. When the time comes to use the culatello, it is placed into a bath of white wine for a few days (some prefer to wrap it into a cloth soaked in white wine). The thread, casina and protective fat is then removed and the sausage is eaten sliced like proscintto, though culatello 's taste is much smoother and sweeter. One of the main characteristics of culatello is its soft texture, which is due mainly to the climate of the area, particularly the morning mist around the river Po, which permits the phenomenon that provokes the slow disintegration of the enzymes of the product. Culatello is strictly home-made, and does not trave real possibilities for industrial production. Culatello is one of the most prized and expensive cured meats, but is not easy to find.