Blackstrap Molasses Capocollo

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One should be careful when using Blackstrap Molasses in charcuterie. “The same wind that uproots trees makes the grasses shine,” taught Rumi. Give too much and you cannot escape bitterness. Too little – and there is not much distinction. I do use molasses as a distant overtone on some cuts, especially in conjunction with bourbon. This one was born as an attempt to introduce Molasses as the main base with few counterbalancing tones. The result was decent at the first tasting after 50 days of dry-curing and loss of only 33%.  It had sweetish overtones with a deep spicy-chocolatey character. Yet, after around 10 month of rest under vacuum in refrigerator, the Balckstrap Molsasses Capocollo developed that “character” into something very complex. This is a capocollo, worth repeating again and again…

Ingredients: Sea salt – 2.5% of the total weight of the meat, cure#2 – 0.25%; Black Pepper — 0.4%; sweet paprika – 1.5% (the amount is due to the need to counterpart molasses); anise seed – 0.25%; 1 cinnamon stick; 200ml of blackstrap molasses and Bulleit (10 y.aged) bourbon as much as needed. EQ (see explanation under “Technologies” section) under vacuum for 19 days; washed, dried, sprinkled with a mix of Black and Sichuan peppers with sweet paprika and sent to the Curing Chamber.