Much like Brie is to French cheeses, prosciutto has become the household name of the Italian cured meats, ubiquitous in restaurants and for purchase even in big box supermarkets. But what about the rest of the salumi? From lomo to guanciale and beyond, we break down the lesser known of the Italian-cured meats, with a little help from chi SPACCA’s Chad Colby.
Affettati Misti at Chi Spacca
Today, we’re talking salumi with chef Chad Colby of chi SPACCA, L.A.’s mecca for all things meat, and getting the lowdown on his super popular affettati misti.
Molto: Tell us about your salumi board, which is at once authentic and simple yet unique enough for its own hash tag. What’s the inspiration behind it and why did you pair everything together this way?
Chad: The inspiration behind making the salumi and creating the board was the whole animal. I wanted to bring in a whole pig and see what we could do with it. We use certain cuts for curing and certain parts as meat for the restaurant. Everything on the mixed board is a representation of different parts of the animal. It’s more true to traditional curing methods and process styles of Italians. And it’s much better quality this way.
Molto: How so?
Chad: Anytime a meat is portioned off and put in a plastic bag, the quality is not going to be as good as when you have the control of the butchery. You get better cuts doing it yourself. Harvesting specific pieces for specific cuts means I can get a bigger coppa, and I can get a bigger speck.
Molto: How does relying on the whole animal affect the board and what’s on it day-to-day?
Chad: We’ll make all our different cures as part of a weekly production, and what’s goes on the board depends partly on sales. If we sell through all our dry cures really fast we’ll do more of the fresh cures like the pates, and if we’re selling things a little bit slow we’ll have more of all dry cured things available, like coppa, salami, speck, pancetta and lardo. We always have six items and I can pick and choose what to serve based on what’s been utilized.
There are a lot of things that are re-visited and consistent but I try to manage the inventory of products. That way, I can manage exactly what age I want to start the speck or coppa at and if my inventory isn’t quite there, I shift things around a bit. We like to push people to order the mixed board as opposed separate plates of meat, i.e. just a plate of speck or coppa, as it helps us sell the salumi how we purchase it, which is a little bit of everything.
Molto: What does a typical board look like?
Chad: On a typical board we have some trotter fritti, which uses the meat, skin and shanks of the pig, the byproducts, really. It’s crispy and delicious and a lot of people’s favorite thing. And then our pate uses all the offal, the hind leg goes to the speck, the shoulder goes to the coppa and then the middle section ends up going to pork chops for the restaurant. We’ve kind of reached a perfect balance of supply and demand working this way. We don’t have a lot of waste from last week but we’re also not usually out of everything.
Molto: All of your salumi is cured and prepared in-house. This must be an insane amount of work.
Chad: Yea. It’s kind of like an obsessed, methodical, living, breathing thing. So Wednesday the pig comes in and we’ll do the butchering. We have a butcher we’ve been working with for a long time that will do the cutting and dicing and everything. On Thursday, I’ll take the different pieces and do all the measurements and calculations for curing and make sure everything’s in salt. And the way it winds up is I have things from the previous weeks to do on Thursday also. I’ll re-introduce some salt to the previous week’s batch, I’ll flip and rotate the two-week-old batch and I’ll hang stuff for the third week’s batch. Every Thursday I know I’ll be smoking one of the specks and hanging the coppas. And then on Friday we do the stuffing for salami. It was butchered on Wednesday, salted on Thursday, and then stuffed on Friday. And then nothing for Saturday, which is nice because we’re kind of busy at the restaurant. And Sunday I do a PH test on the salami and Tuesday we hang them and also do our trotter and pate. And then Wednesday we start the whole thing all over again.
Molto: Every region in Italy has its own salumi style and taste. Is there any particular region you look to for inspiration or styles you follow?
Chad: It’s true. Even within different towns within different regions you’ll see different styles. I get different inspiration from different areas. Anytime we have something we want to try I just make sure it’s very much a worthy representation of whatever region’s version it is. For example, when I do the Capicola, I look particularly to the style of Martina Franca in Puglia. I think that if anyone came from that town they would probably say that of course it’s not the same, but it’s really good.
Molto: What do you serve with your salumi and what would you recommend to those looking to create their own salumi board at home?
Chad: I like to create a spread of cured meats and things that pair well with them. To me, some house-cured pickles about the same size as the pieces of the meat work well. So, if you’re going to eat the whole piece of speck you have a piece of pickle the same size you can go back and forth with. Right now at the restaurant we’re serving up some squash blossoms with the salumi. We don’t fry them. This is something that we saw in Tuscany. We stuff them with ricotta and bake them in a wood-burning oven. We’ve done artichokes in a marinated, slightly acidic brine served at room temperature. We also have pecorino that sliced paper-thin that goes really well with the cures. And then some Lambrusco or Prosecco to drink.
So, you know, I’d recommend some cheese, pickles and olives, lots of stuff like that. And it should all be room temperature. And I like the idea that when you pair things together they have a similar size, bite and mouth feel. (The same goes for pasta—the vegetable should be the same size as the noodle.) You don’t really want a bacon on bacon-on-bacon kind of situation. There are choices to be had, and I don’t want it to be like a tasting menu, but rather a bountiful spread that you can taste around.
Molto: Besides the salumi, what is your favorite thing to make right now, either at the restaurant or at home?
Chad: Pasta. Fresh pasta. That’s always my favorite thing to make at home. And at the restaurant, I’m still pretty focused on the grill. It’s kind of an obsession. And working with the wood grill, the fire, and taking away the rules of two-minutes-flip, and kind of playing around with it.
Molto: This is unrelated, but what’s the best thing you ate this summer?
Chad: Ok. Let me think.
Molto: Yea, it’s kind of a loaded question.
Chad: Well, a couple weeks ago, we got some brioche from the farmer’s market and I made some pluot preserves. (Pluots are a mix between plums and apricots and are kind of better than both.) Then my wife made some French toast, dipped first in some crème anglaise. And we put the pluot preserves on top of that. Yea, it was pretty good.
Salumi Glossary
So you can look like a total rock star next time you’re ordering antipasti, learn what’s behind the salumi names, and how best to enjoy each one.
Bresaola: One of the few Italian salami made from beef, bresaola is a lean meat that is salted, air-dried, and aged for at least a few months. Bresaola has a distinct dark red, purplish color and a tough, lean texture. Enjoy thinly sliced with a bit of lemon juice and olive oil.
Capacollo (Coppa): There’s a slight difference between capacollo and coppa, mainly that coppa originates from Emilia Romagna while capacollo hails from Calabria. Both of these cured meats are made using the muscle starting at the neck of the hog, then dry-cured, often after being rubbed with hot paprika. Best served paper-thin, coppa is great served with pickles or in Italian sandwiches.
Culatello: Hard to come by in the U.S., culatello is often considered the most prized (and expensive) salumi in Italy. Haling from Parma, the meat comes from the rear legs of a pig and is traditionally aged in an environment where mold thrives, like caves or barns, contributing to the culatello’s distinct flavor. Eat alone or with bread at the start of the meal. To learn more about culatello, check out this great article by Armandino Batali, owner of Salumi in Seattle (and also, Mario’s dad).
Guanciale: Once completely foreign, if you’ve ever tried to make an authentic carbonara or all’amatriciana, chances are guanciale is on the ingredient list. Made from the jowls of hogs, the meat is rubbed with pepper before aging, and is less fatty than its common substitute, pancetta.
Lardo: This salumi comes from the fatback of a pig, which is then cured with herbs and spices, often rosemary. The most prized variations come from the Aosta Valley, where pigs are fed a diet of chestnuts, grains, and vegetables, and from Colonnata, where lardo is cured in basins made of marble, which the area is known for. A traditional serving method includes piling the lardo on a piece of toasted bread with a drizzle of honey.
Lonza: (Or lomo in Spanish), this air-dried cured pork loin is a lean cured meat, usually seasoned simply with the likes of black pepper or fennel. This is nice when served with other meats, cheese and bread at the beginning of a meal.
Mocetta: A traditional product from the northwestern Aosat region of Italy, this cured meat is most often made with goat or other wild game such as deer or boar. Serve as an antipasti.
Mortadella: A staple of Bologna (and the Italian version of what we now see in American supermarkets labeled as bologna), mortadella is made from ground pork with larger pieces of lardon throughout. Black pepper, pistachios, and nutmeg are often added for flavor. Served thinly sliced, mortadella is a great addition to an Italian sandwich.
Pancetta: Considered to be Italy’s version of bacon, pancetta is made from pork belly, then usually peppered, rolled, tied, then hung to cure. It’s most often used as a cooking ingredient to add flavor, like in this Chestnut Cake.
Prosciutto: This dry-cured ham most often made from the hind leg of a pig and sometimes wild boar is served uncooked (crudo) but can also be found cooked (cotto). The leg is salted for a couple months before being hung. The most famous variety, di Parma, has a slightly sweet and nutty flavor, while another popular variety, di San Daniele, is even sweeter still and a bit darker in color.
Sopressata: Originating in the Southern regions of Italy, this dry-cured meat is traditionally made from pork, which is coarsely pressed or ground into sausage. Each region lends its own flavor and style; for example, Sopressata di Calabria is made with hot pepper while Sopressata di Puglia is characterized by the large piece of lard in the center of leaner pieces of meat. A bit further north in Tuscany, they use the leftover cuts of the pig for the sausage instead of the choice cuts. Sopressata is great in sandwiches and salads, like this one with roasted beets, watercress, lentils and taleggio.
Salami Piccante: Or what we call pepperoni is a pork salami from Calabria. The distinct flavor and color comes from red peppers and paprika ranging in heat that the meat is generously rubbed with. Use it to spice up an antipasti platter or in salads and sandwiches.
Speck: Made from smoked, dry-salted, aged hog legs, speck comes to us from the Alto Adige region of Northern Italy. Known for its distinct smoky flavor, this cured meat is great in cooking, (used almost like a smoked bacon) for when you’re looking to add a richness of flavor, like in this Risotto with Asparagus and Speck.