Homemade Salami

If you read my blog, which very few do, you'd know by now that I like to experiment in the kitchen.  One thing that I absolutely love to eat is cured meat.  From beef jerky to prosciutto to ham, etc, I like it all!  Beef jerky was at the top of my list of cured or smoke meats to make, but all the 'homemade' recipes I found required a few items, i.e. a box fan, that I didn't own, nor was I willing to purchase.  Eventually my quest led me to finding 2 different recipes that I thought I could replicate.  One was for salami and the other was for summer sausage.  I ended up deciding on the salami for a few reason, those being less ingredients, less meat, and less time needed for it to 'cure.' 

This homemade salami recipe I decided upon seemed relatively easy and it was, more or less.  All the ingredients, minus one, were relatively straightforward and easy to purchase.  The ingredients were ground beef, black pepper, onion powder, garlic salt, liquid smoke and 'Morton's TenderQuick' which is essentially curing salt.  The 'curing' salt was the hard part.  Neither Jewel, Whole Foods, and Treasure Island carried it.  I finally found it at 'The Spice House' in Old Town, highly recommend that place by the way.  They had a version called 'Prague Powder #6' which she assured me was basically the same thing so I went with it. 

Basically all you do is mix all of the above mentioned ingredients together, roll into a log, wrap in foil and let sit for a day.  Then you bake it for 90 minutes and let cool.  I gotta say, it turned out decently.  Yes, even my wife said so.  Its certainly not the prettiest thing in the world w/out the casing, but for a first attempt, I'm fairly pleased with it.  Its probably a little salty, but definitely worth attempting again, perhaps w/different herbs and spices.

Here's the link to the more detailed recipe:
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/homemade-salami/detail.aspx