Who doesn't love capicola? You don't have to be Italian to enjoy a few slices of melt-in-your-mouth "gabagool." If you are Italian, you might remember your uncles curing the meat in the spring to hang in the cellar. Spring was often the only season with the perfect temperature and humidity of the root cellars and caves in the Old Country. They would make enough to enjoy year round, since that was their one chance for the ideal conditions.
With UMAi Dry®, you don't need to worry about seasonality, perfect temperatures or meat funky cellars. As we say, "No cave? No problem." The UMAi Dry membrane allows you to make authentic traditional capicola in the ease and comfort of your kitchen fridge.
Charcuterie, cured and dried whole muscle preserved meat, is the simplest form of meat craft. Less expensive than dry aging a full subprimal steak cut. Less mess than grinding, stuffing, fermenting and drying salumi. Whether you coat the outside with paprika and cayenne, or keep it mild, slices of capicola are just as welcome on a fancy charcuterie board as they are in a nice meaty Italian hoagie.
One UMAi Dry Simple Capicola Kit helps you make one to five pounds of capicola. With the Kit, you to skip the math, the scale and the need for a half a dozen spices for the recipe. Charcuterie Simple Kits include three UMAi Dry Charcuterie Large bags and one packet each of the Premixed Curing Salts Blend and Capicola Spice Blend--each perfectly formulated for five pounds of meat.
Capicola making is as easy as this:
- Buy a piece of pork, trimmed to shape weighing one to five pounds.
- Coat with the Premixed Curing Salts and Capicola Spice Blend, then put into a vacuum bag or ziplock. Refrigerate for two weeks to cure.
- Remove from curing bag, rinse, and seal into the UMAi Dry membrane. Rest on an open wire rack in your regular fridge. Wait for the 35-40% weight loss.
Traditionally, capicola is made from just the coppa, or "money muscle" in the center pork shoulder. Since it can be impossible to find a butcher these days who knows how to find this cut, feel free to use a nicely marbled and shaped piece of pork shoulder. In a pinch, you can just use a chunk of pork loin. The loin lacks the intramuscular fat for a lacy-looking capicola slice, but it's inexpensive, easy to work with, and has a great shape for slicing!
UMAi Dry also offers Easy Kits for Lonzino and Bresaola, as well as refills for the Premixed Curing Salts and all three Charcuterie Spice Blends.
If you have a digital scale and want to calculate the 3% kosher salt and 0.25% #2 Curing Salt, you can use the recipe below with an UMAi Dry Charcuterie Kit--enough for five charcuterie projects, large and small.
For all the charcuterie basics and helpful videos, check out the UMAi Dry Academy--where you become a meat crafting pro.
