KimChi Salami

Sometimes the weirdest ideas come to me when I’m in my laboratory (kitchen). This week I was thinking about how amazing Korean KimChi tastes. It’s unique tangy, funky, fermented experience is like a taste bud’s dream come true. So complex in it’s flavors, KimChi ticks all the boxes for me.

With that same thought process I wondered if I could turn it into a salami. Well, the short version of this journey is YES!! It can be done and the outcome was incredible. The challenge here was to take the same elements and balance them in such a way to achieve the same flavors without killing the taste of the pork. Umami, salty, tangy, spicy, fishy, oh boy!! Here we go.

I started off with the freshest of pork. This is going to be a pork salami I think and I think I want to make it roughly 2 inches in diameter so I’ll need some 76mm casings from the sausage maker. These casings are great because they really allow the meat to dry evenly and stick really well to the mince as it’s drying. Before I move on I need to decide which starter culture to use. Each one ferments at different temperatures and gives the salami it’s own unique flavor. In this case I want to go for slightly tangy salami to resemble the tangy quality in well fermented KimChi so I will be using FLC Starter Culture. This starter culture likes dextrose as a food source so I’ll add that to the recipe.

In kimchi there are 2 incredibly unique ingredients that are used to give it that unique smoky, spicy flavor. It’s Gochugaru and gochujuang. One is Korean Pepper flakes and the other is a fermented chili sauce. Both come in different heat levels and both add their own personality to KimChi. I think this is a must for a kimchi salami!! In addit5ion to the chili’s we’ll have to throw in some incredible umami elements like fish sauce and shrimp paste all of which you can find in a really yummy kimchi.

For the finishing touches this salami will take over 6 weeks to dry so I will need to add Insta Cure #2. This is going to provide the necessary long term protection against unwanted bacteria that could make me sick..

Voila!! That’s how I create a recipe. The rest is in the process. If you have any questions let me know. If you want to see everything we use be sure to check out our Amazon Storefront where I have all my materials listed by category. There you’ll find everything I use to build a drying chamber and so on!! If you buy something from there it helps support our projects.

Here are a few things I found helpful in this recipe

• Casings
• F-LC Starter Culture
• Apera pH Meter with Bluetooth
• Dextrose
• Cure #2
• Meat Grinder
• InkBird Controllers temp & Humidity
• Dehumidifier Eva Dry 2200
• TaoTronics Humidifier
• Fish Sauce
• Gochugaru Pepper flakes
• Gochujuang Pepper paste
• Shrimp Paste

2 Guys & A Cooler Amazon Storefront

In this recipe you can adjust the quantities by clicking on the number of pounds you want make.