Salami Picante

NOTES FROM THE CURATOR

A log of deep, bright red with notable mar­bles of white, the sala­mi picante is dry-cured and made with her­itage breed pork. It gives off a slight­ly strong, spicy, acidic aro­ma. On the tongue, this cured meat is salty and meaty, with a par­tic­u­lar heat that only adds to its taste. The spici­ness is bal­anced just right, nev­er over­whelm­ing or dis­tract­ing, just per­fect­ly har­mo­niz­ing with the rest of its flavor.

PREPA­RA­TION AND PAIRINGS

With its strong fla­vor, the sala­mi picante is already excel­lent on its own. Serve it on a char­cu­terie board, along­side dif­fer­ent cheeses and oth­er cured meats.

Or, if you pre­fer to real­ly up its spicy, savory prop­er­ties, have it with some black olives and a sprin­kle of chili oil.

Anoth­er incred­i­ble way to enjoy this cured meat is on a piz­za. And who doesn’t love piz­za? Make an easy piz­za dough, spread some toma­to sauce, lay some slices of sala­mi picante, show­er with moz­zarel­la, and top with basil leaves, or rock­et arugu­la. Driz­zle with olive oil, or hon­ey, and you’ll want to eat the whole thing yourself.

To match the spici­ness, pair with a fresh, light, medi­um-bod­ied rosé wine such as Ramón Bil­bao Rosa­do that come in a pale salmon col­or and wafts beau­ti­ful cit­rus scents as you pour it. Enjoy under­cur­rents of orange, red­cur­rant and apri­cot — - fruity fla­vors enough to bal­ance the heat!

A CASE OF MISCOMMUNICATION

Amer­i­cans would often call the sala­mi picante, pep­per­oni. When in fact, the pep­per­oni or peper­one, in Ital­ian, is actu­al­ly a sweet bell pep­per. But this cured meat from Cal­abria is more often made and spiced with hot chili pep­pers, or in gener­ic Ital­ian terms, peperoncino.

It’s a pret­ty under­stand­able mix-up. Although, you’d be smart to be care­ful about what you order on your piz­za when you go to Italy!

Storage Instructions

This type of sausage may be stored for up to 6 weeks (if whole) in your pantry and indef­i­nite­ly in the refrig­er­a­tor (whole or in vac­u­um-packed slices). After open­ing, they should be used with­in 3 weeks.