Cooking with salami

[sequins]

I love snacking on salami, but bought some recently that tasted too fatty for my snacking pleasure. I'd like to cook with it instead. Any suggestions?

[blondelle]

Microwave it on a few layers of paper towels. The fat will leach out onto the paper, and it will be yummy!

[ctan]

A childhood friend taught me this trick when I was over at her house one day. Take slices of salami and microwave briefly (check so they get crispy, but aren't completly burnt). Blot on paper towels. This yields a product that is crispy like bacon, but with a different, and to me, appealing flavor. We used to eat these on their own or sprinkle over salad.

[MaspethMaven]

Here's a link to Pasta with Pecorino and Salami, courtesy Nick Stellino, via Global Gourmet.

http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/spe...

[pescatarian]

If you have access to a bbq, slice it and bbq it and eat it dipped in mustard (or by itself, if you prefer)

[ali patts]

Use in carbonara.
Fry or grill slices and drain then toss through a salad, crispy meaty bits - yum just what all 'veggie' dishes need!
Ditto and toss in to a fresh tomato pasta sauce.
Just be careful not to over fry/grill or it will taste slightly bitter and be rock hard rather than just crispy - it is quite a fine line. I.e. if the phone rings - let the machine get it!

[Diane in Bexley]

This is an appetizer and you need a whole salami (16 oz). Cut thin slices 3/4 way down to bottom. In saucepan, heat 1 jar chili sauce, 1/2 jar water, 8 ox. apricot jam, 1/4 c red wine vinegar, mix all together. Pour over salami and bak uncovered in 350 oven till well glazed, about 30-45 min. Serve with crackers and appetizer knives. People who love salami will comment they have died and gone to heaven. Most requested appetizer recipe I have, never fails to be huge hit.

[sequins]

Oh my. This sounds delicious. I'd never have imagined pairing salami with something sweet like apricot -- or, as an earlier poster suggested, honey. Baking salami is also new to me... what's the final texture like?

[sequins]

Tons of pleasing ideas here; thanks so much. For some reason I've been hesitant to treat salami like either sausage or bacon, but am emboldened by your responses. The eggs, the bean soup, the greens all sound like great uses. I do embrace fat -- 'tis the elixir -- but my palate just doesn't enjoy it cold, or even at room-temperature....

[Food Smith]

Pizza/calzone/stromboli
antipasta
I think you just embrace the fatty goodness

[weinstein5]

I will concur with the salami and eggs - nothing better - I also us it soup - particulalry split pea soup - and for one that has not been listed -

Grilled Salami - slice the salami about 3/4 to 1 inch thick - cover with your favorite barbecue sauce and grill until done - if the grill is hot only a couple of minutes a side -

[valerie]

LOVE grilled salami! My sister always makes it at her beach house (us city folk don't have grills), but I look forward to it every year. I don't think that she uses barbecue sauce, though per se. I think she uses honey or apricot preserves and some other ingredients that make it sort of carmelized around the edges. Mmmmmm...

[Cheese Boy]

Recipe for Utica Greens

1 cup Yukon Gold potatoes cut in 1” cubes
1/2 chopped Vidalia onion
2 heads Escarole
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 pound thinly sliced salami <---- here's what you want, adjust amount to taste
½ cup bread crumbs
6 minced garlic cloves
½ cup Romano cheese
Freshly chopped parsley
Alternate Ingredients: Dried parsley, garlic and onion powder, and paprika.

1. Potatoes: Toss in a zip lock bag with ¼ cup olive oil, dried parsley, garlic and onion powder and paprika. Roast for ½ hour at 350 degrees. Set aside.

2. Greens: Sauté garlic and onion in 1 T olive oil; add chopped escarole and cook through. Add chicken broth, julienned salami, crushed red pepper and potatoes. Simmer till stock reduced (about 45 min).

3. Combine bread crumbs with 2 T oil. Toast until brown. Mix half with greens.

4. Add Romano cheese and place in greased baking pan.

5. Top with remaining half of bread crumbs.

6. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 15 min.

[jfood]

Salami has already been through enough in it's existence. Be kind

1 - rye bread and mustard, maybe with some cole slaw
2 - sliced into cubes, sauteed, throw a few scrambled eggs and a few slices of cheese
3 - slices into a pan, get some good rye toast, some brown mustard.

[Sam Fujisaka]

Julienned and cooked with white beans!

[RGR]

Salami and eggs is part of the Jewish repetoire. Of course, one generally uses koshere salami, but I'm guess another kind would still work.

Slice the salami, put it in a pan, and fry it until it's a little crisp and some fat has rendered. Beat the eggs and add to the pan. Cook until set (like a pancake) or scramble the mix. I serve it with Jewish deli mustard (Hebrew National) and baked beans.

[FlavoursGal]

For some strange reason, salami and eggs was a Passover tradition in my family while growing up, and remains so in my household. We love it, but only on Pesach. :-)

[p.j.]

I also grew up with salami and eggs several times a year for dinner, including Pesach. Nowadays, we pretty much buy salami only at Pesach. Our kids look forward to salami and eggs for a quick dinner during Pesach. You have me salivating for it already!! Now if only we could get some decent mustard during Passover!
p.j.

[FlavoursGal]

Unless you're Sephardic, mustard is prohibited during Passover. I have seen Dijon mustard with a Passover hechsher, but it warns on the label that it is "kitniot" - not for Ashkenazi consumption.

Besides I like my salami and eggs with ketchup.

[BobB]

For us, salami & eggs was a regular in the dinner (supper in those days) rotation, but one thing we only had on Passover was butter. The rest of the year we ate only margarine, but for Passover we had butter - and no ordinary butter, it had to be Breakstone's Whipped Butter. Go figure...

[FlavoursGal]

We only had butter on Passover, too! Unsalted butter that would invariably crumble the matzo as we tried to spread it. In those days, Breakstone's was not imported into Canada. I can't remember what brand we used.

This was the days before Mother's Passover margarine existed.

[pescatarian]

butter and the passover jam on matzoh, can't remember brands

[FlavoursGal]

Cream cheese and jam on matzoh. Zayer geshmak!

[weinstein5]

the secret to stop the crumble - leave the breakstone's out for about 30 - 45 minutes - nice soft and easy to spread -

[jfood]

Absolutely gotta bring up to room temp. Also always spread with the grain.

[BobB]

Uh-oh! We've hijacked this thread. Let's play fair and start a new one - Peculiar Passover Practices? I'll start it on General Chowhounding.

[ESNY]

Even better is to put thin pats of butter all over the matzoh and then you only have to wait 5 minutes or so for it to warm up and become very spreadable.

[CindyJ]

Chicken fat and a sprinkle of kosher salt on the matzoh! No wonder my Bubbie and Zayde died so young!

[chicgail]

Rendered chicken schmaltz with a little salt is the perfect spread for matzo. It won't do much for your arteries, but does leave you with "happy mouth"!

[CindyJ]

MMmmmm... haven't had salami and eggs with a side of Heinz vegetarian beans in a gazillion years. Are you a (former) Brooklyn CH like I am, by any chance?

[RGR]

Not Brooklyn. I grew up on the Lower East Side when it was still a center of Jewish life. :-)

I used to use Heinz vegetarian baked beans; however, a few years ago, I began to notice an unappealing change in the flavor, which made me think they might have changed the recipe. I tried Busch's vegetarian baked beans, liked them a lot, and so that's what I use now.

[lisaf]

I was just going to suggest this. My dad made it all the time for us growing up. His secret was to put some water in the eggs to fluff them up.

[chicgail]

Yum. Salami and eggs were a special treat growing up because my mother used to make it just for herself when my father was out of town or otherwise not coming home for dinner. She would serve us something she thought was healthier, but gave us tastes of her dinner.

[CindyJ]

I do the very same thing -- make it for myself -- when my husband is out of town.

[Tartinet]

Make soup! Chop it very finely and brown the heck out of it. Then add whatever aromatics you want, and some broth, and let it simmer for a couple hours. Then add whatever you want (beans, vegetables, other meat), simmer a bit more, and eat.

If you have more salami than one soup can take, chop and brown it all, and freeze the little browned bits for a head start on your next soup.

[Candice]

I've chopped up hard salami and added it to long simmered tomato sauces and on top of pizza. I think the flavor goes a long way in sauces and if it's too fatty for you, I wouldn't add a lot to a pizza.

[coll]

OK this is going to sound weird, but I made Jumbalaya for Mardi Gras, it was just us so I didn't want to go crazy. I julienned hot and sweet capicola and also salami that I had leftover (rather than tasso ham), I also used southern style breakfast sausage instead of andouille and I used turkey shreds from the stock I made the week before instead of chicken. It was the best I ever made, not that I'm from New Orleans but I finished it today for lunch and I ate way too much. So julienne it and put it in something that calls for proscuitto or ham or bacon or whatever, you will be fine (although I think it was the capicola that put it over the top).
PS Did you maybe buy hard salami instead of Genoa?

[sequins]

Yup, I bought the hard variety. This multi-meat idea sounds delicious; I can't imagine eating too much! Thank you.

[coll]

I think what also made it so good was instead of regular brandy I used Kirschwasser (cherry brandy), again to use up stuff I had laying around! Anyway it didn't seem like I ate too much while I was consuming it, only later when my stomach hurt!

[julesrules]

My jumbalaya recipe has no alcohol at all, can you give me an idea how you use the brandy?

[coll]

I'll tell you the recipe I use although I have no idea where I got it.....I'm guessing from a chef I knew at the Marriot, due to the quick throwing together of ingredients and the alcohol: it's not really authentic I guess. But it tastes great. Maybe I should name it something else.

I saute some roasted peppers, green onions (with tops), and garlic in butter and oil for 2 minutes.
Add julienned meats and sausage and chicken, a can of whole tomato in puree and some ground toasted almonds, cover and simmer 5 minutes.
Make a wash out of 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1/4 cup fruit brandy, 1/4 cup white wine and 2 tsp cornstarch. Add to mix, boil, and simmer 2 minutes.
Season with: crushed red pepper, tabasco, parsley, thyme.
I believe you're supposed to add rice to the mix until it cooks in it, but I just serve some on the side, with pesto-y stuff mixed in.

[BobB]

No roux? No rice? That sounds like a tasty stew, but I would really hesitate to call it jambalaya, which by definition is a rice-based dish. And not just my definition, I did a quick Web search and it brought up 13 definitions, all of which start with rice.

I don't mean to sound huffy about it, I just like things to be called what they are.

[coll]

Yeah that's what I said. It's a jumble of stuff at least.

[ESNY]

Send it to me? even though I believe a salami never be too fatty, I'm not sure how cooking with it would ever change that. You can maybe crisp it up in a pan. Sometimes I do that for snacking. No more than a minute or two per side should be enough to get it crispy and slighly browned. Unless you do this, I can't imagine any other way that would be pleasing to you if you think its too fatty. IF you add to pizza or lasagna or eggs prior to crispy, I would imagine you'd have a greasy, oily mess on your hands. Or try it uncooked julienning it and toss with warmed pasta and some cheese/olive oil. Maybe try it in place of pancetta in a spaghetti carbonara'esque dish?

[sequins]

I hope the fat will just melt into whatever else is in the pan and become a flavoring agent. Pasta is a great idea....