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Bresaola

Posted June 20, 2018 by Sharon Leave a Comment

Bresaola is salted, air-dried beef, a technique that dates from medieval times.

CHIAVENNA–After an hour’s drive north of Dervio on the eastern shore of Lake Como, my Italian teacher Elena Arezio pulled her Volkswagen into a municipal parking lot in Chiavenna. This was north country–a mere 6 1/2 miles from Switzerland as the crow flies.

We had an appointment at Del Curto Macelleria, a century-plus-old family butcher shop that produces some of the finest bresaola in the province of Sondrio, Lombardy. Elena makes a pilgrimage to Del Curto every holiday season to buy the salted dried beef and other salumi.

Chiavenna

We found the shop locked since it was still officially the mid-day break. An older gentleman responded to our knock. He was co-proprietor Enrico Del Curto who went to fetch his brother Aldo, ostensibly the spokesman for the operation. At first, Aldo didn’t say much but he soon warmed to the topic of his life’s work as he led us downstairs to a series of spotless white curing rooms.

Tradition and Time to Create Bresaola

Aldo Del Curto in the drying room.

Bresaola enjoys IGP (protected geographical designation) status. Several cuts of beef from the leg and flank can be used. Aldo stresses that Del Curto uses only Italian beef while some other producers import beef from South American countries. Some cuts are bone-in; the boneless “nocino” commands a premium.

Del Curto starts the process by rubbing a mixture of salt, pepper, and garlic over the beef. The seasoned cuts are packed tightly in covered tubs for no more than 15 days. During this stage, the salt draws out liquid and seasons the meat.

After draining the liquid from the meat, a small amount of potassium nitrate is added to prevent botulism. “Pochissimo [a tiny amount],” says Aldo, who says that some of the meat is lightly smoked but most clients prefer the air dried.

Aldo opened the doors to temperature-and-humidity controlled rooms where hundreds of beef chunks were hanging. Some of the longer-hanging pieces were covered with muffa (a soft white naturally-occurring mold) that looked like snow.

I’m astounded that one butcher shop could produce such a volume of bresaola. Aldo responds proudly that the beef is served in fine restaurants in Paris, Rome, Milan and other cities.

At last, the tasting room. Aldo machine sliced the bresaola as thin as silk. I blinked at the ruby color, more vivid than fresh beef. The slice dissolved on my tongue. The bresaola was a revelation: tender, moist, complex, slightly saline but not salty.

Grazie, Aldo and Elena, for a unique slice of Italy.

Italian Air-Dried Lamb

The Del Curto brothers also produce violino di capra, cured and air-dried goat shoulder. The whimsical name is a nod to the resemblance that the elongated shoulder shape has to the musical instrument. Here’s a look at Aldo slicing a Stradivarius of cured meat at the 2016 Slow Food Salone del Gusto. Sadly, I didn’t taste the goat prosciutto. Del Curto only sells the whole violin, not slices.

How Goat Prosciutto is made.

What’s the best Italian salume you’ve eaten?

Filed Under: Food, Lombardy cooking, Markets, Miscellany Tagged With: bresaola, Del Curto, Italian cured meats, Lombardy, salami, Salone del Gusto, slow food, Sondrio

A DiBruno’s Picnic

Posted January 19, 2009 by Sharon 5 Comments

Cured meats, cheese, rustic bread, and assorted antipasti make a pranzo perfetto.

Cured meats, cheese, rustic bread, and assorted antipasti make a pranzo perfetto.

I’ve made a drool of myself at many an Italian food forum. . .Peck in Milan, Volpetti in Rome, F.lli Burgio in Siracusa and now DiBruno Bros. in Philadelphia. Founded in 1939 by siblings Danny and Joe DiBruno in South Philly’s Italian Market, the emporium now has a location in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood, mere minutes from a borrowed apartment where Walter and I enjoyed a weekend get-away.

Our intention of picking up a few hard-to-find pantry staples such as salted anchovies and D.O.P. canned San Marzano tomatoes, quickly morphed into “how many of these exquisite goodies can we buy for an impromptu picnic?”

Here’s what we managed: Seafood salad, artichokes alla romana, mozzarella bocconcini, peppadews stuffed with gorgonzola, red peppers stuffed with ricotta, stuffed grape leaves, olive roll, ciabatta roll, winter salami, runny-pungent taleggio cheese and shaved culatello that melted on our tongues. Walter, the king of the panino, actually extricated the culatello from his sandwich to savor each slice on its own.

Culatello is not a salume you see in every deli case. Restaurateur Tony May in his Italian Cuisine: Basic Cooking Techniques describes it as “one of the most prized and expensive cured meats” and a “very particular type of salume, produced in a small area around Parma. . . the most singular aspect of culatello is that it has the same characteristics of prosciutto but is aged into a casing” . . . with a taste “much sweeter and smoother” than prosciutto.

The DiBruno culatello is produced by Armandino Batali (Mario’s dad) at Salumi Artisan Cured Meats in Seattle. And, yes, it is pricey but at $8 for our picnic portion for two, it was money very, very well spent.

DiBruno's encourages an appetite for learning.

DiBruno Bros. foster an appetite for learning.

Next time you’re in the City of Brotherly Love, you may want to indulge in a DiBruno’s picnic.

DiBruno Bros. – Rittenhouse Square
1730 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19013
215.665.9220

For an online taste, visit www.dibruno.com

Filed Under: Miscellany Tagged With: italian food, Italian food stores, salami

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