Coppa

Eazy peezy. Anyone can make coppa at home; all you need is 3 main elements. Firstly get hold of a nice pork neck (if you need help extracting the neck, refer to Jason's excellent blog). Secondly spices and lastly, time.

Formula:

800g Coppa
30g Salt
15g White Pepper
5g Cloves
0.5g Cinnomon
1/2 tsp Dry Chilli Flakes - optional
1-2 Garlic Cloves - chopped finely (or garlic powder)
Red wine for after

Mix/grind all spices together and rub all over the coppa. Place in a zip-lock bag and leave in the fridge for 10-15 days (massaging the meat every few days). After the required time, remove from fridge and rinse briefly under cold running water and then either leave submerged in some red wine or rinse in red wine. This depends on personal taste. Dry with paper towel and wrap in brown packaging paper. This is debateable, but as far as I know is just a practice in keeping flies and other such things off the meat. I wrapped and tied mine and hung them at room temp. (19-22`c - fortunately the weather is still nice and cool here).

After two days, remove wrapping (see picture below) and hang at 12-15'c for anywhere between 3 to 6 months. This can be hung in a temperature controlled fridge, as I did. The rule of thumb is to wait until it has lost +/-35% of its weight! I still have some weeks to go, and will let you know how it is, along with some pics.

These two coppa have just come out of the paper wrap after two days at room temp. and are now ready to hung in the curing room until they have lost 36% of their original weight.