Overview
Cervellata is an Italian sausage name with several regional meanings. The Curesmith record represents a southern Italian-style fresh sausage using beef, pork and pecorino, not every product known as cervellata.
Where it's from
The cut
Identity and terminology
The name is related historically to cervello, brain, although modern cervellata generally contains no brain. In Apulia, cervellata often refers to a long, thin fresh sausage sold in coils. Other Italian and Swiss usages describe different cooked or liver sausages.
Composition and characteristics
This branch combines beef and pork with fat, grated pecorino and aromatic seasoning. The cheese adds saltiness and a distinctive dairy aroma, while the narrow casing and coiled form give a high browned surface when grilled.
Production and process
Chilled meats are minced, mixed with cheese and seasoning and stuffed into a small-calibre casing as a long coil. It is a fresh sausage, not fermented or matured.
History and regional forms
Cervellata appears in Italian food history under changing forms, and regional survival is strongest in parts of southern Italy, particularly Apulia and Basilicata. Its semantic history is broader than the current butcher product.
Use, storage and related products
It is grilled, fried or cooked in tomato sauce. Apulian fresh cervellata is a different product from Swiss cervelat, from Milanese cooked cervellata and from the other names sharing the same root.
Recipe and cure
This is not a finished recipe. It is a window into how this meat is traditionally cured. Before you follow any process, run it through one of our curing calculators so the salt, cure and timings are right and safe for your own batch.
Make this — the measured Curesmith version →“Make this” opens the same cure as a measured recipe, scaled to your batch.
- Meat
- Beef chuck
- Cut
- Beef chuck
- Salt (%)
- 1.5
- Curing salt
- None
- Fermented
- No
- Smoked
- No
- Maturation
- Raw sausage ≤4°C for up to 2 days; freeze for longer storage
- Basis
- per 1,000 g beef chuck
- Style
- Fresh beef-and-pork sausage with Pecorino; cook before eating
Ingredients
- Beef chuck100% · 1000 g
- Beef fat10% · 100 g
- Pork shoulder45% · 450 g
- Fine salt1.5% · 23 g
- Ground black pepper0.2% · 3 g
- Fresh basil, finely chopped0.6% · 6 g
- Fresh garlic, finely minced0.69% · 11 g
- Pecorino cheese, finely crumbled3% · 46 g
- Dry white wine3% · 46 g
Method
- Chill beef, beef fat, pork, wine and equipment to 0–3°C.
- Grind beef chuck, beef fat and pork shoulder separately through 6 mm.
- Mix beef and pork with salt, pepper, basil, garlic and wine until lightly tacky.
- Fold in the ground beef fat and crumbled Pecorino until evenly distributed without smearing.
- Stuff into 36 mm hog casings and form links or a coil.
- Refrigerate for 4–12 hours at 2–4°C.
Safety. Fresh cheese and raw meat make this a perishable cook-before-eating sausage.