Salame Napoli
Naples, Campania, Italy
Coarse, peppery and savoury, often lightly smoked, a bold southern salame.
Overview
Salame Napoli is coarse, peppery and savoury, often lightly smoked, a bold southern salame. A coarse red salame with clear white fat, black-pepper specks and a garlic aroma. Smoke, when used, should be light and clean.
Where it's from
Climate. Campania and the south.
Altitude. Southern hills and plain
The cut
How to recognise it
A coarse red salame with clear white fat, black-pepper specks and a garlic aroma. Smoke, when used, should be light and clean. A greasy smear, dirty smoke, black mould or sour centre is defective.
- Shape and size
- Cylindrical, coarse
- Lean colour
- Deep red
- Fat and marbling
- White cubes
- Casing
- Natural pork or veal middle, 60 to 70 mm
- Surface bloom
- Possible
Origins and history
This is a coarse, peppery pork salame from the Campania region of southern Italy, where a spiced cured sausage of this kind has been made for several centuries. It was once valued enough to serve as a form of barter and to grace the table at feast days. Though it carries the name of the city, it is produced across the wider region, and its bold pepper and gentle smoking set it apart from the milder, sweeter salumi of the north.
The salame developed in the pork-curing culture around Naples and the Campanian countryside. Coarse texture, pepper and occasional smoke give it a more rustic character than the fine-grained Milan style. The verified production area is Naples and Campania, Italy. Stories and etymologies are retained when they help explain the tradition, but legends are not used as evidence for the modern specification.
Name. Named for Naples.
- Production today
- Made across Campania and the south.
- Protection
- Not EU-protected as a general name.
- Tradition vs modern
- Bolder seasoning and a light smoke.
- Seasonality
- Year-round.
Compare with. Salame Milano
Serving and cultural significance
Serve in medium-thin slices with bread, provolone, olives and southern Italian wine. The coarse grain, pepper and light smoke also suit rustic sandwiches and antipasti. Allow the cut surface to warm slightly, but protect it afterward so the large particles do not dry at the edge.
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, please 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 →The cure below is the traditional reference. “Make this” opens the measured Curesmith home recipe, scaled to your batch.
Traditional or protected production
Salame Napoli is a coarse Campanian pork salame seasoned with black pepper and garlic, sometimes receiving a restrained smoke. The generic regional style has no current EU geographical indication.
- Meat
- pork
- Salt (%)
- 2.2
- Curing salt
- Not included in the base recipe below
- Fermented
- Yes
- Target pH
- 4.9
- Starter or mould
- Natural surface mould
- Smoked
- Yes
- Target aW or weight loss
- ~30% weight loss
- Temperature (°C)
- ferment 22 to 24, then dry 13 to 15
- Humidity (%)
- ferment ~90, then 75 to 80
- Maturation
- 3 to 6 weeks
- Basis
- per 1000 g green meat
- Style
- Traditional fermented and dried salame, lightly smoked
Ingredients
- Lean pork (base)100% · 1000 g/kg
- Pork belly and hard back fat33.33% · 333 g/kg
Method
- Mince or hand-cut pork and fat and mix with all ingredients to green meat weight.
- Stuff into casing.
- Ferment to the target pH.
- Dry to the target weight loss.
Notes
- This traditional recipe uses no nitrite. For safety we recommend adding Cure #2: in a low-oxygen, slow-dried product nitrite is the specific guard against Clostridium botulinum, while salt, acidity and drying control Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and Staphylococcus.
In the Codex
What this product teaches, and where to read more.
Temple. Roof, Water Activity