Lomo embuchado
It seems an age since I started this last batch of cures, although it's only just over 6 weeks - not long when air drying meat. However, the Lomo that was cased for drying in late February, dried more quickly that I expected and has been ready for a while.
To recap, I started by cutting the 'eye' from a loin of pork (It's the meaty bit that you get in a pork chop!):
It was dry cured in a vacuum bag with Spanish smoked paprika, black pepper and garlic for a couple of weeks:
The cured Lomo was rinsed and then dried overnight in the fridge...
...before being cased in a large collagen casing and tied:
It was dried at a temperature around 12 - 15°C with a humidity starting around 85% and dropping to 75% during the later stages of drying.
The resulting product is one of Pauline's favourites:
The recipe's a simple dry cure:
Lomo embuchado
For 1kg of pork or pro-rata
Salt 25gm
Demerara Sugar 2.5gm
Saltpetre 0.3gm
Cure #1 - 2.5gm
Ground Black Pepper 7.5gm
Spanish Smoked Paprika 7.5gm
Large fresh garlic clove 1
It should be noted that I have chosen to use a level of saltpetre that's double the EU level for general curing. This is to ensure sufficient cure for longer term protection and mirrors the exemption given to existing recipes for a similar product when the rules were introduced. As a non-commercial curer I can make my own decisions about such matters but commercial curers will need to reduce the saltpetre to 0.15gm per kg. Many will choose to use Cure #2 in place of the Cure #1/Saltpetre combination - in which case use 2.6gm per kg of meat.
To simplify matters, here's a calculator for the ingredients:.
There are eight comments
It’s good Paul, no taste dominates so it lets the meat speak for itself. Pauline loves it so it won’t last long, in fact, I’m going to do three or four more next week.
I have the E250 (99.4% NaCl and .6% NaNO2) mixture available and would like to give this a try, but do not have access to saltpetre nor cure #2. Is it possible to simply increase slightly the level of E250 per kg of meat in this recipe in place of the saltpetre?
Many would say that you don’t need either! But, I don’t hold with that. There is some evidence that the Cure #1 will provide ongoing protection after it’s done it’s work, but for the sake of £10 I’d get some Cure #2 and use that instead.
It’s available from:
http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/cu..
I hope that this helps.
Do you have to use a Collegen case as its not a sausage or is just giving it extra protection??? And coul you use muslin????
Hi, the casing allows it to dry more slowly. You could use a beef bung instead of collagen. Some people use muslin – I’ve not had a lot of success with it myself – I got bad mould on the meat that I didn’t see because of the muslin!
Others don’t bother with a casing/muslin at all. I haven’t tried this though. Please let me know how you get on.
cured my first one without anything wrapped around was very nice, just seemed to dry to quick (20 days)and i actually doubled the salt and didnt add cure #1 instead adding 4g of salt petre. I’m on my second now a bigger batch (2kg) and im actually putting this one into beef bung so hopefully it will dry at a slower more even rate 
How would you describe the taste? Would you change anything? I was planning on doing this with some pork tenderloin later this year.