A Tale of Two Boxes
Christmas has come early this year! Red, green, and white, in addition to being traditional Christmas colors are also the colors of the Italian flag. And that’s what I got: a little taste of Italy in a box.
Anyone like me, whose has gone nuts for nduja, the soft, spicy, and spreadable salami made in Calabria owes an immense debt of gratitude to Scott, over at Sausage Debauchery. He has found authentic Calabrian chile peppers, both concentrate and dried, at D. Colluccio & Sons in Brooklyn, NY. Not only did he track them down, but he was willing to buy some for me and send me a goody box!
You can tell how genuine this stuff is by all the misspellings. “Genuin Italian Chilly.” “Italian Wild Mountains Fennel.” And I love the ingredients list: “hot pepper, salt” for both the dried and the concentrate. That’s the way it should be. No fucking preservatives. No fucking additives. No fucking artificial colors. Just the real stuff, minimally processed.
And, as you would expect coming from an Italian place in da city, this stuff arrives packing some heat. Big Red was over here when the package arrived, and just sniffing the powdered chile through the plastic packaging was enough to cause a coughing fit. It has a deep, lingering, front-of-the-mouth burn, on the sides just under the tip of the tongue, but it’s not so hot that heat is all you taste. It also has a rich, earthy flavor – in my imagination, like the red soil of Mars, scorched by the sun. In contrast, the concentrate has a brighter, fresher pepper flavor, and it rolls (or is that roils?) across the top of the tongue like a wave of napalm, passing on up through the sinuses, opening everything up, and finishing with a beautiful tingle on the top of your scalp.
Some combination of the concentrate and the dried should be just what I need to make the ultimate nduja! I’ve got two pork shoulders and two pork bellies in the fridge, and now I know what I’m going to be doing all weekend!
And of course one good turn deserves another. Scott expressed a desire to wrap his mouth around some of the stuff that I’ve been cooking up around here, so I packed up a little styrofoam cooler with some of the cocoa bacon, some pancetta, pâté, and of course last week’s mortadella, and sent if off to him yesterday. It should be in his greedy little mitts by Friday. I expect it will all be gone by Sunday. Buon appetito!
Thanks for being so patient, Scott! You are first among the Princes of Pork!
Tags: chilis
October 1st, 2009 at 8:16 am
Wish I could get in on the mail order love-in, but alas, Canada customs would probably confiscate this kind of thing…
Boo!
October 2nd, 2009 at 10:33 am
If you’re willing to cough up $20, I’m willing to give it a shot, mochapj. Larbo, I’m glad you tasted both of them, as they are 2 different tastes and heats. Like you said, a combination of both should be perfect. Beware using percentages with the dried, it weight nothing. Also, try the dried in combination with the fennel seeds and sea salt as a dry rub(2:1:.5 salt, dried pepper, fennel seed). This same combination is what I use in my hot fresh sausages as well. Come to think of it, I think I use the dried powder in just about everything. What I’ve done with the paste is kind of substitute it for ketchup in barbecue sauce. That stuff makes my lips go numb. Look for my second go at N’duja in about 2 weeks.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm
mochapj, since this stuff is packaged for sale in the US, it should be possible to mail it to Canada. But then again, they might confiscate it just as a fire hazard! Still, it’s worth a try, as the heat and the flavor are just what I remember the Calabrian Nduja tasting like. Took some of this morning’s batch to lunch with some friends – the kind of friends who start salivating when you say you brought spicy, raw, fermented pork belly – and their reaction was “Whoa! This is fucking great!”
Scott, let us know if your goody box arrives safely today! If I can’t order directly through Colluccio’s I’ll definitely be ordering more concentrate and powdered chiles from you. Your rub recipe sounds great for a slow-cooked pork shoulder. And you’re right about percentages. 140 grams doesn’t sound like a lot chile, but, in quantity, it was about a heaping cup!
October 2nd, 2009 at 8:27 pm
No dice on the package today, Larbo.
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:10 am
With the tracking number, can you see if it’s coming today or whether they’ve sent it to Uruguay?
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
Scott, I looked it up, and as of 6:01am the package was on a Fedex delivery vehicle in Newburgh and slated for delivery today. Ah, that sound you hear is the delivery guy at the door. Enjoy!
October 4th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Do the Collucci guys do mail order? Couldn’t find anything going on their website.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Like you, I didn’t see any sign on the website that Colucci did mail orders. But, hey, give them a call, and if you know what you want to order from the store, I don’t see why they wouldn’t throw it in a box and send it to you. Except, of course, that they’re Italians from Brooklyn, and if they don’t feel like accomodating you, dey ain’t gonna do it!
January 15th, 2010 at 7:20 am
[...] The first hitch? Coluccio’s has no mail order business. The second hitch? After one blessed shipment from Scott, Coluccio’s dried up. Out of Stock. For month after friggin’ [...]