8
votes
The story of an American trying to make 'Nduja, a traditional Calabrian food
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- Title
- Why We Avoid Our FAVORITE Ingredient | The Controversial Story of 'NDUJA
- Authors
- Pasta Grammar
- Duration
- 28:52
- Published
- May 26 2024
Having watched a bunch of other YouTubers make (or attempt to make) homemade dry aged / cured meats of various sorts, I figured that a curing chamber would be the solution. I've seen homemade curing chambers made from fridges of various shapes and sizes, but that Pepsi fridge setup is pretty cool looking. As he touched on though, botulism is a very very serious potential issue if the meat temperature/humidity isn't held stable throughout the entire process... so homemade solutions are always kinda risky. And based on the fact that his setup was showing 59℉ when he said the cooler should kick in if the fridge goes above 55℉, it's clearly not very well insulated or super stable. That doesn't mean it's necessarily outright dangerous, but it probably does increase the risks, especially if the sensors are inaccurate or not calibrated properly.
However, it's worth noting that there are actually professional curing chambers you can buy. Gustavo Tosta (Guga Foods, Sous Vide Everything, Guga) is another YouTuber I regularly watch whose channels focus primarily on steak, and he dry ages his own using a bunch of Dry Ager brand ones. And there are other brands out there as well, but they're all pretty ridiculously expensive (~$5k for the smaller mini-fridge sized ones). A major reason for that is they're mostly meant for the restaurant/food industry, and designed to maintain ridiculously stable temperatures/humidity, and have a much wider range they can do that at (0-30°C, 40-90%). So they're probably not affordable for most people, but it might be worth considering buying one for someone like this YouTuber who is clearly serious about his dry aged/cured meats.
I really love this channel; they're so great together. The fact that Eva even deigned to give him the time of day after he cooked "spaghetti" for her (with a jar of Ragu, natch) says a lot about her.
Another super great Italian cooking channel (but this is like, Michelin-star cooking) is Italia Squisita. Sensational stuff.