In different fields of activity, there are international words that are understandable to residents of any country. In cooking, one of these words was the word “pepperoni”. What does it mean, where did it come from and how to prepare dishes that are called by this word? All this will be discussed below.

The meaning of this word

Pepperoni is an Italian word meaning hot pepper in the plural. Gradually, the word "pepperoni" ceased to be used only in the speech of Italians and acquired several other meanings known to gourmets at the international level.

Now the first common meaning is a spicy sausage (with pepper) from a mixture of beef, pork and chicken, which became popular in America thanks to Italian emigrants who established its production in the New World.

Two other meanings are pizza, for the filling of which the above-mentioned spicy sausage is used, and tomato sauce, also used in the process of making pepperoni pizza.

Pepperoni pepper - what is it?

If we talk about the original meaning, then pepperoni is not one specific type of pepper, but a collective name denoting more than 50 types of capsicums. The tropical regions of America are considered the homeland of pepperone, where it can still be found growing wild.

The most popular types of pepperoni peppers:

• peperoncini or golden Greek pepper;
• banana pepper, which grows in America and has another name: American banana pepper;
• peperoni piccante is also known as sweet pepper.

Of course, we should not forget about hot hot peppers, which are used in the preparation of many national Italian dishes in fresh, dried and pickled form, both ripened red and green.

How to make pepperoni sausage at home

Ingredients	Quantity
pork fillet -	2000 g
chicken fillet -	1000 g
beef pulp -	1000 g
table salt -	70 g
nitrite salt -	30 g
dry red wine -	250 ml
paprika -	42 g
cayenne pepper -	24 g
ground (or whole) anise grains -	12 g
sugar -	10 g
ascorbic acid -	5 g
chopped garlic -	7 g
artificial or natural casing -	1.8 m
Cooking time: 217000 minutes	Calorie content per 100 grams: 601 Kcal

The famous pepperone sausage is easy to make at home, as housewives have been doing for centuries in its homeland in Naples. This process is not complicated, but it is quite time-consuming, so you will have to be patient before trying homemade pepperone.

Step by step cooking instructions:

1. Pass well-chilled, even slightly frozen meat through a meat grinder. Then the minced meat must be thoroughly beaten until white fibers appear in it. You also need to ensure that the temperature of the minced meat during operation does not fall below 12 degrees Celsius;
2. Place the beaten minced meat in the refrigerator for a day to ripen. After aging, the meat will darken and its consistency will change slightly;
3. Add wine, spices, sugar, salts and ascorbic acid to the ripened minced meat. Paprika will give the finished product a beautiful color, and cayenne pepper will add heat. It is worth mentioning separately about nitrite salt. It acts as a preservative and prevents the occurrence of botulism. Ascorbic acid is also a preservative and color stabilizer;
4. Fill the shells with the resulting minced meat, releasing the air and tying them every 25-30 cm. Small air bubbles that cannot be expelled simply need to be pierced with a thin needle;
5. Sausage blanks should be sent to dry in a well-ventilated area with a temperature of 10-12 degrees Celsius. The drying time will be from 6 to 8 weeks.

Ingredient in pizza - description and recipe

Pepperone is a very popular ingredient in the pizza of the same name, which is also called “Pizza Diabola” (“Devil’s Pizza”). So, a flatbread with a special tomato sauce, spicy salami, champignons, which emphasize the spiciness of the sausage, and mozzarella cheese won the hearts of not only lovers of spicy food.

For the pizza dough and filling you will need:

• 420 ml of drinking water;
• 70 g fresh pressed yeast;
• 50 ml olive oil;
• 10 g sugar;
• 500 g flour;
• 150 g pepperoni sauce;
• 100 g pepperoni sausage;
• 100 g canned or fried champignons;
• 400 g mozzarella cheese.

It will take about 1.5-2 hours to knead the dough and bake.

The calorie content of a hundred-gram piece of aromatic yeast flatbread with pepperoni slices will be 219.5 kilocalories.

How to make pizza:

Sauce recipe

If the housewife decides to make pepperoni pizza, then you should not use ready-made tomato sauce or paste. They can spoil the taste of the finished baked goods, so don’t be lazy, because pepperoni sauce is prepared quite quickly. There will be enough time for the dough to rise.

For the sauce you need to take:

• 600 g ripe tomatoes;
• 20 ml olive (not sunflower) oil;
• 10 g white crystalline sugar;
• 6 g garlic;
• 5 g dried basil;
• 5 g dried oregano;
• 3 g table salt.

It only takes 30-40 minutes to cook the sauce.

Calorie content – ​​52.8 kcal per 100 g of finished product.

Cooking method:

1. Pour boiling water over clean tomatoes. Then peel them and puree them with a blender or pass through a fine grinder;
2. In a saucepan or saucepan with thick walls, heat the resulting tomato puree for 10 minutes over medium heat;
3. Then add salt, vegetable oil and sugar. The amount of the last ingredient can be increased if the tomatoes are sour. Simmer the sauce for another 10 minutes on the fire;
4. 3-4 minutes before the end of cooking, add chopped garlic and dry herbs to the saucepan. Cool the finished sauce before using.

Bon appetit!

Pepperoni sausage is a subspecies of salami. In general, in Italian this word means one of the subspecies of pepper. By the way, this is worth considering if you want to order pepperoni pizza, since in Italy they will bring you a vegetable dish, and not with sausage. In general, its homeland is Naples, where it was actively added to pizza. After some time, the spicy sausage became popular in many parts of the world. It stands out for its original taste and aroma (see photo). The shelf life of pepperoni sausage is no more than 30 days.

Use in cooking

Pepperoni sausage is an excellent independent product that is most often added to pizza. In addition, sandwiches, snacks and salads are made from it. They also like to put it in scrambled eggs. The piquant and original taste will help diversify the taste of various dishes, for example, soup, stew, etc.

Recipe

It will come as a surprise to many but you can make your own pepperoni sausage at home. To do this, you need to take 1 kg of chicken, beef and pork, as well as crushed anise, cayenne and red pepper, mole and sugar. You also need to take chopped garlic and ascorbic acid. The meat should be chopped and placed in the freezer for half an hour. After this, it must be mixed with spices, garlic, acid and left in the refrigerator for a day. Then rinse the intestines thoroughly and fill them with the prepared minced meat. The resulting sausages must be hung in a ventilated place for 8 weeks.

Harmful effects of pepperoni sausage and contraindications

Pepperoni sausage can cause harm if an individual intolerance to the product is detected. Due to the presence of a large number of spices, you should not use it if you have problems with the digestive system. Pepperoni is a high-calorie food therefore, if overused, it can cause metabolic problems and lead to weight gain.

Let's get acquainted with the production of dry-cured Italian and Spanish sausages.
"Pepperoni" - the prodigal American daughter of the Italians Salsiccia(salsiccha) and Sopressata(sopressata). There is a version that Italian immigrants to the USA slightly altered the recipe, adding beef and chicken... The idea took root in America and acquired a new name " Pepperoni"with two letters" R"in English spelling, as opposed to Italian -" peperon i"(peppers). It was this sausage, with its hot peppery taste, that gave the name to the pizza of the same name (sometimes this pizza is called " pizza del diavolo").
"Chorizo" - Spanish aristocrat. Simple cooking technology and exquisite taste conquered first Spain, then South America, and then the whole world... Today we are hosting in Russia these charming gentlemen, whose pedigree goes back to such deep gray centuries that we will leave this secret to the discretion of historians and will not take away their daily bread...

Pepperoni:

Bold pork - 1.5 kg
Lean beef - 0.5 kg
Nitrite salt - 50 g
Sweet paprika - 1.5 tablespoons
Hot ground red pepper - 1 tablespoon
Anise or star anise - 1/2 tablespoon
Brown sugar - 1/2 teaspoon
Garlic - 5 large cloves
Dry red wine - 150 ml

Cut the well-chilled meat into small pieces and grind through the middle grill of a meat grinder.
Add the remaining ingredients and mix the minced meat well.
Place the minced meat in a metal bowl, cover with cling film and leave overnight to ferment the minced meat.
In the morning, we stuff it into pork intestines (the length of the sausages is 25-30 cm) and hang it in the corridor to dry and compact the minced meat in the casing.
Place in the refrigerator overnight.
In the morning we hang it in the corridor, at night - in the refrigerator... so 4 cycles.
Then we wrap the sausages in gauze and put them in the refrigerator for a week to ripen...
After such shock therapy, we hang the sausages in the corridor for final drying.
On April 15th I made the sausages, and on May 16th they were ready. Packed in parchment, they were put in the refrigerator for storage. After 5 months of refrigeration Pepperoni

Chorizo:

"Chorizo ​​borracho de cerdo":

Pork neck - 2 kg
Pork brisket - 1 kg
Nitrite salt - 84 g ( “Nitrite” salt is a mixture consisting of sodium nitrite - 0.5-0.6%. anti-caking agent - 0.0010%, the rest is vacuum salt.)
Cumin - 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander - 1/2 teaspoon
Ground ginger - 1/2 teaspoon
Dry orange zest - 1/2 teaspoon
Sweet paprika - 2 tablespoons
Ground red hot pepper - 1 tablespoon
Oregano (flowers) - 1 teaspoon
Coarsely ground black pepper - 1 teaspoon
Nutmeg - 2/3 nuts
Garlic tincture with 96% alcohol - 30 ml
Cognac - 50 ml
Limoncello (45%) - 30 ml
Dry red wine - 200 ml

Grind the spices and pour in limoncello, cognac and garlic tincture. Leave for two hours.
Pass the meat (slightly frozen and cut into 2x2 cm cubes) in a meat grinder with a good knife and mix with nitrite salt and infused spices, add dry red wine and knead the minced meat thoroughly.
Place the minced meat in a mold (no higher than 15 cm) and put it in the refrigerator for 24 hours to mature the minced meat and distribute the spices and salt evenly.
It is recommended to fry a small minced meat patty (check for spices and salt), adjust if necessary.
Take out the minced meat and stuff the pork casings tightly (there are many ways of stuffing on the Internet, so I won’t focus on them), avoiding any air pockets. If air does get in, pierce the intestine with a needle and squeeze it out using a compaction of minced meat in this place.
The length of the sausages is approximately 25-30 cm, we tie the ends with a rope at the ends. We form two pieces. The resulting sausages are horseshoe-shaped.
We put them in the refrigerator to ripen and ferment for 2-3 days.
On the shelf of the refrigerator (I have NO FROST) I spread a clean cloth in two layers, then a sausage, another cloth on top, another on top, etc.
Afterwards we hang it in a dark place (the main thing is to avoid direct rays of the sun) (I hang it in the corridor (I have a temperature of +25 degrees). A little air movement is needed. We hang it for 2 days.
Then again in the refrigerator for a day. We repeat this 3-4 times. Those. a day in the refrigerator, two days in
corridor (drafts are not welcome).
This procedure is necessary to prevent the formation of “hardening” of the sausages ( dry outer crust and soggy middle, the crust will prevent the middle from drying evenly).
Then I hang it in the corridor for final drying for 30 days (you can try it once the sausage hardens).
Sausages turned out to be salty (this is my preference), you can reduce the amount of nitrite salt to 20-25 g per 1 kg of minced meat.
Packed in parchment, they were put in the refrigerator for storage. After 5 months of refrigeration Chorizo It became a little drier, but the taste was completely preserved...

Classical Chorizo- pork sausage with garlic, hot red pepper, sweet paprika, salt, herbs and white wine.
Look like that's it! I will gratefully accept objective, subjective and even negative criticism...

Pepperoni is one of the many varieties of salami, characterized by a spicy, spicy taste. As a rule, this sausage product is made from pork, or from a mixture of beef and pork. It is eaten both separately and cooked as part of various cold and hot dishes.

Manufacturing

In most European countries, pepperoni is made from a mixture of pork and beef. In Turkey and the USA, poultry meat is often added to this sausage product, and in the Caribbean islands - donkey and horse meat. The intense red color of the flesh and hot spicy taste characteristic of pepperoni are imparted with the help of paprika and cayenne pepper. As a preservative and hardening agent in the production of pepperoni, sodium nitrite is usually used, less often saltpeter.

Calorie content

100 grams of pepperoni, made from beef and pork, contains about 494 kcal.

Compound

The chemical composition of pepperoni from beef and pork is characterized by a high content of lipids, saturated fats, poly- and monounsaturated fatty acids, trans fats, cholesterol, proteins, minerals (sodium, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium), vitamins (B6, B12, C, D).

How to cook and serve

As noted earlier, pepperoni is a type of salami. This food product differs from the “original” version of this sausage product by the presence of paprika and cayenne pepper in its composition, giving it a characteristic hot spicy taste. It is thanks to these organoleptic properties that pepperoni has become very widespread as one of the essential ingredients for preparing American pizza. However, this type of salami is great for making all kinds of cold appetizers, including, of course, sandwiches and sandwiches, as well as salads.

How to choose

When choosing pepperoni, you should take into account the production features of European and American varieties of this sausage product. Particularly in Europe, it is made using fresh pork and beef. To give the finished product characteristic organoleptic properties, ground red cayenne pepper and paprika are added. In South America, pepperoni is made using poultry, donkey and horse meat, as well as a variety of spices, which add different flavors and spiciness levels to the finished product.

Another factor in choosing pepperoni is how it will be used for culinary purposes. To prepare pizza, salami with a diameter of up to 2.5 cm is used, and for sandwiches and sandwiches - up to 3-4 cm. This is due to the fact that during heat treatment, large slices of pepperoni tend to curl up at the edges.

Storage

Pepperoni should be stored in the refrigerator. If the casing is not damaged, the shelf life of this sausage is several weeks. Pepperoni cut into slices should be consumed within 5-7 days. In addition, this variety of salami can be frozen. If the temperature is maintained (not higher than minus 18 degrees Celsius), the shelf life of this food product can reach several months.

Beneficial features

Even after heat treatment, pepperoni retains most of its original beneficial properties due to its chemical composition, rich in various biologically active substances. In particular, the consumption of this food product stimulates metabolic processes, the formation of bone and muscle tissue, and also has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, immunostimulating effects, and improves the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.

Restrictions on use

Individual intolerance, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, tendency to allergies.