Free route for sausages, salami, loins and hams at Christmas. The bad thing is that after the storm comes the calm and it’s time to moderate and not give the sausage so much cane when the festivities are over.
Preserve the sausage well And sausages are an art, even more so when we cut it whole and then we face orphaned domestic slices. As in any product, the most important thing is to moderate in the cut.
Not because it is not tasty, but because then we have to make room for them in the best possible way and they are going to dry up and spoil at forced marches. The sausage, unless we are going to eat it, is best whole and uncut.
You just have to see the drying rooms and wineries of the great pork meat farms. The famous ‘store in a cool and dry place‘is becoming more important than ever to fully preserve these flavor-laden bars.
It also matters that it is a dark place and that let’s not have the ham suffering or the chorizo on duty before starting. The problem, as almost always, comes with afterwards and is that the mistreatment to which we submit with the refrigerator can take its toll.
To prevent our sausages dry out more than necessary and that we do not suffer the consequences, there are remedies. And no, they do not go through the plastic wrap or by wrapping them thoroughly in aluminum.
How to avoid having to preserve the sausage
Prevention is better than cure, and with the sausage it is preferable not to overdo the braking. Although it is uncomfortable not to plate everything at once, it is convenient that we go cutting slices as we need it, even being at the table.
Thus we will avoid having to resort to the typical dish that seems to be taken from a wedding of the eighties with a variety of hors d’oeuvres. We know that it is always inevitable that any piece of ham or chorizo is loose, the famous ‘of shame’, but if we consume as we cut, the better.
The sliced success that many companies already sell also makes sense for relatively small houses, or that we directly bet on the supermarket or in our trusted store because they cut us the sausage. Also, if we vacuum packed, better than better.
That the famous vacuum participates in the initial preparation makes a lot of sense because, as we will see, air and oxygen are two of the worse enemies that any open sausage has. Basically, leaving it outdoors and unprotected – even with a little plastic wrap – will expose the product to bacteria and air, which will overdry it.
How to preserve the sausage well at home
If we have slowed down and we have plenty of slices to spare or, even though we are far-sighted, there is an orphan loin half-round at home, the solutions are simple: imitate vacuum conditions as much as possible. You may think that it is crazy that we are opening and closing envelopes – which may not be ecological or economical – so let’s look for the cheap alternative. If we have no money problem, it is best to repackage under vacuum.
Our best economic friend to preserve the sausage already opened at home is the tupper. See tupper or see any container as airtight as possible that allows us to prevent the product in question from being in contact with air. This subtle enemy is bad for us for two reasons: the first is that the air is loaded with oxygen and, therefore, oxidizes the products by simple contact.
Yes, they endure because they are cured and it is not the same to leave a banana or an apple than a cular sausage, but it affects them. The other reason is that the air, unless we can keep the conditions cool and dry, it will dehydrate what we have cut. For this reason, many times we have to dispense with that first slice that has begun to pout.
The solution, as we say, throw out the tupperware and put it in the fridge. A priori we might think that the refrigerator does not meet the condition of ‘cool and dry’, but if we resort to the tupper we reduce the percentage of air in the refrigerator, which is a cold place – not cool – and humid.
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Inside the tupperware there is no reason to worry excessively about how we store the loose pieces if they are already cut. If what we have to do is save a few slices or slices already opened more of the same. We open the tupper, we put a layer of slices and, as advice, I recommend that Let’s not put different types of sausage in the same container because they will end up taking on other aromas.
If this is unavoidable, either because you are stripped of space or because you do not have a collection of tuppers, alternate each layer of sausage with parchment paper -The oven- and thus you will avoid that the flavors are transmitted. When cold, the fat will not melt and the flavors will not be as intense.
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The other option, if there is no way to separate tuppers, is that the most delicate products are on top. That is, ham and loin, halfway through that we put the salchichón and, as a closing, the chorizo and the morcón.
How to preserve cheese
Cheese happens to our dear friend exactly the same, but it suffers even more in a refrigerator because its curing conditions can sometimes lead to generation of unsightly molds that, if they are in a cheese that should not have them, they are not good for health.
It will not be good for him to leave it out of the fridge once it is opened, either. nor with the classic cheese that we have seen our whole lives in our grandmothers’ house. As bad as it may be, cheese’s best friend is a refrigerated space.
If we have skated again with the quantities on the cheese boards, the same as with the sausage. A tupper or airtight container and cut from there to small pieces as we need it. Of course, it is not advisable to mix cheeses in the same tupperware because the odors will become vitiated.
Needless to say, cheese, whatever it is, should not be open in the fridge because it has the untimely ability to turn our entire refrigerator into a cellar. Being in a tupperware allows molds to not proliferate, not to contaminate with its smell and also to be kept as fresh as possible.
Also bad friend of air, if we go beyond putting a cheese outdoors, it will dry very quickly and, if it is flux, it will end up losing part of its characteristics. So, both to cheese and sausage, better in tupperware and in the fridge in a part that is not especially cold.
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