Fuet Catalan

Fuet is Catalan, one of the everyday embotits, the cured sausages of the region, thin enough to dry quickly and mild enough to eat by the hand with bread, cheese, or a glass of wine. What makes it fuet and not its neighbour is the small calibre, the clean pork flavour, the black pepper, and the pale white bloom on the casing. No pimenton. That belongs elsewhere.

The method that decides it is control: weigh the salt, weigh the cure, keep the meat cold, ferment it gently, then dry it until it has lost about 35 percent of its weight. Pésalo, no lo adivines. With cured sausage, guessing isn't rustic, it's careless. The white mould is not decoration; it protects the surface and helps the sausage dry evenly instead of crusting hard outside while staying soft inside.

If you're far from Catalonia, no hace falta haber pisado España. Use good pork shoulder, clean pork back fat, hog casings, Cure No. 2, and a safe starter culture from a sausage supplier. If you cannot get natural white mould, use a commercial Penicillium nalgiovense culture; it gives the clean white coat fuet wants. It won't be the same as a Catalan obrador, but it will be honest and safe. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.