Slicing salami, et al., very very very thin

[Dave the Cook]

Veggie peeler?  Will Oxo work, Dave?

Well, I have an Oxo (or a reasonable counterfeit), so I'll say yes, because it's better than the VP I used when I did it.

I'll also come clean and admit that I haven't actually done salumi this way. But we used to use this technique to shave nearly-frozen Hormel "prosciutto" for hors d'oeuvres and garnishes.

Anyway, I figured it was worth a shot, as long as Fat-Guy seemed to be trembling by his PC, waiting for suggestions and willing to try just about anything.

[Suzanne F]

The slicing disks of the Cuisinart. This works for any dry-ish sausage you can fit into the feed tube. That's how I slice pepperoni for pizza, and the supermarket-size Hebrew National salamis and baloney for sandwiches.

[Dave the Cook]

The slicing disks of the Cuisinart.

I would think consistency would be a problem. With paper-thin or near-paper-thin slices you don't have much margin for error.

[Fat Guy]

I've just spent a little time with my ham slicer and the sharpening stone. I tried to get the edge geometry as steep as possible -- probably down near 10 degrees. This made a big difference when I made another attempt at getting thin, even slices from a salami. I think finally I have the right piece of equipment sharpened the right way. Now it's time to practice.

[mynamejoe]

Mynamejoe, I've just spent a few minutes with a small alpine salami and the Wusthof ham slicer.

I can imagine that in some places on the internet, a paragraph beginning with this sentence could have gone off in a very strange direction.

FG, your welcome; I'll do almost anything to further anyone's enjoyment of charcuterie and cured meats.

[snowangel]

I've noticed that I have better luck slicing thin and even when I put the item to be sliced diagonally (in relation to my body) as opposed to parallel to me. Maybe I'm just off kilter?

[Suzanne F]

The slicing disks of the Cuisinart.

I would think consistency would be a problem. With paper-thin or near-paper-thin slices you don't have much margin for error.

I've got 1 mm, 2 mm, and on up. Those are quite thin. Yes, if the pressure is uneven, the slices may be uneven. Like anything else, it just takes practice.

[Pitter]

Wusthof has a new knife that is shaped like a modified cleaver and has those oval indentations on the blade that are also used on long meat slicers. I asked about those indentations, and I don't understand a thing, except I was told that it helps the blade glide through dense objects. The gentleman at Broadway Panhandler insisted that this knife was so sharp that it scared him. I bought it.

The previous weekend I was catering a party and slicing a four pound salami with my chef's knife. It was a lot of work, and I was cursing myself, and I stopped after about two pounds, with a sore arm and hand. When I got home with my new knife, I tried cutting a slice from the remaining salami end, and it FLOATED through. I would hate for you to run over there and buy an $80 knife on my suggestion, but I gotta tell you, this knife cuts paper thin slices of hard salami, and it does so effortlessly.

[Suzanne F]

Wusthof has a new knife that is shaped like a modified cleaver and has those oval indentations on the blade that are also used on long meat slicers.  ...

Is that the santuko hollow-edge knife? aka "Kullenschlift" (sp?) Really good, eh?

Oh dear, there goes more of my $$$$$.

[Dave the Cook]

Is that the santuko hollow-edge knife?

...and so Fat-Guy brings us full circle.

One day, in an unremarkable thread, he mentions, in passing, that he is thinking about buying one of these. He gets us to feed him all this information, then slyly moves on to arguing with Plotnicki about something (anything). But he has planted a seed.

The next week, he introduces a topic about slicing things really, really thin, insinuating that the only decent tool for the job is a $300 countertop rotary deli slicer. We toss some ideas around, and Fat-Guy waits. And waits. Eventually, somebody suggests what? A granton-edge Wusthof Santoku! He must have turned blue holding his breath, waiting for us to do his evil bidding...

Now he can justify the knife--it wasn't his idea, it was somebody else's. And it's not an $80 hit to the pocketbook, it's a $220 savings.

What a clever clever man. I feel cheap and used.

[Suzanne F]

...

Now he can justify the knife--it wasn't his idea, it was somebody else's. And it's not an $80 hit to the pocketbook, it's a $220 savings.

What a clever clever man. I feel cheap and used.

Isn't that the late Alice Trillin's method of accounting? And what the hell, I may be cheap, but I ain't easy.

[Fat Guy]

Dave, thanks for noticing.

[Bux]

Bux, I agree that for Parma and Serrano hams there's something to be said for hand slicing. But for salami and the like the standard is machine slicing even at the hardcore places in Italy, isn't it? I mean, don't even the best places use those colorful old Berkel slicers?

I believe they use mechanical slicers in Italy for most "cold cuts." Is "cold cuts" the American word for charcuterie and salumi? I'm just disagreeing with the Italian standard. I'm not even sure that large cured chorizos and lomos ae not commonly cut by machine either. If everyone used a machine for pastrami, that would become the standard as well. I think standards have to questioned.

[russ parsons]

cutting salami or even ham paper thin the way the deli guys do is no problem. all you've got to do is practice for about 20 years working for $10 an hour. you know, there is something to be said for practiced technique (something that is often overlooked when cooks talk about recipes).

[Fat Guy]

That's about what I'm making now, so I should be all set by the time I'm 50.

[Dave the Cook]

technique (something that is often overlooked when cooks talk about recipes).

Boy, you got that right. It's one of my pet peeves.

I think it partly explains the success of the Food Network--watching somebody execute is so much more informative than reading about how to do it, especially the way cookbooks are usually written. Of course, many cookbooks by TV chefs have this same shortcoming.

[Fat Guy]

Yes, and on most cooking shows all the mise en place is, well, it's en place.

[Dave the Cook]

Right. And it's been mised by somebody making ten bucks an hour. (And will be cleaned up by somebody making even less, but I digress.)

[Fat Guy]

What about one of those sushi knives where only one side of the blade is ground? Don't those excel at making the straightest and thinnest possible slices?

[Fat Guy]

Tonight I painstakingly sliced about half of a 1/2-pound salami into the thinnest slices I could manage. I achieved a few slices that were exactly what I was striving for: Just a hair thicker than the thinnest setting on an electric deli slicer, and uniform in thickness. The rest of the slices were mostly incomplete -- the blade slid out of the slice about three quarters of the way through. Then the next slice would of course be defective. So it was a little frustrating, but I'm making good progress and even the bad slices were good eating.

Tasting the different thicknesses I realized that each example of salume probably has its own ideal slicing thickness. I'll think more about what properties demand thinner and thicker slicing. But what I do know is that, as with pastrami, flank steak, and so many other things, the slicing thickness and method are super-important. Different thicknesses of the same salami provided entirely different textural experiences and blindfolded I might have thought they were different products altogether.

[MHesse]

I can think of a couple possibilities for salami slicing that haven't been discussed yet, probably because these devices aren't designed for food.

Carpentry approach:

On "This Old House" I've watched Norm cut very thin slices of wood using a type of miter box for wood joinery. There's a frame or box that holds the piece of wood (meat) and then a very sharp blade that makes the cut. (great for close fitting picture frames, cabinet moldings or sandwiches). Angle of the cut variable from 0 (across the width) to 90 (along the length).

If this is too much, perhaps you could clamp the meat in a vise and attack it with a box plane. Either way, cheaper than a slicing machine, but probably not cheaper than that $80 knife.

Medical Approach:

There is a device caled a microtome. One takes a tissue sample and mounts it in a medium that sets up as a gel or solid. The "cast" is put into the microtome which can cut a slice thin enough to examine under a microscope. I think there are non-medical applications too (moon rocks, tree samples, etc). May not be practical for a quick 4am slice or even at all

for edible applications, but nothing except maybe a laser will get you a thinner slice. Probably much more expensive than a slicing machine.