Tsamarella

Goat sun-dried until it rattles, and the only one of the cured meats you must soak before you can eat it.

Goat. Not vegetarian — contains goat.

Ingredients

• 2 kg goat meat, from the leg, in flat strips
• 250 g coarse salt, for the drawing cure — rinsed off and not eaten
• 2 teaspoons salt, for the light re-salting, which stays on
• 4 tablespoons dried oregano
• water, for soaking before use

Method

1. IT IS SUN-DRIED UNTIL IT RATTLES, which is as far from the apohtin on the previous page as curing goes. That one is kept permanently wet under wine; this one has every drop of moisture driven out of it until a strip knocked against the side of the tray makes a hard clacking sound. At that point it will keep for the best part of a year in a cloth bag at room temperature with nothing else done to it -- which is the entire purpose, and why the method is this severe.
2. AND IT MUST BE SOAKED BEFORE IT CAN BE EATEN. This is the only one of the three cured meats here that is inedible as it comes off the rack: it is far too salty and hard enough to be genuinely unpleasant. Two to three hours in cold water, changed twice, before it is cooked -- and it is then grilled or stewed rather than sliced raw. Treated like a lountza and put straight on a board, it is a mistake nobody repeats.
3. IT IS GOAT, NOT PORK, AND THAT IS NOT INTERCHANGEABLE. Goat is very lean, which is what allows the hard drying: there is almost no fat to go rancid over a year. The same method on pork shoulder produces something that tastes strongly off within a couple of months.
4. THE STRIPS ARE FLAT AND THIN AND CUT WITH THE GRAIN. Two centimetres thick at most, and long. Thick pieces dry on the outside and hold moisture at the centre, and that centre is where it spoils -- invisibly, inside something that looks finished.
5. THE OREGANO GOES ON AT THE END OF THE DRYING, NOT THE START. Pressed onto the strips once they are dry, or in the last day. On at the beginning it is bleached by a week of sun and tastes of nothing; on at the end it stays green and strong, and oregano is most of what this tastes of besides goat and salt.
6. The goat cut into flat strips no more than 2 cm thick, WITH the grain, and any fat trimmed away.
7. Layered with the coarse salt in a colander and left to DRAIN 24 HOURS in a cool place.
8. RINSED and patted dry, then re-salted lightly.
9. Hung or laid on racks in full sun, covered with muslin against flies, and brought in overnight.
10. Dried 5 to 7 DAYS in hot dry weather, turned daily.
11. TESTED: a strip knocked against the tray must RATTLE -- hard, with no give anywhere. Any softness means longer.
12. The dried oregano pressed onto the strips in the last day of drying, or once dry.
13. Stored in a cloth bag, not plastic, at room temperature. Keeps 8 to 12 months.
14. TO USE: SOAKED in cold water 2 to 3 HOURS, the water changed TWICE. It is inedible unsoaked.
15. Drained, patted dry, and grilled over charcoal or stewed with potatoes and tomato.
16. TASTED after soaking and before cooking: it should be salty but not harsh. Another hour if it is.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Cyprus · All recipes