SALAME TURCO (Turkish salame)

It was not easy to buy Italian sweets in the late 60’s in Australia and SALAME TURCO was a sweet that I used to help my mother make. We kept it in the fridge until it was ready to slice and it came in handy just in case someone dropped in unannounced.
I bought a copy of the Feast SBS magazine recently and noticed that they have a recipe for salame di cioccolato and it appears to be the same thing. I guess that these days this is the politically correct term for this recipe, but salame turco has cultural and religious connections – back in the days of heathens and Christians the invading darker skinned Moors were known as Turks. The chocolate of course makes it dark and when the salame is cut the crumbs and the nuts resemble the minced fat component of the salame.
INGREDIENTS
300 g of biscuits (We used any type of plain sweet biscuits. Most of the time it was a way to use up broken biscuits).
50g of cocoa, (the Italian or Dutch brands are particularly strong and flavourful)
100g chopped almonds
20g, chopped pistachios
1 egg
50g sugar
30g butter (unsalted)
1/2 glass rum, marsala dolce or other liqueurs like Amaretto.

PROCESSES
Separate the yolk from the white.
Beat the egg yolk with the sugar until creamy and the sugar is dissolved. In another bowl beat the white until soft peaks form.
Make coarse crumbs from the biscuits.

Melt the butter with the cocoa and rum. Allow to cool but not solidify;
Work quickly.
Incorporate
all of the ingredients one at the time. Stir gently .The mixture should be firm.
Shape it into a salame (log shape – we used to make it about 2 centimetres in diameter)
Place it in some greaseproof or baking paper. (We used to use the paper wrapper from the butter.)
Leave in the fridge until ready to slice approximately 20mm thick.

 

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