This was my first attempt at Mojama, a sort of tuna ham. There are so many points at which you can change the recipe on this one, from the drying time to the rub, each producing their own nuances in the flavour. It's pretty simple to do, and if you're into cured meats, it's worth a try!
It’s a proper umami punch and not at all fishy. This version had 35 days on it but could have definitely had longer to make the flavour more intense.
You can mix up the spice blend to your taste, I'd probably add less fennel next time as this overpowered the other spices a bit.
The salt ratios are important. You need the salt to actually cure the meat (preventing bad things like botulism etc). Scot Paterson uses 1.7% salt and 0.25% pink salt, so I copied this for my mix containing sodium nitrite. I'd welcome advice from anyone who knows more about curing on this, as I'm sure these ratios could be improved for a better cure.
You could really do with a dedicated fridge for this sort of thing to stop the meat from absorbing other flavours in the fridge. This would also help with moisture control.
I was sent a post by Scot Paterson on Instagram and quickly became obsessed with how he was getting the aging on these brilliant cuts of tuna. I used this post for inspiration which details his process.