The link below will take you to a site which has MANY tried and true sausage recipes, including a few for different kinds of sopressata. Just navigate to the salami recipes (click on "Formulations" then "Dry-cured Sausage and Meats") and check them out. I think you will find some interesting browsing on that site.

BTW, I'm crazy about sopressata, but have not made any dry cured sausages yet.

Jim

Apparently from what I have read, the amount of seasonings used varies from region to region preferences.

Dave

Sopressa is a dry cured sausage with coursly ground pork fat, pork, and lean beef. It does need the Prague powder #2 to create the nitrites necessary to keep it red color and to prevent spoiling during drying. You also need to use the proper collogen casings and soak the sausage in salt brine just prior to its drying. Think of it as a chunky salami thats been dried a lot longer. BTW, its spelled- sopressa. It has garlic in it as well as the basic pepper, corander, and whatever you like as to flavors. The loink below shows an air cured one with whitish mold on te outside, which is quite normal. My pepperoni and salami did that too a so I know its drying well. Air drying is done at about 40-50 degrees for several months. Go easy on the clove, and vinegar. In fact, the wine or a fruity brandy may be a better idea.

The correct Italian name/spelling is sopressata. When we used to make it in Calabria,Italy, we used only pork meat and stuffed it in the large intestine from the pig. We did not use any "cure" (we did not have access to it) but used raw sea salt (that is the only type of salt we had. The sea salt apparently had the nitrates in it as impurities.) The addition of the whole black pepper was the major distinguishing characteristic of the spice mixture which usually included red hot flakes pepper, and red ground pepper. The lean meat was chopped separately from the fat, then the two mixed. After stuffing, it was placed in a bushel with weights on top and after a 24hrs hung and dried. The pigs (two) were slaughtered in January as we did not have refrigeration; the sausages were hung on bamboo canes across the kitchen ceiling; we had a fireplace and once in a while we would get a backdraft which would blow smoke inside the kitchen and thus smoke the sausages! When the sausages were sufficiently dry, we would put then in a jar under olive oil. The oil would keep the sausages from drying out any further and preserve then until eaten!

Oil is not used as a preservative. It is used to keep the sausage from drying out any further, the moisture in the sausage will be redistributed evenly, and the curing process will be completed.

I still make sausage in America. I do use nitrite and nitrate preservatives and do stick it under oil to finish the curing. I do not use olive oil because of the expense but it does impart a better taste to the sausage!
Here are a couple of pictures of my sausage.

The large beige ones are capicollo; they are wrapped in cloth.

Her is a pictures of the capicollo that needs to be aged (it has dryed, but has to finish curing), I have removed the cloth and now will stick it under oil to let it finish curing:

This is picture of the finished products (last year's crop):