Merguez - Spicy lamb sausage

Since I was ordering from the butcher anyway, I decided to order some lamb shoulder to make some Merguez, a spicy lamb sausage from North Africa. I figured it would be great slow roasted on the grill.

This adapted from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.  You'd think that I'm getting a cut but no, I'm just loving the cookbook.

Ingredients
3.5 lbs diced lamb shoulder
1.5 lb lamb fat diced
1.5 oz Kosher Salt
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
2 Tbs minced garlic
1.5 cups diced roasted red pepper
1.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbs Spanish paprika (I used Picante, you could use Dulce)
2 Tbs minced fresh oregano
1/4 cup dry red wine, chilled
1/4 cup ice water

20ft sheep casing soaked and rinsed

Directions:
Combine all ingredients except the water and wine (OR casings!) and toss to distribute the seasonings.

Chill until ready to grind. In this case it was from about 3 to 9 the next morning.

Grind mixture through small die,  add water and wine to meat mixture and mix until liquids are incorporated and the mixture has developed a uniform sticky appearance. Sorry for no pictures but this sausage is red from the paprika. Working the grinder/ mixer/stuffer was difficult enough as it was without trying to capture action shots. Sorry for that.

Cook a small sample for taste test. (delicious)

Stuff into lamb casings and twist into 10" links. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to use. Well that's in instructions but  I coiled some up and left some long. The coils work great on the grill with a couple skewers threw them.  They are chilling for now getting ready to be frozen.

To cook roast (or grill on indirect heat) or gently saute to an internal temp of 150F.

Served with rice, garlic chili sauce and a simple salad.

Until next time, Eat Well & Keep Digging!


The Gastronomic Gardener
Garden blog http://amidwestgarden.blogspot.com/
Cooking blog http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/DavidPOffutt
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Scotch Eggs

Scotch eggs have been around a long time. This wiki article goes into the history. I've had them warm and at room temp, they are a fine finger food when enjoying your favorite adult beverage or just as a snack.

They start with a good hard boiled eggs. You may know this but stay with me. Older eggs make the best hard boiled eggs, something about the change in PH makes them easier to peel. Cook them only enough to set the yolks and avoid the green tinge that sometimes coats the yolk.

Ingredients
6  hard boiled eggs
1or 2 eggs lightly beaten for coating
flour
salt for the water
12 oz loose sausage - I'm using the Yankee Sage Sausage I made the other day.
Bread Crumbs - make your own or boxed is OK too, I'm using Panko bread crumbs because I like the texture

Directions:
Place eggs in a pan of cold water.

Add a generous pinch of salt.

Bring to a boil.

Once water boils, remove from heat and cover.

Let stand 13 minutes.

Cool eggs rapidly in cold water (or ice bath)

Start oil to fry

When eggs are cooled, peel and dredge in flour, tapping off the excess.

Wrap in a layer of the raw loose sausage.

Dip in raw egg to coat.

Roll in bread crumbs.

Fry eggs in 350F oil for 10 minutes.

Drain on paper towels. Let cool to room temperature. Cut in half or quarters and serve.

A couple of final thoughts. Use medium or small eggs. These are really big once you wrap them in sausage. You may want to start with more sausage to be sure to cover them all. Next time I'll likely break out the deep fryer. They could also be baked which I might also try.  In any event, they are delicious!

Until next time, Eat Well & Keep Digging!

The Gastronomic Gardener
Garden blog http://amidwestgarden.blogspot.com/
Cooking blog http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/DavidPOffutt
http://www.facebook.com/TheGastronomicGardener

Yankee Sage Sausage

Straight from Bruce Aidells book

Ingredients:

3 pounds pork butt
1/2 to 3/4 pound pork back fat
3 tablespoons finely chopped or dried and crumbled fresh sage, or 2 to 3 teaspoons ground sage
3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried summer savory (I left this out)
1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
Pinch of ground cloves
1/4 cup water
Sheep of medium hog casings (optional)

Grind the meat and fat through a 1/4-inch plate.

 In a large bowl, mix the meat, fat, salt, sage, black pepper, cayenne, summer savory, marjoram, thyme, ginger, and cloves with the cold water. Knead and squeeze the mixture until thoroughly blended.

A little taste test. It was good, but will get better, the seasoning needs more time to meld with the meat and fat.

I formed 3 oz patties and set them between sheets of parchment paper.

Into the freezer!

Until next time, Eat Well & Keep Digging!


The Gastronomic Gardener
Garden blog http://amidwestgarden.blogspot.com/
Cooking blog http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/DavidPOffutt
http://www.facebook.com/TheGastronomicGardener

Nurnberger style Bratwurst

I am enjoying the process of making sausages. This one is a Nurnberger style bratwurst. It was a little tough to find a recipe. Some called for caraway but checking with a German colleague disabused me of that notion, they all called for beef, veal specifically, but I couldn't find any so I used chuck roast (I had some left over from the Kielbasa adventure). the primary seasoning is marjoram.

Nurnberger bratwurst is a name protected under EU law, and the exact recipe is a closely held secret by the sausage makers in Nurnberg. It is a smaller sausage, thinner than the common bratwurst you get in the States, so it calls for lamb casings rather than hog casings.

Ingredients:
2.5 lbs pork shoulder
1.5 lbs veal ( lean)
1 lb back fat
8 tsp salt
2 tsp ground white pepper
¾ tsp mace
½ tsp nutmeg
4 tsp marjoram

Here are the spices.

Grind meat through small plate.
Mix thoroughly with spices, grind again.

At this point make a small patty and fry it up to check seasonings. I thought it was rather salty but, decided to forge ahead anyway.

Stuff into small casings, tying off at 4" or so. I'm not the best at this so some are bigger than others. Ah well, the perils of homemade.




















Into a big pan with some water to poach. I want them cooked so all they need is a little time in the pan or grill.

When all is said and done, I have nice batch of sausages!

The ones in the foreground may have had a blowout or are too stubby to package. They were sacrificed to the taste test. I grilled them and they are unlike any sausage I've had, mild, beefy, a hint of nutmeg. In other words, pretty subtle. But good! And they did not taste oversalted so I was happy about that.

I vacuum sealed the rest, and popped them in the freezer. We'll see if they pass muster with a few of my German colleagues.

Until next time, Eat Well & Keep Digging!


12/21/2010 Update
Per my German colleague who requested them,  they are a little salty - but clearly quite edible - she ate 6 of them! Also the flavor profile is correct. The grind was too fine - nect time I grind once, mix  spices and stuff.

The Gastronomic Gardener
Garden blog http://amidwestgarden.blogspot.com/
Cooking blog http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/DavidPOffutt
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Cold smoked sausages

With the smoke shack built and tested it is time to do a little more. I have a chunk of cured pork belly, and the ingredients for bratwurst and kielbasa. I'm using recipes from Bruce Aidells' Complete Sausage Book.

Here are the two plates of spices measured out, one for each type of wurst. For the kielbasa:

and the bratwurst.

The mixes are similar with the kielbasa calling for much  more garlic, and the bratwurst needing mace and ground mustard seed. Since they are both going into the smoker, I used the salt I smoked in the test run for extra smokey flavor

The pink is the curing salt. 6.25% sodium nitrite. It is required because the sausages will be air dried and cold smoked and it inhibits bacteria growth, particularly that responsible for botulism (Clostridium botulinum). In very high doses it is toxic, so it is dyed pink to prevent mistaking it for sugar or salt. If you're interested, we can discuss nitrites and nitrates further.

The basic sausage making is described in this old post. The process is the same here.

Cut up the meat,

Spice and grind,  chill and stuff into casings. It sounds so easy, but it took about 4 hours as I clean and disinfect all equipment between grinding and stuffing. And this of course was two batches. In the end we have 4 big kielbasas.





















Before they go into the smoker, the instructions indicate to hang the sausages in front of a fan overnight.

Ready for the smoker, also have the cured and pepper pork belly.

Into the smoker.

Smoke for 12 hours. It was very cold so I did use a small propane heater to keep the smoke box above freezing. I also switched from wood chips, to chunks, they burned longer.

 All ready to poach and eat and enjoy! 

Until next tinme Eat Well & Keep Digging!

The Gastronomic Gardener
Garden blog http://amidwestgarden.blogspot.com/
Cooking blog http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/DavidPOffutt
http://www.facebook.com/TheGastronomicGardener

Brats, and not the kind you want to send home to their parents

Today was a family party, six of the ten kids gathered at my brothers house. I said I'd make brats. The procedure and recipe was the same as  before:

http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/2010/06/get-yer-fresh-bratwurst-here.html

 I made five lbs of brats. I'm getting better at making them. A lovely coil for the first bit.

 After poaching in beer for 20 minutes, then cooled there are twenty-two bratwurst ready to go meet my family (plus eight for the freezer).

A panful of porky goodness!

Anyone hungry? OK, so I got carried away with the mustard.

It has been a long and busy day. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Eat well and keep digging!

The Gastronomic Gardener
My garden blog http://amidwestgarden.blogspot.com/
My cooking blog http://ihopeyouarehungry.blogspot.com/
Twitter - www.twitter.com/DavidPOffutt
http://www.facebook.com/TheGastronomicGardener

Get Yer Fresh Bratwurst Here!

Finally got around to making some fresh sausage. Bratwurst to be more specific.

I've been wanting to learn/teach myself how to do this for a long time, and have done the reading, the research - bought some equipment to start out.

We start with a pork shoulder - also called pork butt - and we slice it into strips for easy feeding into the grinder.

It's 2.5 lbs shoulder and  .5 lb pork fat. Weighed out and into big ziplocs to chill.

  

Meanwhile measure and grind the fresh spices. They include nutmeg, mace, garlic, sugar, salt, black pepper, mustard seed, and  sage. There are two plates of spices as there are two batches.

 

Put meat strips and spices in a bowl, mix together then grind on 1/4" plate. The Kitchen Aid worked pretty well for this, put the ground sausage back in the bag and back onto the fridge to chill.

 

 

At this point a taste test is required, so make a small patty and fry it up - pretty darn good!

 

Next, soak some hog casings in water for at least 30 minutes to wash the salt off. I wasn't sure what to expect but they did not have an off smell and they were slimy like mucus. Weird but not completely gross.

 

Next assemble the stuffer. This did not work nearly as well as grinding, feeding was a bit of a hassle - I will look into a better stuffer for the future.

I did have some issues with the casing tearing - yes, I did lube the horn but it still tore some.  Not a big deal, just tied them off the best I could with string. The casing did have the variability one might expect from a natural product.

Here is the first result. I will poach them in beer and finish them on the grill.

Into the hot tub for you brats!

 

The second batch turned out much better, probably combination of  a better casing, colder ground meat (the second batch chilled overnight) and experience.

 

Ok, everybody swim in circles!

 

Well my fault I stepped away while they were poaching and some split. Darn. I think they will still be delicious.

They were and are.

 

Eat Well!