Oktoberfest Wrap Up

Oh suffer little sausage blog. I'm sorry I wasn't able to do live blogging from Sausage Week, but we did have some fun. Here's the Recap:



I started the Saturday before with a trip to T&J Meat Packing. I picked up a pork belly and some hocks. I put them into a cure using the recipe from Taking Back Bacon.



Monday, I picked up a hank of hog casings from Howard's in Munster.

Tuesday, we lost power. I was supposed to cut up chickens and make stock, but instead went out to dinner.

Wednesday, smoked bacon, cut up chickens made stock.



Thursday, Bonne Femme made 30 lbs of German potato salad...



I made 200 shells for puffs. The Columbus crew (Mom, JL and GMA) arrive.



Friday, Jerry and Kevin came over we set up the dueling grinders and ran 35 lbs of pork and 10 lbs of chicken through the plates. We made Wiesswurst, bratwurst, bacon bratwurst, cheddar brats and chicken Parmesan sausages.











Saturday, Weisen. I picked-up a keg of Munsterfest from 3 Floyds



I think this is the last year for my 40 y.o. lederhosen on little E. Here's his battle pose:



Meanwhile in the kitchen Mom and JL made pretzels





Dipped in a lye solution.



The best pretzels in Chicago. For those who asked, I never did get my mom's 'top secret' recipe, but I did spy a copy of Peter Reinhart's artisan breads every day : fast and easy recipes for world-class breads. Look for the pretzel recipe there. She made several batches ahead of time, then froze the shaped pretzels. This seemed to work well.



JL made Pastry cream which we put into squeeze bottles so party goers could make their own cream puffs. All the puffs got gobbled up before I could get a picture.





Remember the hocks from earlier in the week? I braised them in stock and cider along with sauerkraut, onion and apples until they fell apart. They became the bed where I held the grilled sausage for service.



Friends brought some exotic and not so exotic condiments:







Weisen (the field)



Here's Links to more photos.

Josh's Oktoberfest pictures

Eric's Oktoberfest pictures

Saucisson MAC's Oktoberfest pictures on flickr


Thank you everyone for a great time.

Cheers.

How to cook house cured bacon

It's all the rage.