Liver sausage and other names

Liver sausage. Liver. Just the word makes some people uncomfortable, whereas others may refer to the belly or the loin or the ham with delicious anticipation. I have always liked liver, as kid I remember smooshing chicken liver pate on club crackers at Christmas parties. Fat and unami whipped together in a spreadable paste, what's not to love?

I have several posts about making liver sausage/pate. In this episode I do a sliceable liver sausage, and I'll show you a restaurant trick of forming sausages with plastic wrap.



Liver Sausage

Yield : 4 1/2 pounds more than plenty for a party. It freezes uncooked very nicely.

900 g (2lbs) Pork shoulder cut up
650 g (1-1/2lbs) Pork liver cut up
450 g (1 lb) Pork fat cut up

30g salt
4 g pink salt
7g white pepper
5g mustard seed
1g mace

20g garlic
2g fresh bay

100 ml beer

Run the meats, or as the pros say, proteins, through the grinder. spread it out on lined baking sheet and throw it in the freezer for 20 minutes.

In the meantime combine the salts and spices and and process them in the spice grinder.

Mince the garlic and set aside. BTW Last month, I saw the video of how to peel garlic in ten seconds, it works. It claims you don't need special equipment, but I would recommend getting some stainless bowls, they're cheap. Find them at a restaurant supply store or K-Mart. Here's the video from Saveur Magazine.

Back to the recipe.

Remove the veins and pulverize the fresh bay leaves. Set aside. I don't recommend using dried. Go buy a bay tree.

The 20 minutes is up on the meats in the freezer, now that it's a little crunchy run it though the grinder again. Now using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, or a really big spoon, beat in, one at a time, the spices, the herbs and the beer. Continue to mix until the pate comes together about a minute or two.



A word about beer. In the past I have used a white wine or a Fino in my liver sausage. A boozy beer like an IPA or a barley wine works really well here. As I have mentioned before it is not the beer flavor (which is important) but the alcohol that grabs and amps the flavors in our mixture. Give it a try, or eliminate the booze altogether and use water.



Roulades, torchons oh my.

When I first started prepping at the gastro-brew-pub, the chef had a chicken skin torchon on the menu. I had never heard of a torchon as a preparation (it's French for kitchen towel, I have many torchons in my kitchen), furthermore a chicken skin rolled is a galantine, right? That evening I raced through all my old cookbooks, Larousse, Escoffier, I could not find any reference to torchon. On the Internet I found the French Laundry, were they took foie gras rolled it in a kitchen towel twisted tight and poached it. Foie gras au torchon. Whatever, food names always sound more interesting in French.



When a new chef came on, he had us roll pate in plastic; a roulade, one cook said. Uh well sort of...A torchon, yeah I guess...with all the cooking school training between us we never came up with the term for rolling sausage in plastic. Whatever the name, it's a good method to make sausage with out casings, it just requires a trip to the restaurant supply for a big roll of plastic. I used an 18" roll.



In these pictures I made 1lb packages, but I suggest you start with 225g (8 oz) portions. wipe down the counter with a damp cloth and lay out the plastic. Make an log on the middle of the film. Start rolling. pull the ends taught, squeeze the middle, keep rolling.



I often got in trouble for not rolling enough plastic. So when you think you have done plenty, just roll a little bit more.



Pull off a long length of plastic to tie off an end. Repeat for the other side.



Now it gets interesting. If you have a partner, tightening the rolls is easy, but solo works too. Using a sausage pricker or a cake tester make some holes in the plastic, pay close attention to air pockets, so that they can get squeezed out.





Working in a team, one person holds the package vertically and twists it tight while the other makes knots. In the solo version, the package lays flat and the series of knots on both ends makes the roll tighter and tighter. Just keep putting one knot on top of the other.



At this point you could throw the sausage rolls into the freezer and cook them off as needed. For cooking, make sure they are fully thawed, and poach in a water bath for 25-30 minutes or to when the internal temperature reaches 145F.



By upping the proportion of pork and lowering the amount of fat, I get a nice sliceable liver sausage. Perfect for the holiday smorgasbord. Give it a try.



Cheers.

Crépinettes on the grill

It's The Sauce

Making Gravlax for Salmon Benedict.

This is my absolute favorite breakfast. When Bonne Femme realized I was making a run the sauce this morning, she said, we're gonna eat it right? You're not gonna get mad and throw it away this time right?

I have a checkered past with hollandaise, at school I could bang it out with my eyes shut, I was teaching other folks how fix their slowly curdling pots. But at home it's been a different story; one way or another I wreck it, the last time I attempted it the emulsion broke so bad I could not imagine watching poeple eat it, I threw it away, and sauced with some Löwensenf. After that I determined that I would spend several days making lots of sauce nailing down the technique.



I never got around to making buckets of sauce, but last week Walt's had a sale on Salmon, so I knew the day would come again very soon when I would have to face the sauce. Salted salmon is a regular feature here on the blog, it's so easy to make, and so delicious, I think everybody should be making it.



It's salt sugar pepper and whatever seasoning sounds good



For this one I used some white pepper and hazelnut brandy.

As for curing time it can be anywhere from 18 hours to 3 days. I started this one Wednesday, so it has plenty of time to firm up.



The cured fish made it debut at the Friday Night Pizza Party, on a pie with caramelized onion, goat cheese and jalapeño.



I have been thinking about hollandaise sauce all week, like Shaun White setting to drop in on the half pipe, I visualized my ingredients, my moves, but my nerves were a mess. I decided to chuck it and turn to something completely different. The Saucier's Apprentice, by Sokolov (A gift from my Grandma and my Uncle), is very good introduction into the world of sauce and the hollandaise recipe rocked: No double boiler, no blender, no cold butter. The gravlax could not have been any happier with brunch on a Sunday morning.









Cheers.


Links

MAC on Gravlax Nation

The Saucier's Apprentice by Raymond Sokolov

On the Snail Trail

Recipes

Escargot de Conserve à la Bourguignonne

Mock snail of cœur de porc

Mock snail of champignons farcis


This story started with a resolution. Sometimes in honor of the New Year, I concoct some stand that may sound outrageous, but in reality is no big deal. Past resolutions included not going to McDonald's (kept that one for several years till I had kids), No Starbucks (I still don't buy drinks but it's the only nearby place to find a New York Times), and once I pledged to use butter on bread only when it had been freshly baked (that one was kinda hard, but helpful). This year I announced to my family that I would not cook with any ingredient that required the use of a can opener. My proclamation was met with a shrug. With the exception of coconut milk and occaisional can of frejoles, our household has led a mostly canless existence. It has been going in this direction since culinary school a few years ago. I remember when I started I thought, "I'm not going to school to learn how to use a can opener," and of course, the first thing we did was crack open #10 cans of tomato paste to make brown stock. Going canless led me to think about several things such as: What convienence does a canned good offer over technique, or what fresh ingredient could I use instead of an exotic canned one? My quest is not about vilifying metal containers or the processed products therein, I mean if I want to make something special that requires canned artichokes, I'm gonna go buy a can of artichokes. But can you name any dishes that are rooted in some great culinary tradition, that require a can opener? So far I have brown stock and green bean casserole.



Before I made this grand and sweeping change in my life I thought about what would I miss: I learned how to make coconut milk from shredded coconut, and cooking dried beans is very easy (hint: you don't need to soak them overnight) so, I thought and I thought....

Snails.

I had never bought a can snails, but I'd thought about it a lot ever since a Bistro class at Kendall. The instructor had been a chef at French place in Evanston and he said since snails are not cultivated here, the only way to get them was in a can from France. He had us liven up the canned gastropods by sautéing them in butter with a splash of white wine before stuffing them. The taste isn't particularly exotic, but its good, and reminds me of fun times in France.





The last time I had snails was at Cafe Deguerre with my sister.



With these memories in mind, and the new knowlege of how easy it is to prepare snails, I was ready to buy a can.



Shopping for snails triggered another memory. As I held the prize in my hand, I remembered going to the grocery as a kid with my mom. Short of the lackluster toy aisle, this column of shells was the most interesting item in the store. Now back in modern time, staring at the cockles, I thought about my new resolution. For the sake of research I would make canned snails, but I had to come up with some alternatives.



Escargot de Conserve à la Bourguignonne

I'll thank Elizabeth David for the name, but I would hardly call my recipe an adaptation. Snails have been prepared in the Burgundy way for centuries. The Oxford Companion to Food reports that snails became a fixture of Brasseries in Paris due to the fact that most were run by Alsatians, who were big time snail eaters. I can't say I agree with this theory, I think the snail's popularity comes more from the preparation: Just about anything tastes good smothered in garlic and butter. Let's go to the boards:

Beurre à la Bourguignonne (Snail Butter) (for 1 dozen snails)

120g /4oz /8T /1 stick Unsalted Butter
10g /2tsp Shallot minced
5g /1 large clove garlic minced
15g /1T Parsley chopped
Salt and pepper to taste



Soften the butter by beating it with a big stick or rolling pin. You don't really need the plastic.



Stir in remaining ingredients till it looks uniform, set aside.

For the snails, sauté them in a little butter, put in a splash of white wine and reduce. Let them cool a bit before stuffing. With clean shells take about a teaspoon of prepared butter and stuff it in the shell. Use your pinky finger to push it in far, then gently shove in a snail. Seal the hatch with another knob of butter.







I don't have a snail plate so I used a focaccia trimmed for the occasion.



Pop into a hot oven and heat till the butter bubbles.

It's not too hard to reconstruct this French food memory at home, the can even had a pop top so I didn't have to use a can opener. The container had enough for two dozen snails.

For making mock snails,I didn't have to look much farther than my old copy of Larousse for an answer. Under the snail entry it gives a recipe for Mock Snails Comtesse Riguidi. It calls for lamb's sweetbreads and a chicken cream stuffing. Sweetbreads doesn't sound very snail like but fun. Now if I could only find some.



I called around to a couple of places and they said I could special order sweetbreads, but where's the sport in that? I moved on. At the same time I had been thinking about some sort of meat that would be a little chewy (snail-like?) and would have taste great smothered in butter and garlic. I picked up some pork hearts.



I removed the chewy bits and cut up the heart into snail sized strips. With salt pepper and a dusting of flour I sautéed the strips in butter. I let them cool before stuffing. One heart is plenty for 12 snails.







I used a bamboo skewer as a snail fork.



I also wanted to do something with mushrooms. I like the idea of mushrooms and snails coming from the same part of the forest, but how to make a mushroom look like a snail? I not much for sculpting with a knife so how about some sausage.



I combined all the ingredients in a food prcessor, blended to smooth then piped little snail shapes using a pastry bag with small tip. The mushroom snails baked in a 375F oven for 8-10 minutes.





Here are the quantities I used for 12 mushroom snails

120g /4oz Crimini mushrooms
20g Rolled oats ground fine in a spice mill
1 egg
2g salt
pinch of each and grind in the spice mill with the salt: Thyme, mustard seed, white pepper, 1 juniper berry.







Over the past couple of weeks my family has eaten a lot of snails, Ok I've eaten a lot of snails, everybody else has just wondered when I would move on. The boys liked the pork heart (served over spaghetti) and the mushroom stuffing is really easy to make. As for going canless, I don't think that will be too hard, I don't need to buy anymore snails. But write in tell me what you can't live without in the can!

Cheers.



Book References (links to WorldCat, a library database)

The Oxford Companion to Food by Davidson

Good Things by Grigson (nice discussion but too much salt in her snail butter)

Larousse Gastronomique by Montagné

French Provincial Cooking by David

The Great Andouillette Wreck

I was facinated by the idea of getting the main ingredient of a beloved French sausage at Moo&Oink. I was charged by the idea of trumping some imaginary offal competition, by going lower on the hog than any other chef. I was broken by my own reality. It was a challenge the entire way and in the end both the sausage and I self destructed.



I had never really shopped for chitterlings but I knew where to get them, it's a straight shot, bout a mile or so, across 183rd ST, to Moo & Oink. I found a four and a half pound bucket. I didn't think I needed that much, and it cost 10 bucks. But that's all they had, so I went for it.



When I got it home, I opened the frozen bucket and was confronted by a familiar odor: Eau de Slaughterhouse. Ok...I set the mass in water to thaw. After a couple of days of ignoring my guts I rinsed them. Rinsing and draining was no big deal but when I weighed my chitterlings I was down to two pounds. This sausage is starting to get expensive and still smelly.







I built a marinade of typical pickling spices and white wine. I let it go for a couple of days.



Andouillette is serious business in France. For stuffing the sausage you either lay the chitterlings in long strips and draw over the casing or you can mince it.



There are many different recipes, I went with something simple, Onion, salt, pepper and mace.

Then finally it's simmered in a court-bouillon for 3-5 hours. This is when sausage and chef came undone. I knew I shouldn't cover a simmering sausage, but I was afraid the liquid would reduce too much. About a half an hour is all it took. I continued to cook the decimated links for three hours, just to sample the disaster. Edible, but still no one had any interest in the result. You see, from start to finish, there was the smell. Sure after all the processing and cooking it had been transformed, muted, even complimented, but still the hint. I could see beyond it, but what's the point if no one else wants to? At least I got a nice bucket out of it.

Here are links I found useful while developing the recipe:

The Troyes Andouillette (a regional tourism website)

Andouillette on Wikipedia

Andouillettes.com (nuff said)

Gilbert Lemelle (The Vienna Beef of Andouiellettes)

Andouillette Recipes from a Culinary School (PDF)

Book Sources (Links to WorldCat)

Charcuterie and French pork cookery by Grigson

The Great Book of Sausages by Hippisley Coxe

Larousse Gastronomique by Montagné

And the indespensable:

The sausage book : being a compendium of sausage recipes, ways of making and eating sausage, accompanying dishes, and strong waters to be served, including many recipes from Germany, France, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and committed to paper by Gehman.