On the Sausage Trail in SW Michigan

My kids have been all over the world in search of summertime fun, but this year we found good times only an hour away in Southwest Michigan.

We found:



Beautiful Dog-friendly beaches



Lot's of U-pick



A winery trail




And a Sausage Trail.

Now gentle reader you may be saying to yourself "A Sausage Trail? How come I've never heard of that? I'm moving!"

Even though it's very plain to see now, it took me three years to connect the dots and I now only have a rough guide for you. We must undertake further investigation. For now I have mapped out four small shops where they make the sausage on the premises. Here's the 2010 SW Michigan Sausage Trail ver. 1.0 in Beta:


View SW Michigan Sausage Trail in a larger map


1st Stop: Drier's Meat Market, Three Oaks, MI,



When you think smoked meats in SW Michigan, you think Drier's. It's a beautiful shop with all kinds of smoked delicacies. I love their liverwurst, Bonne Femme loves the tub cheese.



If you are anywhere near Three Oaks, you should stop in. Three Oaks is nice place to walk around, other interesting things to see are:



A log smokehouse, on the second floor of the library,



Seifert's Farm Supply (but only if you are getting feed for your chickens or salt for your ice cream machine),



and Dewy's cannon, maybe not so interesting, but the kids liked climbing on it.

Drier's Meat Market
14 S. Elm ST.
Three Oaks, MI 49128
888-521-3999

Driers.com

2nd Stop: Sawyer Market, Sawyer, MI

I wandered into this place looking for beer. In the back is a very nice meat counter where I discovered freshly made sausages and other deli delights. I got some fresh bratwurst and they were very good.



The Sawyer Market also had a good price in beef tenderlion, it grilled up real nice.

Across the street from the market is the Sawyer Garden Center, lots of great produce there, but buy your meat (and PBR) at the Sawyer Market.

Sawyer Market
5864 Sawyer Road
Sawyer, MI 49125

269-426-4646

sawyermarket.com


3rd Stop Falatic's Meat Market, Sawyer, MI.

Warren Dunes State Park is one of my favorite spots to camp. To get there you have to drive by Falatic's. I stopped when I saw the sign advertising pickled herring. The place rates an eleven on the authentico meter, A small cold case, a huge grinder behind it, and the rest of the space is crammed with chest freezers and huge walk-in. The have a lot of sausages, some of it frozen, smoked beef sticks and of course, pickled herring. Definitely worth the stop.

Falatic's Meat Market
12236 Red Arrow Highway
Sawyer, MI 49125

269-426-3224

falatics.com



4th Stop: Bridgman Premier Meat Market, Bridgman, MI. (pictured earlier)

I stopped into this place on our last day, and I wish I had found it sooner. Great sausages for the grill and very nice guys behind the counter. They had a box of old butcher knives behind the register, not really good for buying, but fun to look at. Bridgman is on the way to the wineries we visited, Lemon Creek, Round Barn and Tabor Hill.

Bridgman Premier Meat Market
4352 Lake St
Bridgman, MI 49106

269-465-3533

bridgmanmeatmarket.com

So that's my sausage trail, I'll update it with more details and photos for ver 2.0. In the meantime enjoy the rest of your summer.



Cheers.

Pound for pound

Liver Sausage, the third time's the charm. August in Columbus.

"I've never been more ready in my entire life

To do this right now

Never

It's all been leading up to this moment

All right now right here

My whole life..

Right here"

Two Friday's ago me and the boys were rolling Northbound on Governor's Highway. At the time I was very down on the Southland, because I had been driving to all corner's of this huge sud-surbopolis looking for something I couldn't find. In the strip mall at the corner of Vollmer I was surprised to see what looked like a mini-circus set up in the lot. It was the Farmer's market in Olympia Fields. I promised the boys they could pat the pony at the petting zoo as I wheeled around to the lot. Amongst the cheese stand, the Labriola bread table and many vegetable vendors, I found the Dickman's. They raise pasture fed poultry, Bonne Femme, found them last year for our Thanksgiving turkey, but I didn't know they worked the market circuit. From their stand the Dickmans sell Chickens, eggs, and other assorted products. Mr Dickman told me they take birds to the processor about every three weeks, and that following Monday was processing day. They would have fresh Chicken all that week. At the time, I was excited, but I was heading out of town and I would not be able to go to Olympia Fields the following Friday. I went home and made mayonnaise with the eggs I bought. Then over the weekend, it hit me, so on Monday I called, and on the phone Mrs. Dickman answered: "Yeah I have chicken livers, we are just heading back from the processor now, how much are you looking for?"

On Tuesday, I went to the farmer's market in Richton Park and picked up about two pounds of fresh, grass fed, chicken livers.

Next stop le potager de saucisson.

Thyme

Fresh bay leaf

Hyssop

Garlic

I didn't use a book on this one, so feel free to adjust for taste.

MAC's Herbed Liver Sausage

921 g (about 2 lbs.) Fresh pasture fed chicken livers

580 g Pork shoulder, diced

160 g Pork fat (from shoulder), diced

32 g Salt

9 g Quatre-épices (white pepper, nutmeg, ginger, clove)

4 g White peppercorns

3 g (1 large clove) garlic, minced

1 g Fresh thyme, chopped

4 Fresh bay leaves, veins removed, minced

the leaves from 1 stem of Hyssop, chopped

2 large cold eggs

25 ml Fino (dry white wine sherry)

Hog Casings

I started out rinsing the livers, the setting them in a colander, over a bowl to drain in the fridge for an hour. I ground the peppercorns fine and combined them with the other spices (not herbs)and salt and mixed them with the cubed pork and pork fat.

Since the day was hot and I needed to keep my ingredients cold, I chilled the grinder attachment and the bowl in the freezer then set the bowl in ice while grinding. I ground the pork mixture first then the livers. I used the small grinding plate.

Using the paddle attachment, I added the herbs, the eggs, and the fino, and mixed until it all came together about two minutes. The consistency is a little runny, but it will be okay.

I stuffed them into hog casings. I suppose you could pack the mixture into a terrine (pronounced loaf pan), but I like the look and the portability of the casing.

I decided to poach the sausage in the oven. I used these really cool roasting pans I got from IKEA . I preheated the oven to 325F., then filled the pan to just under the rack with boiling water. I inserted a temp probe and inverted another pan on top and into the oven.

After about forty minutes the internal temperature read 165F., time for the ice bath.

After about 20 minutes on ice I put the sausage (Still in the rack pan) in the fridge to rest, uncovered, overnight.

The next day I put the Sausage into a Ziploc, because it was time to go to Columbus. As I have mentioned in previous posts, August is our favorite time to go to Columbus. Mom and Dad (and Buzz) have been working on the South side of the house and It has gone from spooky-no-doorbell haunted house to respectable country estate (in the middle of Clintonville).

The kids and Grandpa Bob stayed in the pool the whole time.

Mom made chicken tikka marsala from this month's Cook's Illustrated, and nan.

Once again I had to use a knife to open the sparkling wine (I would be happy to do this at your next party).

For serving the liver sausage, grab some bread, cut desired amount of pâté, squeeze from casing, spread on bread. Isle of Mull Cheddar from Katzinger's makes a nice accompaniment.

Cheers.

Southland Potager

We had a really nice experience:

Ted's Greenhouse

16930 S. 84th Ave

Tinley Park, IL 60487

708-532-3575

tedsgreenhouse.com

Rows upon rows of Basil. Do you have your potager du saucisson (sausage garden) planned yet? Since it is still too early to plant, we just walked around and saw some interesting things:

A Ficus from the fifties.

He shows us a Buddha's Hand.

He shows the boys a carnivorous plant.

I bought a sweet bay tree and he convinced me that I needed a Meyer lemon and a Kaffir lime. I'll be back soon. This month will mark three years since we have moved to the Southland. We are slowly discovering the great places it has to offer.

Cheers.

Croisssants avec Jambon et Fromage

Bonjour mes saucisses, aujourd'hui we will talk about one of my favorite breakfast foods and my favorite pastry, and they just happen to be the same thing: Croissants.

Amazingly enough, growing up in Columbus we were able to get very good croissants. Of course at the time I didn't think of it as amazing, I just thought of it as something we did sometimes on Saturdays. My dad would go the the French Loaf and pick up some plain ones, some with chocolate and some with almond paste. The croissants were perfect, flakes would crumble into my lap as I pulled them apart. As a nine year old I was evenly split on my preferences: I had to have a chocolate one (Chocolate for breakfast!) but at the same time I could not deny the eye-rolling joy of a plain one crammed with butter and Strawberry jam. These pre-adolescent times gave way to high school and other desires like girls and egg mcmuffins, and the croissant faded into the background.

Fast forward to a few years ago, One day while visiting in CMH, La Bonne Femme, my sister Jeanlouise and I decided we needed to find some ham and cheese croissants for breakfast. We started at Mozart's Bakery (no), the French Loaf (nope), then to La Chatelaine (nada) We gave up and ate crouque-monsiuers. While munching on our sandwiches we discussed making croissants at home. I dismissed the idea as too complicated, while I didn't have first hand knowledge of a recipe, didn't it take several days, and a careful hand to create flaky goodness? I declared that we should leave the pastries to the professionals and we should dedicate ourselves to being the epicures that would find the finest made croissants wherever we went.

My attitude changed on a subsequent CMH gathering. Jeanlouise flew in from DC with a ball of dough in her carry-on. The next day she presented perfect croissants from the oven.
"Did it take a long time?" I asked
"I did it over a couple of days," she responded.
"Was it hard to do?"
She said: "Nah, dude, you just have to fold it a few times. So I did it once before I went to work, then once when a got home, then the same again the next day."
"Huh, cool."

Inspired by this new information, I went to the library and checked out The Bread Bible, by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Using her recipe I have produced croissants several times. While I can't say making them is simple, it's really not that hard, and they are always good.

So, now fast forward to two weekends ago at another family gathering in Columbus. Jeanlouise was not there, but we have found what we were looking for before: The ham and cheese croissant.

We got to North Market at 8:45 AM, just as the croissants were coming out of the oven at Omega Artisan Baking.

As I savored one of these over sized lovelies, the idea hit me, I could make these at home with the leftover Easter Ham.

Fast forward to two days ago. They boys got me up at their usual time of 6:21 AM. I got out my ingredients.

The dough which I had made up and turned four times the night before,

The ham from Easter weekend,

and some Comté from Trader Joe's.

I rolled out the dough and cut it into triangles.

I rolled out each triangle, a little bit of ham, a little bit of cheese... A little bit of chocolate

Roll em and let em rise.

After about an hour, an egg glaze and into the oven.

If my sister could see this I imagine she would say, F'in-Ay. Last time I talked to her she told me her internet couldn't tune in the blog. She will have a lot of reading to do when she gets back. In the mean time if you want to see what she is up to, check out Jeanlouise in Ethiopia.

A word about the Jambon:

As I mentioned last week and as you can see in the picture today, the ham cured unevenly. A new reader (we will call him Chef G, not to be confused with Uncle J from the AK, who is also a chef, or Un-named Village Official J, who was my co-conspirator in Sausage Mania) commented that is would be very hard to get a complete cure on a ham without injecting it. Well it didn't say anything like that in the cookbook, but I am aware that they use big needles with solution to cure hams commercially. Alas, I wont turn down advice from a professional; I bought a marinate injector and started another ham yesterday. Well see how it turns out.

Cheers.

Put a Cork in It

Do you remember a couple of months back, you mixed some stuff together put it in a big glass jar and set it in a dark corner of the basement? Do you know where the jar is? It time to clean out all those empty wine bottles we have been saving and put up our batch of the summertime elixir.

Vin de pamplemousse, d'Orange, et de Citron Meyer, ( all pronounced vin de Hoo-Hoo) have become very popular around the here, and today we will detail the bottling of our second batch, Vin de Citron Meyer et Moro.

A quick note before we get started: my lawyers and life coaches have asked me to remind all my gentle readers that I am not a professional, but I do recommend you try things at home. The information for these recipes is stuff I have picked up either from a book, a magazine or I have simply made it up. My results always vary so you can expect that yours will too. Whatever you do, make sure you use good kitchen practices, make sure you make it yours, make sure you make it good.

Back to the program. I found the jar of marinating fruit and checked for mold, I have never found any in any of the batches, but if you do the batch is ruined. Even though it seems to be just sitting of the top waiting to be skimmed, the mold has flavored the entire liquid and it doesn't taste good.

Once you are ready to get started, put some corks on to simmer. You don't really want to boil them hard, but simmer in a covered pan and they should be soft enough to work in 15 minutes.


Pour the contents through a strainer, or colander, into a large pot. Next transfer part of the batch to another receptacle, like a 3 litre measure, straining it with a fine mesh strainer(Sorry no picture).

Now measure out 750 ML to another measure, straining it through the fine mesh strainer lined with several layers of cheese cloth. Take a clean wine bottle and sterilize it by filing with boiling water. Empty the water and funnel in some vin de goodness. Repeat until you have about six bottles.


Put a cork in it.


Yer gonna need something to get the cork where it's supposed to be. I got this thing, called Handy Corker, which fits the bill, for less than 10 bucks.


One of our faithful readers phoned in last week saying: Gee MAC, I see all the talk about vin de hoo-hoo, but I don't see a recipe. Well here you go. The original recipe I adapted from an article titled "Nibbles and Sips," by Mona Talbot, Published in the New York Times Style Magazine, Fall Living, 2004.



Vin de Pamplemousse



3 ruby grapefruit

3 white Grapefruit

4 lemons

5 bottles (750ml) of white wine

1 bottle (750ml) vodka

2 cups sugar

1 vanilla bean split


Thinly slice fruit and combine with all other ingredients in a 2.5 gallon glass jar. Stir to dissolve sugar. Store in cool dark place for forty days. Bottle as directed above. Serve over ice.

I got my glass jar at the Container Store. I put a bit of plastic wrap over the opening before screwing on the top.


For corks and stuff (and a container for that matter) try to find the local beer/wine makers shop. In Columbus, I think my mom got set up at The Winemakers Shop. I loaded up at Bev-Art in Beverly.

You don't have to spend a whole lot of money to do this. Once we started doing it we got hooked. We have used all different kinds of wines and all different kinds of citrus, my favorite is probably the Meyer lemon. Find out what you like by experimenting. Vin de hoo-hoo is easy to make and it is fun to drink.



Cheers.