Sausage Week Finale: Oktoberfest

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures because I was busy eating sausage.

(Roll Credits)

Thanks to
Mom for making the Pretzels
Jolie (Jeanlouise) for making the cream puffs
Grandma for keeping the party going
Ekarhu (Eliot and Liisa) for the mustard in the tube
Jerry for helping stuff 30 lbs (117 links) of Bratwurst
Lisa and Phil for the Jumpy thing
Alison and Ron for the Bean Bags
Marge for the extra beer steins
Karen and Joachim for the tent

And thanks to everybody for coming.

click here to see how much garbage 62 beer drinking, sausage eating adults generated.

click here to see all the photos from Sausage Week on flickr.

Cheers.

Live from Sausage Week: Southside Larder

I think I never got my "Foodie Blogging Badge" (and Food Buzz never got back to me about being a "Featured Publisher") because I never did the requisite post with a picture of my fridge along with a description of it's contents. Here's my picture, can I be in the club now?

Yeah, ok, that's uh 40 lbs of sausage 2 racks of PBR, 2 dozen eggs, 2 gallons of milk, 3 quarts of yogurt and 4 lbs of Plugra.

Meanwhile The kitchen cavarly has arrived from Columbus just in time to inspect Bonne Femme's German potato salad.





gotta get back to work, we have a bunch of cream puff shells to fill.

Cheers.

Live from Sausage Week: Bratwurst

Three hours, thirty pounds of Bratwurst. I'm sure glad I don't do this for a living. It's hard business. Jerry came over to help and between the two of us we knocked it out.



First we had to cube the pork shoulder, Then we mixed in the seasonings: Salt, white pepper, ginger, nutmeg, caraway and mustard.



Working in 10 pound batches Jerry ran it through the grinder. Then I kneaded the mixture adding a little cream and water.



I mentioned in a previous post that I got casings from a packing house. The advantage to these casing versus asking for some at the grocery is that I was able to get casings long enough to do 10 pounds in one run.





Ok I'm done making sausage. What else do we need to make? Sausage Week Continues.

Thanks for coming over, J.

Cheers.

Live from Sausage Week: Chicken n Cheese

I don't usually do a test of a sausage mixture before stuffing, it is what it is right? But I do write down everything I put in and I have notes from almost every sausage I've made (I've got this blog too). When stuffing there is always a little bit at the bottom of the canister that doesn't make it in, that's what gets fried up for snack after a job of grinding and stuffing. Let's get to it:



here are some whole spices about to be ground, Fennel, mustard and coriander. I add salt, spices and powdered milk to the diced chicken.



I dice up some parmesan cheese and put it in the freezer before grinding.





The grinding station is set up, the cheese is mixed with the chicken and we are off and grinding. After grinding I mix in the parsley and a bit of vinegar and water.



Here is a hank of hog casings. Bonne Femme picked them up at Grant Park Packing.



The stuffer is loaded, let's get cranking.



I can run the stuffer solo, but it more fun with two.





Seven pounds of Italian style Chicken, Parsley and Parmesan sausage. That's just a tune up for tomorrow, Sausage Week continues.

Cheers.

Live from Sausage Week: Making Stock

What? You didn't know it was Sausage Week? Well, 'round here it is, and I will try my hardest to keep you updated on all the excitement. Right now, maybe not so exciting, I just finished prepping some chicken.



The Chicken is for sausage the bones are for stock.



First I sweat (no color! says Chef)the vegetables in a little butter. the vegetables (or mirepoix) 50% Onion, diced, 25% carrot diced and 25% celery diced. The total weight of the vegetables should be about 25% of the weight of the bones (i.e. 4lbs bones, 1lb vegetables). That's just to give you an idea of proportions, I don't do any weighing I just chop up whatever I have laying around. Once the vegetables are softened, throw in the bones, and add enough cold water to just cover the bones.



Next we need some herbs. Fresh Thyme, Fresh bay, and parsley stems. These could be tied up into what the pros call a Bouquet Garni, but since I am going to strain the stock there is no need to hassle with the twine.



With the stems in the pot, I got all this chopped parsley for my sausage. Don't you hate it when you are trying to garnish something with fresh chopped parsley and it all sticks to your fingers? Here's what you do:



Use cheesecloth or a tea towel or unbleached muslin bought at JoAnn's, and wrap up the wet chopped parsley. Rinse it under cold water then twist and squeeze.



Hey Presto, dry chopped parsley. You can even freeze this stuff.

Now my stock is boiling. I throw in a few of cloves of garlic, crushed but not peeled, and maybe a tablespoon of whole black peppercorns. Simmer for at least three hours, try for four. After that I will strain it, chill it, then skim of the fat. But that's later, I gotta go make the sausage now.

Cheers.

Belly Time

Have you been thinking about making bacon? Now is the perfect time; with the hint of fall in the air, the gentle wisps of hickory smoke should trigger tingling childhood memories like skipping stones on Lake Hope. The late tomatoes are now ripe on the vine. Make up some bread, some mayonnaise, and assemble BLT's. Serve the sandwiches with smoked corn chowder and now you are ready for the season. Maybe a nap first.



Before any napping there's work to be done. The hardest part of making bacon is finding the belly. Ok, if you live in town nick-named "Hog Butcher to the World," maybe it's not that hard. I get bellies at a meat packer about three miles from my house (say YEAH Southland), the problem is usually the ones in the case are pretty thin, they keep the nice ones in the back to make their own cured love. My friend Brian in New Jersey gets them from a Chinese market with the ribs attached. When searching for your own try to find a place where you can choose your piece, if you don't see one you like, ask if there are any others. Make sure you get a thick belly. If you are at a meat packing operation you'll have to buy a whole belly, they wont cut it, and you're gonna get 12 to 19 pounds of pork. But that's what you want. Get the biggest, thickest belly you can find, because we are not just making bacon, we are stocking the larder.



When you get you purchase home you may find one end is really thick with very little fat, and the other end thin and nothing but fat. In addition, an untrimmed pork belly with have fat and meat (a flap of sorts) that sits on top of our future bacon. Now you can simply cut it up into to manageable pieces a cure it, but why not make it look nice?

With my pork side I used the thick, lean portion of the belly and removed the lean flap to make couple of pounds of our house sausage. I used the fatty thin end and any trimmed fat to make lard. I also saved the skin from each of these sections and threw it in the freezer. Skin is useful to thicken soups, Cassoulet, or boiled and diced for a pâté.



I squared up the future bacon and rubbed it with a mixture of sugar, salt and curing salt. Curing salt is a special order item, I get mine at The Spice House in Chicago. I used the recipe from Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, for the dry rub. On a smaller piece I poured on a little maple syrup in addition to the dry rub. The pieces go into ziploc bags and cure in the fridge for five days. In the past I have cured bacon in brine along with ham. I haven't noticed any big difference between the wet and dry cure, except that the wet cure only needs three days.

After the cure was complete, I rinsed off the bacon and let it rest in the fridge of 24 hours uncovered. I actually let it go for two days because I got busy with other stuff but the pork didn't mind.



I cold smoked both pieces of the belly for about four hours. The cold smoke rig consisted of a hot plate and stainless steel bowl inside my Bullet. The next day I hot smoked the larger slab for about two hours. While I had the smoker fired up I also threw on some eggplant (smoked baba ganouj) and I hot smoked a few ears of corn (shucked) for the smoky corn chowder. Bonne Femme made the soup.


Cold and hot smoked bacon


Cold smoked bacon

Either way its a winner.



My mom was here last week and she started her own bacon. She took it back to Columbus and she will smoke it on her kettle grill.

Bacon: A pantry staple that's fun for the whole family.



Cheers.

Sausage for Radio

Last week my friend Jim came over and we made some sausage. He recorded it and made a podcast out of it. Now you can hear the gentle sounds of sausage being stuffed and you can count how many times I say "You know," in STEREO!

Check out Columbus Foodcast on ITunes or at its very own website, http://www.columbusfood.tv/.

Cheers.

Pie

Pizza in the summer time. This is the time of year when there are so many things to do other than pasting pictures on the internet. Earlier this week, Andrew at Slim Pickins' Pork, posted a picture of a pizza and well, I just couldn't help myself. Tomatoes are starting to come in here in the Chicagoland area and I picked up a few today at the Flossmoor Farmer's Market. I used three of them, peeled, seeded, and chopped, and cooked them down in a skillet with some chopped garlic and some olive oil: Hey Presto, Pizza Sauce. Four ounces of diced fresh mozzerella and into the 500F oven. As soon as it comes out cover with chopped basil.



My ten year old pizza stone from Target is in three pieces (has been for years) but it still works.

What's that? Kids wanna have a slumber party? Better make some ice cream sandwiches.



Remember when then most exciting part of Friday night was watching Miami Vice? It's gotten a lot better.

Cheers.

HAM burger

Do you remember the ads for A1 Steak sauce proclaiming a hamburger is not chopped ham but chopped steak? As a considered rebuttal to that 80's ad, I offer the HAM-burger. Pictured above the ground cured pork burger is dressed with mustard, ketchup, cheese, roasted jalapenos, caramelized onions in sour cream (à la Bonne Femme), tomato, lettuce and mayonaise, all set on a bun made with "Five minute a day dough."



Okay Bonne Femme says I need to take a picture of her burger too. She topped hers with a cole slaw (left over from yesterday's fish taco adventure) made with cabbage, beets, and carrots.

But I didn't set out to make hamburgers. It's been a little more than a week since we returned from our madcap EU adventure and I needed to restock the cured meats cabinet. I made up a brine (loosely based on Charcuterie's American Style Brown Sugar Glazed Holiday Ham recipe) and sunk some pork belly and some pieces of boneless ham. After three days I pulled the pieces from their salty sleep and today I tied them into roasts. While tying the roasts I ended up with some trimmings. Now if I had been really ambitious I used the cured pork trimmings in a Toulouse sausage, but I'm still jet lagged or I drank a lot of beer last night (with fish tacos!) Hey Presto HAM-Burgers. I'm smoking the ham and bacon tomorrow.

Hey check it out, I found the A1 commercial:



Cheers.

Live from Finland: Lapland Pig Pick

Okay we're not really in the Lapland but near a small town called Karjalohja in the lake district. Bill from Tennesee certified our BBQ as authentic:



Pulled pork, slaw and beans. And I wouldn't mess with Bill.

Dessert service by Jolie and mom.


Interpretations by the Deuce.


Wedding tommorrow.