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.

Cambridge Sausage and Mash

It's #britishsausageweek or British Sausage Week for my Twitter averse friends. Since Jamie Oliver is participating in the promotion of UK sausage, I figure I could do my bit from across the pond.

Americans have and odd relationship with British cuisine. On one hand we can't resist the urge to regurgitate the cliche of their food as heavy, tasteless and unimaginative. On the other I've lost track of how many gastro-pubs with English sounding names dot our fair city. But what about sausage?

Here in America we know only one British sausage, the Banger! Actually that's the nickname for about any sausage and what we call a banger would probably be the Cambridge sausage in the UK. The Oxford Companion of Food identifies no less than 10 British sausage varieties including one sausage, the Cumberland, which gained Protected Geographical Status, from the EU earlier this year. For my British Banger I chose to focus on the Cambridge sausage.



The Cambridge Banger

900g (2lbs) Pork Shoulder
100g (3 1/2 oz) Rusks or fine bread crumbs (see notes)
14g (2 t) Salt
3 g white pepper
1 g mace
1 g cayenne
4 g fresh sage chopped fine (see notes)
2 g fresh thyme chopped (see notes)

225 ml (1 cup) Ale (see notes)

Hog casings for stuffing.

Grind the pork shoulder twice, then using a mixer with a paddle attachment or a big wooden spoon beat in the rusks and then the remaining ingredients. Continue to mix until you get a uniform pate. Stuff into hog casings.

Notes:

A word about rusks. Many different food products are called rusks. The rusks for sausages are superfine breadcrumbs. Sausages in the UK have a long tradition of containing cereals of one kind or another. It probably started as a means to extend the meat, first for necessity, later for profit. Nevertheless adding bread crumbs changes the texture of the sausage in such a way that it must considered as part of the recipe. That said, I'm not a huge fan of it.

Try to use fresh herbs. Thyme and sage are ridiculously easy to grow. If using dried, use half the amount.

Ale: The alcohol in the recipe enhances the flavors from the herbs and spices. After cooking for 1 1/2 years in a brewpub, I have come to appreciate the properties of beer in recipes. Give it a try, if not use water.

Cooking:

British sausages got their nickname "banger" due to their propensity to explode during cooking. Do not blow up your banger. All sausages, especially ones without added fat, must be cooked gently, and not too long. I cooked these bangers (pictured above) in a 300F oven for 15 minutes.

So we have a banger, some mashed tatties, how about some sauce.



This piquant banger sauce is a pound of sliced onions caramelized then pureed with 3 ozs of Worcestershire and 3 ozs of butter. Wicked good, as the kids say.

Bangers and mash for British Sausage Week. Make it yours.

Cheers.



Sources (Book links to WorldCat)

British Charcuterie by Reekie

The Oxford Companion to Food by Davidson

Oktoberfest Brat

In this episode: Oktoberfest bratwurst recipe.

October, the shank of the year. For the past couple of weeks we've had such wonderful weather here, it's been hard to get any work done. But we've managed to have some fun.



In Columbus last weekend mom dug purple potatoes.



We picked pumpkins and wore funny paper hats.



And we grilled some sausages.

Fall and sausage go hand in hand, no wonder Germany has Oktoberfest around this time of year. Our annual sausage fest took this year off, but I did make some special sausage to celebrate the season.

Oktoberfest Bratwurst Recipe

Yield: About 20 sausages

2.2kg (that's 5 lbs.) pork shoulder
40g salt
7g ground white pepper
5g ground ginger
5g whole mustard seed
2g ground nutmeg
bunch of parsley, chopped
110g milk powder
225 ml (1 cup) beer, preferably Marzen style

Medium hog casings, rinsed and soaked for at least an hour.

To make this sausage extra special, I ground it twice. Start by cuting the pork shoulder into manageable chunks and run them through the grinder. For grinding I use the Kitchen Aid food grinder attachment on the stand mixer. Spread out the ground pork on a lined baking sheet and throw it in the freezer for half an hour.



Once crunchy, run it through the grinder again.



Five pounds of pork doesn't fit into my 4.5 quart mixing bowl so I did the next steps in a couple of batches.

Using the paddle attachment mix together the pork and the dry ingredients, then slowly add the beer. Continue to mix until the mixture comes together, 1 to 2 minutes.



Stuff into hog casings and twist.



Serve with German potato salad, braised red cabbage and mustard.

Cheers.

Chicharones Revisted

Bacon rind chicharones.

Just when I thought bacon couldn't get any better, someone inspires me to deep fry bacon skin for pork rinds. Boy howdy this works, and the flavor is crispy bubbly bacon air.

In the previous episode, I revealed the secrets to making restaurant quality chicharones at home. It's a fun parlor trick to impress your foodie friends, but making them out of bacon rinds is an important step forward the evolution of pork rinds that should appreciated by both the amateur and the enthusiast alike. My thanks goes regular reader TC for the comment that triggered this bacon revelation. TC, I hope you test this recipe and post your results soon.



Making Bacon

For these chicharones you're gonna need to make some bacon. Never made bacon before? No worries (as the kids say), check out my internationally recognized bacon manifesto, in it are detailed instructions on how to make bacon at home.


To remove the skin you can either slice it off while it is still warm, or or wait a day and peel it off when it cold. The advantage to the cold peel is that there is less fat adhering to the skin. But be careful there can be spots where the fat really wants to stick and come off in large chunks. Go slow and steady and you'll be fine.

Place the peeled skins flat in a pot and cover with water. Set to simmer. After about an hour check for doneness: If you can easily poke your finger through the skin, it's done.



Once cool, scrape the skins. It's annoying, but the cleaner they are, the more they pop.



Once clean, cut the skins into Frito sized shapes and put them into a very low oven (or dehydrator) to dry. After several hours (four to twelve depending on the oven temp) you should have a hard, unbending bacon chit.



Set up the fryer station, heat to 375F.



Drop a few in at a time and hold them under the oil. After a few seconds they should pop. They should be done cooking in about thirty seconds.



Toss with seasoning. Salt and pepper is fine, or try some sort of mixture. I put together sumac, dried thyme, and sesame seeds ( that's za'atar, yo) along with a little citric acid, for a flavoring I call Dorito.

Tasty bacon flavor in a crispy snack. Try it!

Cheers.

Pondering the Pig Skin

In this episode: Making chicharones at home, I got fired.

Many a gastropub in our fair city sport "housemade chicharones" on their menu. And why not? Fried pork skins are exotic, easy to make, and cheap. And, freshly made chicaharones are a refreshing revelation compared to their store bought compadres. Got a party coming up, want to impress your foodie friends with crispy craklings? Let's make chicharones.




As usual, the hardest part of this exercise is finding the pork skin, but you don't need much, a couple of pounds should be plenty. Try looking for a latino or asian grocery, a meat packer, or special order from a butcher, somebody has this stuff laying around. At the restaurant, we got our pork skins from Grant Park Packing.

Cut the skins into large squares so that they will fit into your pot. Fill with water and bring them to a zippy simmer. They are done when they have softened enough that you can easily poke your finger through the skins, but not so cooked that they are falling apart. It should take 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Drain and allow to cool.



Now the skins need to be cleaned. You want nothing but skin, use a knife to remove the fatty rinds. It's tedious work but you can do it.



Once the skins are scraped clean, cut them in to little one inch squares, It sounds small but these babies will grow five times their size when they hit the fryer.



Before we break out the fryer, our little pork chips need to be dried. Using wire racks and trays, dehydrate the chicharones in the oven at a low temperature, 160 to 200 F is fine. Or use a dehydrator. I used my oven. Depending of the temperature, 6-12 hours of drying will give you a good hard chit. They should not bend at all. Did I say this was easy? It is, just complicated.

Once dry, the chicharones will keep forever under refrigeration. Now you just need a party. To set up your frying station, you need a couple inches of oil and a pot. The larger the pot, the more oil, the you can fry at one time. Using a thermometer, heat oil to 350F, and start frying. They take less than a minute. Drain your little crispys and tosswith salt and pepper. If you're feeling daffy, make up different seasonings, like smoked paprika and granulated garlic. I made a puckery mix of sumac and citric acid. At the restaurant we used dehydrated lime powder and parmesan powder. We got these industrial ingredients from Terra Spice Company.

Ah yes "at the restaurant." In my previous post I mentioned that I was working in a restaurant, and didn't have the time to blog. Well the wait is over, last week I was unceremoniously dumped, and now I have plenty to time to look for another paying job, or blog. I worked for Three Floyds Brewpub for a year and a half and overall it was a great experience. I started out as a prep cook, for a brief time worked as the kitchen manager, and I had some fun cutting up hogs and making sausages. High points included running a menu that included an Alsatian Onion Tart (Flammekueche), a Montreal pastrami (Viande Fumée) and a Thai sausage (AKA the Bangkok Brat). I also had the opportunity to work for Chef Mike Sheerin. With him I participated in The Cochon555 event and the Green Market City BBQ. I learned a lot and in the coming months I will share some of these special nuggets with you. So strap on your sausage hats, it's time to get cooking (at home!) again.



Cheers.

2010: The Year in Sausage

My favorite food posts of 2010.

What a year. Here are some highlights of the past year in Sausage.



In January I tried to make Andouillettes. Epic Fail as the kids say. Read about it in "The Great Adouillette Wreck"




In February I made snails, canned and otherwise "On the Snail Trail"




In March I learned that the Ultimate Breakfast Sausage Recipe is something that is earned rather than found.




Then April, oh April. I submitted an entry to a bacon competition, [Rejected] But I'm glad, I didn't want to have to wear a funny bacon hat.




In May I discovered the wonderful world of crépinettes.




World Cup kicked off the summer, I wrote about the South African Boerewors and the Algerian Merguez.




In July I sniffed out a sausage trail in Southwest Michgan




And in September we had the fourth and largest edition of the high sausage holiday, Oktoberfest

And now the future.

I don't know what's going to happen with this blog. I got a job working in a restaurant. It's a really cool place, I've been on since April. Someday I would like to regale you with the tale of how I got a job through Twitter. In the meantime, you can follow whatever adventure I'm having on twitter and on flickr. And I'll get back to the business of writing about sausage soon.

Happy cooking.



Cheers.

Happy Thanksgiving

Wanna make Thanksgiving sausage or just need some basic tips for smoking a turkey? Here's some old posts to help get your day right.

Thanksgiving in a Tube


MAC's Holiday Turkey Tips



Happy Thanksgiving.



Cheers.