Fresh Wine Sausage and Potato Salad

Traditional Czech Christmas and Easter Meal

Fresh wine sausage actually falls into two categories on my blog: Charcutepalooza and Christmas. Traditionally, this sausage was served before or after Christmas or Easter and was always accompanied by potato salad and mustard and sometimes with freshly grated horseradish. It is a fairly light sausage, as far as sausages go, and is pleasantly tangy with lemon peel and white wine. In some regions of Northern Bohemia it was made with a mix of pork and veal while in other regions pork was the only meat used. I made lean version using 2 parts veal and 1 part pork. As is the case with any fresh or cured sausage one tool that really makes it easy, and I do consider it indispensable, is stand mixer with paddle. Of course, you can use bowl and stiff wooden spoon like our grand-parents, but it is a lot of work to beat the meat and spice mixture into a sticky forcemeat while adding wine at the same time. Even though I have not tried it since I have 8 quart Blakeslee stand mixer, I guess that you could use a food processor fitted with a dough blade to do the mixing. The wine has to be completely absorbed by the meat. Since I got my new vertical sausage stuffer I am definitely on a sausage kick but this sausage, just like any fresh sausage, can be formed into patties or short round sausages, dredged in flour and cooked in a frying pan or baked/roasted in the oven. For such a delicious sausage there are very few ingredients. One ingredient that has to be measured carefully is salt. Always weigh the salt, do not go by table spoon or tea spoon measurements, not all kosher salts (and always use kosher salt) are created equal. I did some tests and one cup of one brand differed from another brand by as much as 30% in weight, and that is a lot of difference! Generally, for sausages the ratio of meat to salt is 10 grams of salt for every 450 grams (1 pound) of meat. Another ingredient that is absolutely critical in this sausage is lemon zest. It is better to use rather more than less, after all it is the lemon zest that gives this sausage such a refreshing taste. One more thing. I never buy ground meat, ever. I have to know what is in my meat and when you buy store bought ground meat it is anybody’s guess as to what kind of crap is in it. Just check number of recalls of ground meat products due to e-coli contamination and other problems. To me it is worth the extra effort to grind my own meat. 

Ingredients

1 lb. veal shoulder

1/2 pork but

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

15 grams Kosher salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground white pepper

Lemon zest from 1 lemon

White wine, about 1/2 cup

Sheep casings and skewers (if used)

Flour for coating

Oil for shallow frying

 Remove all sinew from veal and pork. Mix salt, pepper, nutmeg and lemon zest in small bowl. Cut the meat into 1” cubes and rub the spice mixture into the meat. Place in re-sealable bag, flatten the bag while removing as much air as possible and refrigerate overnight.

Next day place the bag with meat in the freezer for half an hour or until the meat starts to get hard. When thin crust develops on the surface of the meat, grind it using die plate with 1/4” or 3/8” holes. Place the ground meat in stand mixer bowl fitted with paddle or food processor with steel dough blade (I think that plastic dough blade would brake), turn the machine on and start adding the chilled wine. Stop when grind starts to look sticky and develops little shine. Meat is now ready for stuffing into sheep casings forming coils that will fit frying pan or formed into patties or sausages. Place bamboo skewer from one end of the sausage coil, through the centre where the other end is and out opposite side. The skewer will hold the coil together and makes it much easier to handle. To cook the sausage, preheat frying pan with about 1/4” of vegetable oil, coat or dust the sausage or patties with flour to give it nice crust and fry till it is golden brown, 3–5 minutes. Turn sausage over and cook another 3-5 minutes. Serve with mustard and Potato Salad.

Charcutepalooza - Venison Sausage

My adventure in Charcuterie continued this week with hot-smoked Venison and Pork sausage. Since I had only 450 grams (1 lb.) of venison from my neighbor and about the same amount of lean pork and pork back fat I had to make small batch of 3 lb. At the end I had 60” of sausages but according to my “official taster” they were the tastiest ever. This is a definite repeat but since I don’t have a free access to venison I will have to substitute with veal shoulder and add juniper berries to simulate a game meat. Here are the ingredients that I have used:

1 lb. venison

1 lb. pork

1 lb. pork fat

1 Tbs. sugar

2 Tbs. Kosher salt

1 tsp. Prague powder #1

2 tsp. onion powder

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. white pepper powder

1/2 Tbs. Hungarian paprika

1/2 tsp. ground allspice

1/2 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg

1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper2/3 cup ice cold water

This recipe is from book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.

All the seasonings were mixed, sprinkled over the meat mixture and rubbed into the meat and fat. I cured it overnight at 2°C. The dark meat is venison.

About 45 minutes before grinding I placed the meat into freezer to create a thin frozen crust. Then meat was ground and finally mixed with ice-cold water in stand-up mixer using paddle.

My new stainless steel vertical stuffer was ice cold as well. It is extremely important to keep everything clean and cold. This stuffer is so good!!! Before it was so frustrating to use the Kitchen Aid stuffing attachment.

Sausages were hanged to dry out before smoking.

Two hours later the smoking started. I had to tie the links to the front and back of the grill so that they do not touch each other and that the smoke moves around freely. I had to use my gas grill because my electric smoker kept blowing fuse. Another project: fix the smoker! Also, since I was smoking sausages I smoked some salt and paprika at the same time on top shelf of the BBQ. Notice the thermometer probe inserted into middle of one sausage.

All done! Immediately after they reached internal temperature of 150°C the sausages were cooled in ice bath to tighten up the skin and to stop cooking.

To serve, I will reheat them on the grill and serve with mustard, freshly grated horseradish and rye bread. Carnivore’s Heaven!

Charcutepalooza - Dry Spanish Chorizo Sausage

Chorizo is Spanish spicy sausage that reminds me a lot of Hungarian Csabai sausage. At least my version of chorizo does because I put in so much sweet and hot paprika plus chili powder, something like double that any true recipe calls for. I have made this version three times before but this one is the best. It is just too bad that I didn’t take any notes as to what spices and how much I put in. Only part that I followed religiously was the salting and curing process, these are un-changeable for safety reasons. Also, this was last time I used my Kitchen Aid grinding attachment (modified to fit my Blakeslee 8 quart stand-up mixer) to stuff the casings. In the future I will use it only for grinding and mixing the meat but stuffing will be done by my brand new 5 Lb. vertical stainless steel stuffer. Today I made 5 Lb. of veal Frankfurters so I will post the picture of my new toy on that post in few days.

Meat was ground after 2 days of curing at 5°C.

After just 10 days the sausages lost 40% of moisture.

Charcuterie is an art and real fun! You can use your creativity but only to a point.

Salmon Sausage with Somen Noodle Salad

This recipe is still very much in development stage. On my last supermarket trip I bought couple of salmon sausages on a whim and now I had to come up with a way to cook and serve them. I did a search on Google and almost all hits were recopies on how to make the sausages but very few on cooking them.

Decision on how to cook the sausages was fairly straightforward since there are basically only three choices: pan fry, grill, bake or poach. My choice was the simplest, pan frying. The choice of what to serve it with or on was more complex. Do I serve it as a hotdog or on top of rice or some sort of noodles like cellophane or rice noodles? Since I had some leftover Somen noodles from last night’s dinner the decision was basically made for me.  All I had to do was add some julienned cucumber and radishes plus arugula and dress it with rice vinegar dressing (one part each of rice vinegar, Mirin or honey and water). I sliced the salmon sausage, served it on top of some noodle salad and topped sausage slices with mayonnaise & wasabi sauce.

Next time I will try glass noodles (cellophane, mug bean, starch noodles…too many names for same noodle) or rice vermicelli with teriyaki sauce.