Home Made Sausage, Cured, and Smoked Meats

Originally Posted by why

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Outside of a few, it's not all it's cracked up to be. The old ethnic stuff is great, but the West Side Market is pretty crappy outside of a few vendors that now do most of their business through their own storefronts. There are too many imitators.

It's nice to see Michael Symon not let his celebrity get to his head and keep his restaurants as they were pre-Iron Chef.

I went to the Velvet Tango Room again a few weeks ago and it was so affected and crowded we just left. I'm talking most of the girls dressed up as vamps and the kitschy paintings purposely hung lopsided kind of contrivance.

I'm looking forward to eating at one of Symon's places. I'll be hitting the VTR on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, so hopefully will not be crowded. There's a few other places I want to try there too. Light Bistro looks interesting.

Okay, had been unable to get a needed ingredient for other recipes: back fat. Got my head of F&B to talk to our Sysco rep. Back fat can be ordered by the case and a case is two blocks of five #. A case comes in for me Tuesday

So, will be trying mortadella for sure, and maybe salami and one or two other, small recipe things TG weekend.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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Okay, had been unable to get a needed ingredient for other recipes: back fat. Got my head of F&B to talk to our Sysco rep. Back fat can be ordered by the case and a case is two blocks of five #. A case comes in for me Tuesday

So, will be trying mortadella for sure, and maybe salami and one or two other, small recipe things TG weekend.

Fatback should be easy to find. If it's not in the supermarket, ask the butcher.

Salames need to be dried and cured. You got a cellar ready with some nice humidity?

Originally Posted by why

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Fatback should be easy to find. If it's not in the supermarket, ask the butcher.

Salames need to be dried and cured. You got a cellar ready with some nice humidity?

I'm happy using Sysco. They have great product and pricing is fantastic.

As to curing. There's semi-dry and there's dry. I lack the ability to do dry, due to humidity. Dry curing needs #2 cure. Semi-dry only needs #1 cure and can be done in my smoker. I shall be doing a semi-dry, smoked salami vs. an air cured, dry salami.

Dood, I've been reading up on this stuff for weeks now. I've got it down.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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I'm happy using Sysco. They have great product and pricing is fantastic.

As to curing. There's semi-dry and there's dry. I lack the ability to do dry, due to humidity. Dry curing needs #2 cure. Semi-dry only needs #1 cure and can be done in my smoker. I shall be doing a semi-dry, smoked salami vs. an air cured, dry salami.

Dood, I've been reading up on this stuff for weeks now. I've got it down.

Don't you live in Detroit? Now's the season to cure.

Originally Posted by why

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Don't you live in Detroit? Now's the season to cure.

Haven't lived there in over a decade.

Okay, today's project was next level: emulsified meats. Namely, mortadella. I'm just finished paching them in 170 degree water and they went into an ice bath after I got the temp up to 150. So, the basic thing is, keep the ingredients cold, don't let the emulsion break. This meat is high in fat content, as in 1 lb lean pork to 12 oz back fat plus 4 oz back fat cubed and blanched folded into the emulsion.

My steps were: cube pork and back fat. 12 oz back reserve for grinding, 4 gets blanched and folded in at the end. Take the spiced, ground pork (include some "pink salt" for curing) and add 10oz crushed ice and food process until it comes up to 40 degrees. Add ground back fat, food process until 45. Add 1/2 cup non-fat dry milk, food process until 57. Stuff in "beef middle" (middle intestine of a cow) that's made of fibrous collagen. Hog ring the ends, poach in 170 water until internal temp of 150. Almost there. Here's all the pics but tomorrow's; a shot of the finished produced sliced up.

Here's the collagen casing soaking in water to be pliable


Bowl full of spices and the "cure"


Here's what cubed pig back fat looks like and the next shot is it ground up finely




Poaching those fatties


Ice bath to stop the cooking process


So tomorrow I plan to make a 5 lbs batch of sausage sticks. I'll be using edible collagen casings, which makes it easy, as one roll holds five pounds stuffed. I'll be adding "cure" or nitrite salt again, as I plan to smoke them. Stay tuned.

Originally Posted by Piobaire

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Okay, today's project was next level: emulsified meats. Namely, mortadella.

Yowza. Makes me appreciate a nice muffaletta all that much more.

So here's a few slices of the finished product, with a little good mustard.



Here is today's project: beef sticks. They are out in my smoker, for stage one right now. Stage one is just applying low heat and drying them out. Soon, I'll put in some wood and up the temp. Should be ready in about 5 hours from now.

God damn Piobaire, you really like it teh sausage.

Originally Posted by GQgeek

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God damn Piobaire, you really like it teh sausage.

I'm having fun with it, my sausage.

I thought you ground your own meat and made sausage? Or was that just RJ snark?

It's mostly snark but I do have the food grinder attachment and sausage stuffer kit for my KA Pro mixer. I've done it a couple times but it's not worth the effort when there's a good place to get sausage nearby.

I'm impressed Pio.

And I think you would have been impressed with my foie preparation on Thanksgiving. Torchon w/ poached pears, pear/shallot jam, and black pepper gastrique. The texture on the torchon was quite honestly out of this world.

Originally Posted by kwilkinson

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I'm impressed Pio.

And I think you would have been impressed with my foie preparation on Thanksgiving. Torchon w/ poached pears, pear/shallot jam, and black pepper gastrique. The texture on the torchon was quite honestly out of this world.

Thanks for the props. This sausage making is not easy. Simple in concept, but a ***** to execute.

I'm sure your foie was otherwordly. I hope I get to taste your foie magic at some point. Any chance you'll be doing foie when I'm at Cyrus?

Btw, here's the beef sticks post-hot smoking:

The thing with sausage making is that your attention to detail, every little ******* one, is wildly important. Nailing 99% of the details but missing out on that tiny little piece could blow your entire sausage.

And no, there's no chance you'd taste my foie by the time you came lol. That's at the hot apps station now, and garde manger when it's torchon. Garde Manger might be a station I could run in 6 months, but hot apps is one of the higher spots in our brigade, so it'd be at least a year before I got there.

BTW, as always, I'm loving your beef sticks.