My culinary and fabricy adventures

After my success with the new equipment and the Breakfast Sausage with Fresh Ginger and Sage recipe (aka Da Bomb, from Ruhlman & Polcyn’s book),  I realized that 5 pounds of sausages isn’t that many. Once you have a brunch party, give a few to your friends to taste test, and eat some for dinner the next night, there isn’t that much left in the freezer for later.     My only recourse was to make more!

On Monday morning I called my favorite meat shop, Ledebuhr’s, and ordered more meat for curing and drying fun, and preparation for a party we’re going to have at the end of the month.  The order:

• 20 pounds of pork shoulder butt  (Sausages, Mortadella)
• 2  eye of round roasts of beef  (Bresaola Round 2)
• 3 pork bellies (Pancetta and Smoked Bacon)
• 1 full beef brisket (to be dry rubbed and smoked for the party)

I ordered the pork shoulder butt for our sausage making Thursday, and picked up the rest of the meat on Saturday, for curing fun this next week.

The Bag My Pork Shoulder Butt Was In

Here’s a shot of the bag that the pork was in when I picked it up on Thursday.  Note the lack of last name, phone number, etc.  I love that I’m on a first name basis with my butcher.

My friends Sheila and Connie helped me make more of the Ginger and Sage Breakfast Sausage, and some spicy Mexican Chorizo.  More on that at a later date.

from Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn, with additional commentary

Mexican Chorizo is classically a free form sausage used loose as an ingredient in other dishes, rather than in links or in patties.  But don’t feel bound by classic rules if you like a spicy sausage with a long, interesting finish!

Ingredients

• 5 pounds /2.25 kg boneless pork shoulder butt, diced
• 1.5 ounces / 40 grams kosher salt (3 tablespoons)
• 2 tablespoons /16 grams ancho chile powder
• 1 tablespoon / 8 grams hot paprika
• 1 tablespoon / 8 grams chipotle powder or cayenne powder
• 1 tablespoon / 18 grams minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon /3 grams freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon /6 grams chopped fresh oregano (1 teaspoon / 0.5 gram dried oregano)
• 0.5 teaspoon /1.5 grams ground cumin
• 3 tablespoons /45 ml tequila, chilled
• 3 tablespoons /45 ml red wine vinegar, chilled
• 10 feet /3 meters hog casings, soaked in tepid water for AT LEAST 30 minutes and rinsed

Prep (can be done a day or more in advance)

1. Put the bowl from the stand mixer in the freezer.  Put the grinder attachment in the freezer.  Let them stay there as long as possible before grinding the meat.  I have the luxury of freezer space, so I put them in a day in advance.
2. Dice the pork shoulder butt in one inch cubes.  Put these in a large mixing  bowl, cover with plastic, and put in the refrigerator and allow to chill as long as possible.  I found chilling it overnight works well.
3. Soak the casings (if you’re going to use casings) in tepid water for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.  I’ve found that soaking overnight, and then changing the soaking water helps relax the casings so that they are easy to work with.

Process

1. Combine all ingredients except the tequila and vinegar and toss to distribute the seasonings.  Chill until ready to grind.
2. Grind the mixture through the small die into a bowl set in ice.
3. Add the tequila and vinegar to the ground meat mixture and mix with the paddle attachment until the liquid is incorporated and the mixture has developed a uniform, sticky appearance, about 1 minute on medium speed.
4. Saute a small portion of the sausage, taste, and adjust seasonings if necessary.
5. If desired, stuff the sausage into casings and twist into 6 inch / 15 cm links.  Refrigerate or freeze until ready to cook.

Cook

1. If in link form, gently saute or roast the sausage to an internal temperature of 150 degrees F / 65 degrees C.  If using loose, saute until cooked through.

from Charcuterie, by Ruhlman and Polcyn, with additional commentary

Ruhlman and Polcyn are not kidding when they refer to this as Da Bomb.  This sausage has complex flavors that wake up your whole mouth.  I don’t want to be without some of this in my freezer.

Ingredients

• 5 pounds/2.25 kg boneless pork shoulder butt, diced in 1 inch pieces
• 1.5 ounces/40 grams kosher salt (about 3 tablespoons)
• 5 tablespoons/50 grams peeled and finely grated fresh ginger (we minced ours)
• 1 tablespoon/18 grams minced garlic (about 5 cloves)
• 2 teaspoons/ 6 grams ground white pepper
• 1 cup / 250 ml ice water
• 20 feet / 6 m sheep casings or 10 feet/3 m hog casings, soaked in warm water for AT LEAST 30 minutes and rinsed
• ice cubes (for bowl under ground meat)

Prep (can be done a day or more in advance)

1. Put the bowl from the stand mixer in the freezer.  Put the grinder attachment in the freezer.  Let them stay there as long as possible before grinding the meat.  I have the luxury of freezer space, so I put them in a day in advance.
2. Dice the pork shoulder butt in one inch cubes.  Put these in a large mixing  bowl, cover with plastic, and put in the refrigerator and allow to chill as long as possible.  I found chilling it overnight works well.
3. Soak the casings (if you’re going to use casings) in tepid water for at least 30 minutes to 1 hour.  I’ve found that soaking overnight, and then changing the soaking water helps relax the casings so that they are easy to work with.

Process

1. Combine all ingredients except the water and toss to distribute the seasonings.  Chill until ready to grind.
2. Grind the mixture through the small die into a bowl set in ice.
3. Add the water to the ground meat mixture and mix with the paddle attachment until the liquid is incorporated and the mixture has developed a uniform, sticky appearance, about 1 minute on medium speed.
4. Saute a small portion of the sausage, taste, and adjust seasonings if necessary.
5. Stuff the sausage into casings and twist into 4 inch / 10 cm links, or shape into patties.  Refrigerate or freeze until ready to cook; or roll into a log, wrap in plastic and freeze; slice into patties.

Cook

1. Gently saute or roast the sausage to an internal temperature of 150 degrees F / 65 degrees C.  If you are using this loose, or in patties, saute until cooked through.

The quilt top, approximately 41 inches square

For those of you who are sick of the cured meats, and are wondering when I’ll get back to the SEW part of Slow and Sew, here you go.  I’m working on a baby quilt to give as a gift to dear friends who are new grandparents and gourmands.  I know they’ve wanted to have grandchildren for a long time, and they welcomed a new baby boy into their family just weeks ago.  This is a quilt to stay at the grandparents’ house, where I’m sure the grand baby will be introduced to a wide variety of food.

I see this quilt as a simple version of the I Spy quilt concept, and I can just imagine the cute baby sitting on the quilt and learning the names of fruit and veg with his grandfather.

The working title for this quilt is An Adventurous Palate.  Now it’s just down to quilting, binding, and a label.  I was impressed that I had 47 distinct food fabrics in my stash.  Only the bread and cheese fabrics were repeated.

The Cured Guanciale

Remember the pictures of the pig jowls?  Here’s how they looked after they dried.  They lost about 30% of their weight in drying, as would be expected.

Sliced Guanciale, Cross Section

And here’s what the cheek bacon looks like when it’s cut up in cross section.   Do you like the rosy pink hue of the fat?  I think that this stuff will flavor up stews, sauces and braises.  It might even be fabulous fried up with an egg.  I was amazed how dark some of the jowl meat got as it dried,  in comparison to the meaty areas that were surrounded by fat.

I wrapped this up, put it in zipper bags, and it’s now in the freezer, waiting for tasty inspiration.  Anyone want to try some?  Let me know.

Cured Bresaola

Remember the bresaola I was working on?  It’s done.  Unfortunately, my cross-section shot is not as sharp as I’d like it to be.  I’ve already learned what I will do differently next time (not wrap it in cheese cloth, wipe it down with brine each week during the curing/drying process).  The meat lost about a third of its weight in the drying process, as would be expected.

I hung it with a store-bought salami that had white mold on it (the GOOD mold) to prevent the growing of bad molds, and foster an environment for good mold, since molds compete.

After drying, out from under the cheesecloth

You can see that this is not necessarily appetizing looking, and there was a distinct blue cheese like smell of the white mold.    I wiped them down with a brine (salt water) to clean them up.  The picture below shows one before the brine wipe-down and the other after the brine wipe-down.

Bresaola, before and after wipe down with brine

I have not yet served these, as I want to check out my reference materials again about molds.  I’ve wrapped them in freezer paper and put them in my second fridge.  I did taste one slice, and since this was about a week ago, and I’m still alive, I’m guessing the stuff is non-lethal, but  I will be making more on Saturday, and I plan to do more regular brine wipe-downs on the second batch.

Pork Sausages With Ginger and Sage

This weekend I made sausages with casings for the first time, with some help from DH.  (Finally using my Christmas present from last year, the sausage stuffer!)  The recipe here is from Ruhlman & Polcyn’s Charcuterie book, for breakfast sausage with fresh ginger and sage.  I followed the recipe pretty faithfully, though I diced my ginger instead of grating it.   Now that we have the extra freezer and fridge, this is a lot easier- I have more room to keep the bowls and grinder parts cold.

Mise en place for Sausages

Here is my five pounds of cold pork shoulder butt, in 1 inch cubes, along with the rest of the ingredients:  salt and pepper, minced fresh ginger, garlic cloves, and minced fresh sage (from my kitchen garden, thank you!).   After mixing all of these ingredients, I chilled them while I pulled the grinder parts out of the freezer, and set up a bowl of ice underneath the mixing bowl (which had also been in the freezer).

Grinding the ingredients

Here is my DH doing the grinding.  You can see the little flecks of sage in the ground meat as it is extruded.  The grinding went much more smoothly than the last time I used the attachment.  I believe that is because the meat was colder- the cubes had been in the fridge overnight before we mixed in the spices, and since the grinder parts had been in the freezer, the whole system kept the meat colder.

The casings (hog) soaking in warm water

Meanwhile, I put the casings (natural hog casings, purchased at Mills’ Fleet Farm, aka The Man Mall) in warmish water to rehydrate and soak out the salt that they are packed in.  I changed the water a few times, and I rinsed out the insides of casings, too.  As you can see in the next photo, they do stretch, and as they re-hydrate, they  get easier to work with.

Rinsing Casings

After all the meat was ground, we added some ice water, and then mixed with the paddle attachment on the mixer, so that it got the correct sticky texture needed.

Ready to stuff in Casings

At this point, I had hauled out and rinsed my sausage stuffer, a Christmas gift from my Mum.  This one holds five pounds of sausage meat at a time, and comes with three sizes of stuffing tube.

The Stuffer

Front View of Stuffer

This part of the process is filled with opportunity for snickering and bad puns.  It also really requires both hands, so it didn’t have a good point for me to stop and photograph it.  While you may or may not agree with Julie Powell’s assertions about males being more suited to doing this work than females in her book Cleaving, it is a situation ripe for baudy humor.  It takes you right back to Junior High juvenality.

Here, however, is the result of the stuffing process- pinwheels of sausage.

Pinwheels of Porkiness

I got three big pinwheels from my five pounds of meat.  The last step was to measure out and twist the links and pop the casings to release air bubbles, then freeze the sausages.  I make approximately four inch links.  The casings I got were more bratwurst diameter than breakfast link diameter, so they look a little stubby in comparison to your average bratwurst.

These are tasty little things.  We served them yesterday for brunch with waffles.  My favorite local nine year old thought the combination was great.  (Here’s to kids with adventurous palates!  )  Of course, our realization after brunch was that 5 pounds of these is not very many.  I’ll be making more of these soon!

We finally got down to the business of planting our own plants today.  I’ve been collecting vegetable, herb, and flower plants for a couple weeks, and in the extreme heat and humidity, we decided to not wait for Memorial Day to get them in their pots and planters.

This year’s experiment is an upside down tomato plant, in one of those As Seen On TV planters.  Cheesy? yes, but one of my favorite church ladies swears by the upside down method, which she does with 5 gallon buckets.  I got the tomato plant at a fundraiser table for the local high school, so any actual fruit it bears is a bargain, since my $ are supporting some school program.

This year’s tomato varieties:  (1 plant in each variety)

Sun Gold (cherry)

Sweet Pea (currant/grape)

Gold Medal

Malachite Box

Cuor Di Bue

Mountain Fresh

Super Steak

Costovoluto Genovese

Anais Noir

Pink Brandywine

Carbon

Herbs (1 plant of each unless marked otherwise):

Basil (2)

Thyme (2)

Cilantro

Italian Parsley

Rosemary (7)

Marjoram

Sage

Other plants:

Two zucchini plants (for their blossoms)

Four nasturtium plants (for their flowers as salad garnishes)

Two Gerbera Daisy plants (to make the yard look pretty

We’ll see how it all goes this season.  I should have some pictures soon.

Our Illinois Urban Farmers

DH and I recently returned from an annual event.  Each spring we visit his parents in central Illinois, and help them plant their EarthBox planter with tomatoes for the summer.  This is tomato season #3 for them.  Longer term readers might remember them from last year, and their system of tying cages to the bench.

This year, they purchased a determinate variety of beefsteak tomato locally, and we brought another Sun Gold cherry tomato plant from Minnesota (an indeterminate variety).  We were a week or two earlier in planting the box than last year, given our freer schedule this summer.  We’re all hoping for good tomato yields and less cold and rain than they experienced last summer.

Creamy Woodsy Morelly Goodness

Now that I had the lovely morels from my foraging adventure, I decided to cook them as my contribution to a dinner party, where I was scheduled to bring an asparagus dish.  I went searching the web for something seasonal and delicious, and found a couple of recipes (here and here) that suggested asparagus and morels was a good combination.  I ended up doing my own variation of the two, trying to remember to let the ingredients be the stars, and that simplicity is a virtue in cooking those star ingredients.  The amounts of ingredients used was approximate, as I wanted enough to serve about 10 people.

Sauce Delivery Medium, Prepped For Roasting

Equipment

• 2 quart sauce pan with lid
• 2 baking sheets
• colander
• cutting board
• chef’s knife
• spoon or silicon spatula for stirring

Ingredients

• about 20 morels
• 2-4 lbs asparagus (I used both white and green because both were available)
• 1 large shallot
• unsalted butter
• beef broth
• half & half
• salt
• pepper

Prep:

1. Wash, drain, and trim asparagus.  Place in single layer on baking sheets.
2. Wash, drain, trim, and slice the morels into bite sized pieces.
3. Peel and mince the shallot.
4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Cook:

1. When the oven is hot, roast the asparagus in the oven for about 15 minutes per pan, depending on the thickness of the asparagus spears.  Thicker spears may need more time.  If the asparagus is bright green, and slightly tender after 15 minutes, remove from the oven, place on a serving plate, and cover with foil to keep warm.  If it’s too crisp, roast the asparagus for a few more minutes.
2. Melt about 3 Tbs. of butter in the sauce pan over medium heat.  When the foam subsides, add the shallot and let it soften.
3. Add the morels to the sauce pan with about 1/4 tsp. of salt and cook, so that they begin to release some water.  Add about 4 Tbsp. of beef broth, and cook, covered, for about 4 minutes.
4. Remove the lid and stir the mixture.  Bring to a boil to evaporate some excess water, if needed.
5. Lower back to medium heat, and add half and half.  I used about half a cup, but use your judgment, based on the amount of asparagus, and the sauce consistency you like.  Taste and adjust seasonings.
6. Pour sauce over asparagus, and serve.

Morels Bubbling With Broth

This was a big hit at the dinner party, despite the fact that some of the sauce was spilled due to the shallowness of the serving plate.  I’ll definitely do this again the next time I have morels available.