Entries Tagged as 'Sausage'

Columbus Farm to Fork Naturals Giveaway

20

23.1.13

UPDATE!  Evin of Food Good, Laundry Bad is the winner! YAY! I hope you love your box of meat!

That’s me– looking super cool in my cheesemongering get-up. I learned so much about charcuterie while working at Murray’s Cheese, and even more about cheese of course. During the holiday chaos, I madly ran to the walk-in and fetched Columbus finocchionas and soppresattas and hoisted them onto the meat slicer. My arm would get sore from ballin’ New Yorkers demanding two pounds of thinly sliced Genoa salami. There were fun times behind the cheese counter (like waiting on celebrities and selecting cheeses for Martha Stewart), but I’m thankful to be the customer now. I often find myself buying Columbus products because they’re good value and taste great.

I was thrilled when Columbus offered to send me a sampler and sponsor a giveaway. They recently launched a new line of minimally processed, pre-sliced meats called Farm to Fork Naturals made from hogs and turkeys that have been raised with no antibiotics and 100% vegetarian feeds. The Farm to Fork Naturals line kicks off with three deli meat and four salame varieties. I’m usually suspicious of pre-sliced salami, but this product tastes just as good as meat straight from the deli (believe me, I snacked on tons of freshly cut salami behind that counter).

Farm to Fork Naturals has “no added nitrates or nitrites.”  As someone who dabbles in homemade salami, I immediately inspected the ingredients. Like almost all other “uncured” meats, this new product line eschews sodium nitrate in favor of celery salt, which has naturally occurring nitrites. I’m personally ambivalent about nitrites– I eat them in any form without worries or guilt. There is NO safe way to  make dry-cured sausage without nitrites in some form (and NEVER use celery salt to cure at home please!). If getting your meat preservatives from a more natural source puts your mind at ease, then the Farm to Fork naturals line is a fantastic alternative to other commercial salamis. I really can’t taste the difference.

Leave a comment on this post by this Sunday, January 27th, at 11:59pm CST. I’ll choose a winner at random and announce the results on Monday. This giveaway is only available to readers within the United States. The winner will receive a sampler box of the new Columbus Farm to Fork Naturals line, along with five $5 off coupons. Do it!

Disclaimer: Columbus sent me a sampler box to taste. They are also providing the giveaway prize free of charge.

 

20 comments categories: Charcuterie, Giveaway, Meat, Sausage

Sausage Stuffed Quails

7

01.4.12

Last month I bought delicious sausage stuffed quails from Dai Due Butcher Shop, a local artisan company based here in Austin. That day I went to the farmers’ market to splurge on something for an easy meal at home. Dai Due didn’t have a large selection that day, and I thought the sausage-stuffed quails sounded kinda boring. I bought them anyways, and I was SO wrong! The quails were stuffed with Dai Due’s own outstanding sausage, and the meat was moist with a slight herbal undertone.

I stumbled upon two frozen quails and link of homemade Italian sausage in my quest to clean out my freezer. Score! Of course my mind wandered back to eating the magical stuffed quails that night. I have no idea how they made them, but I did my best to recreate them at home.

Sausage Stuffed Quails

Brine:

  • 1/4 cup salt
  • 2 cups water
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 2 semi-boneless quails

Stuffing:

  • 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
  • 1 small onion, diced
  • 1 clove garlic, chopped
  • 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
  • 1 link sweet italian sausage

1. In a heavy bottomed pot, combine the water, salt, and bay leaves and bring to a simmer to dissolve the salt. Turn off the heat and let the brine return to room temperature. Place the quails in the brine, and then place the pot in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours.

2. Meanwhile, make the stuffing. Heat the olive oil in a skillet with the red pepper flakes. Add the onion and cook until golden. Next add the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes.

3. Combine the onion, garlic, and breadcrumbs in a small bowl. Squeeze the sausage from the casing and mix to combine all the ingredients evenly.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Stuff the sausage into the cavities of the quails.

5. Pat the quails dry with paper towels to ensure a crisp skin. Rub with olive oil and season with black pepper. Roast for 20-25 minutes.

These quails are best roasted over a bed of root vegetables like carrots, beets, or potatoes. They take longer to cook than the quails, so it’s best to cook them for 30 minutes before placing the quails in the oven. The juices from the sausage will mix with the vegetables, making a satisfying one skillet meal.

7 comments categories: Charcuterie, Poulty, Sausage, Vegetables, Wild Game

One Meal to Ruhl(man) Them All: Duck Confit Pierogies & Bigos

8

06.12.11

Lately I’ve alluded to my stockpile of homemade charcuterie including bacon, pork belly lardo, wild game sausages, and duck confit. It was all part of a larger plan for the Charcutepalooza finale. My Pole-ophile partner proposed I make bigos,  the national dish of Poland. This “hunter’s stew” of meat, sauerkraut, and cabbage was traditionally made with wild game, but these days it’s almost always made with pork. I wanted to change that.

Pierogies seemed like a natural accompaniment, but filled with what? I dreamed up a French-Polish fusion of shredded duck confit, caramelized onions, and mashed potatoes. Like traditional pierogies, but better.

Thank God my best friend was planning to visit me later that month. She was actually excited to help out. We’re former roommates with a history of taking on crazy cooking projects. On weeknights during college we often made “Japanese extravaganza” with homemade sushi, miso soup, and sweet potato tempura. Our peers thought we were weird. Rachel and I also traveled to Eastern Europe together, including a memorable stop in Poland, so it was fitting that she would help with the dinner. The date was set for Saturday, November 19.

That night we cooked for hours. We maintained our strength with snacks of beer, Polish vodka, and pork belly lardo. I also busted out some symbolic pork rillettes made from the bits of meat accumulated from all of these projects and stored in the freezer all year.

I culled over bigos recipes for weeks. Recipes that included tomato had no appeal. It didn’t seem like something a Polish hunter would eat.  But I was charmed by this story in the New York Times about the author Louis Begley and his bigos recipe. I made some modifications to use my charcuterie stockpile, including wild game sausage to make it all the more hunter-y.

Bigos or “Hunter’s Stew”

Ingredients:

  • 2 large sweet onions, chopped
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 8 ounces homemade bacon, cut into 1/2-inch squares
  • 1 pound sauerkraut, preferably fresh
  • 2 pounds cabbage, thinly sliced
  • 2 potatoes, peeled and cut into eighths
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled
  • 15 black peppercorns
  • 1 pound homemade kabanosy
  • 1 apple, cored and sliced
  • 2 cups homemade duck stock
  • 2 pounds homemade venison & wild boar kielbasa, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 1/2 cup to 1 cup vodka.

1. In a bowl, mix onions with salt and set aside. In a large pot, cook over medium heat until it is crisp and most of the fat has rendered.  Add onions and sauté over medium heat about 10 minutes. Add cabbage and sauté for about 5 minutes until some of the water has cooked out.

2. Add sauerkraut, potatoes, garlic, peppercorns, kabanosy, and apples to the onions and cabbage. Add enough wine and stock to just cover and mix well. Cover and cook on low heat for 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.

3. Add kielbasa, and cook over low heat for 1 hour before serving.

4. Fifteen minutes before serving, pour vodka over the bigos. Spoon into bowls or onto a plate and serve with a garnish of chopped dill.

Yield: 8 generous servings.

We worked on the pierogies while the bigos bubbled away for about 3 hours. I loved the idea of using sour cream in the dough and settled on this dough recipe. I prepared and assembled caramelized onions and mashed potatoes in advance.

Duck Confit Pierogies with Caramelized Onions and Mashed Potatoes:

Dough by Barbara Rolek from About.com

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus flour to dust the work surface
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup water
  1. Combine flour, salt, sour cream, egg and water in a large bowl. Mix until dough comes together. If dough is dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time, until it’s moist and springy. If the dough is sticky, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it’s smooth.
  2. On a floured work surface, knead dough for 3 or 4 minutes until elastic. Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Filling

  • 2 cups prepared duck confit, bones removed and shredded
  • 2 cups mashed potatoes
  • 1 cup caramelized onions, prepared in advance, flavored with black pepper and thyme

1. Roll out the dough about 1/8 of an inch thick and cut circles about 4-inches in diameter.

2. Holding a dough circle like a taco, layer about 1 teaspoon of potatoes, 1 teaspoon of duck confit, and 1/2 a teaspoon of caramelized onions. Encase the filling in the dough by sealing the edges. Set aside on a plate lined with parchment paper.

Making rustic pierogies is much easier than making delicate raviolis, but I won’t minimize the work involved. It’s labor intensive! I made about 50 during that weekend and learned something extremely important: place the pierogies on parchment paper because the dough is super sticky. Otherwise they’ll stick to the plate, resulting in oyster-shaped pierogies after they’re cooked. Yes, oysters. You don’t want that to happen after all that hard work.

Boiling the pierogies wouldn’t suffice for this occasion, so we fried them. In the duck fat leftover from the confit. We finally sat down to eat seven hours after we started cooking. The pierogies were absolutely everything I dreamed they would be, and I had been dreaming about them for about a month at that point. The bigos was sweet, sour, and smokey. I think any Polish hunter would have approved.

We made so much food that we enjoyed a second installment of the meal with Dustin’s parents the following weekend. Louis Begley spoke the truth— the flavor of the bigos improved after a few days in the fridge. The sweet and sour qualities of the apple and sauerkraut mellowed while the smokey richness of the meat deepened in flavor. The pierogies froze beautifully

Charcutepalooza taught me so much about food while connecting me with many kindred spirits here in Austin or via Twitter.  I’m more than a little sad that it’s ending, but I loved sharing the experience with friends and family over the past few weeks. I couldn’t have done it without their help and support! A special thanks to Rachel for taking control of the pierogies (she has always been more talented with dough than me), and to Dustin for his unwavering support, meat smoking skillz, and eating all the bigos.

8 comments categories: Charcutepalooza, Charcuterie, French, Meat, Pork, Poulty, Sausage, Smoking, Venison, Wild Game

Dry Curing: Kabanosy & Cured Pork Belly Lardo

1

01.12.11

I wanted to make something different for this challenge, something none of the other charcutepaloozers would make. And Dustin, a kabanosy enthusiast, had been craving the thin, dry sausage hanging in every legit Polish deli in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. They are flavored strongly with black pepper, smoked until evocative of an old crypt-keeper’s finger, but remain moist and pleasant thanks to the generous chunks of fat interspersed throughout the coarsely ground pork meat. Since there are no Polish delis that I know of in Austin, kabanosy is impossible to find here.

A recipe was difficult to find, too, but I settled on this one from a book by Stanley Marianski. I ground the pork shoulder and belly, and flavored it with lots of black pepper, caraway, nutmeg, and a little sodium nitrate to guard against botulism during the smoking and drying process. Then I stuffed it into thin sheep casings.

After I smoked them in my chiminea, they looked beautiful hanging to dry for a week next to my brooms, reminding me of the sausages dangling from the hooks in those delis in Greenpoint.

Unfortunately the kabanosy was a bit of a bust. I worked myself up reading about the dangers of botulism or “sausage disease,” fearing we would poison ourselves. I distinctly remember my 9th grade biology teacher describing botulism, traumatizing me with stories of paralysis, blindness, and death. She said you could get it from dented cans at the supermarket, and made it seem quite commonplace. I’ve never gotten over it.

So as a precaution, we smoked the kabanosy a little longer than we should have. We tried them a week later, after they had sufficiently dried out. The flavor was there, but the texture was not. Oversmoking made all the difference, and the meat felt like sawdust in my mouth. Oh well, lesson learned.

I redeemed myself with some cured pork belly. I cured it with the same mix I use for bacon and then wrapped it in Saran wrap and foil, protecting the delicate fat from light. Then I placed it under a heavy can in my fridge for about two weeks, and then wrapped it in cheese cloth to hang at room temperature for two weeks more. It is milder than pancetta, but so much easier to make since wrestling with pork belly isn’t necessary.  I use the cured belly for Bucatini all’Amatriciana, a pizza topping, or snack on it raw. Cured pork belly will be in my fridge at all times from now on.

And the kabanosy won’t be total loss. It will be featured in my final Charcutepalooza challenge along with a few other exciting items.

1 comment categories: Charcutepalooza, Charcuterie, Fat, Italian, Meat, Sausage, Smoking

Wild Game Sausages

3

29.11.11

I’ve been stocking up on homemade charcuterie for the last Charcutepalooza challenge. I want to include wild game in my final dish (it won’t be revealed until next week) to make it more authentic.  I thought it would be easy to get some venison since we have more deer than we know what to do with here in Texas.  At least that was my impression.

Last January, we packed up the car and moved from New York City to Austin.  As we approached our final destination in Texas, we saw about 20 deer chomping on leaves, flowers, landscaping and whatnot. I felt like we were venturing deep into the wilderness, and it made me nervous. I wanted to cry out to Dustin, “Where the hell are you taking me?!” I had seen maybe three deer in all of my time growing up in Rhode Island.

So imagine my surprise when I discovered how difficult it is to buy venison. A few stores around town sell venison from New Zealand, which is patently absurd. The FDA has almost prohibitively strict standards related to selling wild game in retail outlets. My only option was to order from Broken Arrow Ranch, a meat purveyor here in Texas that is permitted to sell field harvested wild game by bringing a meat inspector with them on hunts.

Venison & Wild Boar Sausage based on Chef Milos’s Country Venison Sausage from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s Charcuterie. Makes about 2.5 lbs of sausages.

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 lbs. boneless, lean venison
  • 1 lb. wild board belly
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon pink salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
  • 1/2 cup ice water

1. Combine all the ingredients except the water and toss to mix thoroughly. 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 meat mixture and mix with a sturdy spoon, gradually adding the water until it is incorporated and the mixture develops a uniform, sticky appearance.

4. Saute a bite-sized portion of the sausage, taste, and adjust seasoning if necessary.

5. Stuff the sausage into the hog casings, and twist into 6-inch links. Let dry 1 to 2 hours at room temperature or in the refrigerator.

6.Hot-smoke the sausages at a temperature of 180 degrees to an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Transfer to an ice bath to chill thoroughly, then refrigerate.

Tasting these sausages was rather climactic after researching wild game sources, emotionally ordering the meat, waiting for the delivery, and making them. I was apprehensive as usual, scared that the wild boar would be too musky and that the sausages’ strong, gamey flavor would permeate my dish. But now I’m excited! These sausages taste like the best, meatiest, most flavorful kielbasa ever, and I think they’ll be the perfect ingredient.

3 comments categories: Charcutepalooza, Charcuterie, Fat, Meat, Sausage, Smoking, Venison, Wild Game

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