Page 20 of 22

Posted: Tue May 13, 2014 09:31
by Thewitt
Definitely higher humidity here. It's been raining every day for about a month now - about an inch a day!

Chicken Italian Sausage

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 16:40
by sawhorseray
Last weeks tailgate affair before the Giants game resulted in quite a few requests for more of my Chicken Italian sausage with wine, dried tomatoes, and black olives. My standard 22 lb. batch seems to take a lot less time on deboning than in years past, lots of practice.
Image
As always when making Italian sausage, I go with the PS Seasonings 260-B spice pack made for 25 lbs., gives me the same great flavor every time
Image
I rehydrated the tomatoes with the bottle of cold Chardonnay then ran everything thru the grinder. Mixed the spice pack in the leftover wine in the bowl and tossed everything into the meat mixer for a five minute ride. Got the grinder and mixer cleaned and called it a day right after placing the stuffer tank into my freezer for a overnight stay. Having the stuffer tank frozen really takes a lot of pressure off, the meat stays cold forever.
Image
I find using the sausage pricker leads to a lot less popped casings. After years of going back and forth between six and eight inch links, I've finally just gone with seven inch links
Image
Right after that picture my digital camera died, and then the O-ring plunger on my vertical stuffer crapped out. I called Cabelas with the parts number I needed and they said they'd get them to me ASAP, no charge, not even for shipping. There was a new digital camera resting on the coffee table when I woke up this morning, Boo Boo dog must have done some Fathers Day shopping. Life is good, Happy Fathers Day y'all!RAY

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 17:48
by ssorllih
Life is indeed good!
7 is a good number Biblical and all that. 6 and 8 don't show up too often. Always fun to find justification for changes.

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 18:37
by Shuswap
Ross - do you use all the chicken skin and fat in your sausage? Mine is too dry and I suspect it is because I didn't include the skin.
Phil

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 19:15
by sawhorseray
Shuswap wrote:Ross - do you use all the chicken skin and fat in your sausage? Mine is too dry and I suspect it is because I didn't include the skin.Phil
With any chicken sausage you might want to make all you need is deboned thighs with the meat and skin, toss the bone, perfect texture and mix every time. RAY

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 19:50
by cogboy
I will have to try putting the stuffer in the freezer overnight ,sounds like an excellent idea !

Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 20:19
by ssorllih
I put all of the meat, fat and skin from leg quarters into the bowl for the grind and cook the bones gently for the stock. I can usually find leg quarters for about 80 cents per pound.

Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 01:27
by Butterbean
Looks great. I'll have to try that.

Chorizo - Oh Duk where are you?

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 15:07
by Shuswap
DW likes chorizo. Recently she bought cooked chorizo at Costco which she served as snack food. She put slices in a fry pan at low heat to remove much of the fat. It was still moist, and even I liked it.

Just finished making her a fresh chorizo from Marianski`s book:

500 g lean pork (had butt which wasn`t that lean)
250 g beef (lean ground)
250g back fat

18 g salt
3 g pepper
8 g sweet paprika (called for 10)
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup red wine

It was a test batch producing only nine 6" links. DW likes the flavor. If the butt had 25% fat then the total fat would be 37.5% which seems pretty high.

I`m thinking my next batch will be cured and cold smoked then finished to 150°F and I`ll use the 10g of sweet paprika. I`m trying to work my way to semi-dry choriso.

Question:
Should I use pork loin instead of pork butt so as to reduce the amount of fat to 25% and avoid DW having to do so in the frying pan before snack time?

Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 16:06
by el Ducko
Yeah, that 37.5% fat is pretty high. To be honest, this was my original motivation for making my own chorizo- - the stuff in the grocery stores is WAY too fatty. (It melts before it fries. Yuk!) I usually use pork Boston butt, but you can certainly add beef (if you can afford it, these days!).

Dropping the fat back lowers the fat to around 25%. If you remove the pork trimmings too, you can get down to around 17%, but that`s too low. I would recommend just going with your pork butt & trimmings, plus the beef, rather than including the fat back and dropping the trimmings (which only gets you down four or five percent).

For this particular recipe, (Argentine Chorizo) I used bacon instead of fat back, and made it as fresh sausage. Grilling the sausage gets rid of some of the objectionable fat. You could also cook the sausages, sliced, in a pan, but that`s still the way that poor, long-suffering DW has to do it. Either way, you`ll want to melt some of that fat out of there before eating. (Moral of the story: run back to Costco and get a grill.)

Smoking would add a nice flavor to what is already a flavorful sausage. ...good idea.( Just don`t forget the cure!) Grilled, split( butterflied, or "mariposa") with chimichurri sauce (olive oil, garlic, a handful of parsley, and a small green pepper like Anaheim, ground up in a blender), served on a hot dog or sausage bun ("bolillo"), it`s delicious.

...and hopefully, old Purdue guys like you have been through Chicago enough to know: don`t put ketchup on it! ...eh? Come on back, next year, and we'll do some local chorizo and barbecue research.
Duk
:mrgreen:

Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2014 16:55
by Shuswap
Well Duk, I gave DW a recipe for making chimichurri sauce for her chorizo and she turned it down flat. We don't even use bbq sauce on our steaks. Guess that comes from living too far north. :roll:

Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 02:28
by Chuckwagon
don`t put ketchup on it! ...eh?
Danged Rabid Duck! Image
You want to know what I put ketchup on? I put it on boiled duck, fried duck, broiled duck, poached duck, barbequed duck, dried duck, baked duck, shucks.... I`d even put it on a "HOT AIR" duck if I could catch him! :shock: Where's my shotgun? :roll:

Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 14:31
by Shuswap
redzed wrote:And, if I may say, since we are all hobbyists, amateurs and dilettantes here, we should use use every day language in describing the process. Getting too technical might discourage some, and we want to have fun.
Here, here :!:

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 12:04
by Chuckwagon
Red wrote:
And, if I may say, since we are all hobbyists, amateurs and dilettantes here...
What? I'll have you know that I'm a REPUBLICAN! :roll:

Posted: Sun Aug 03, 2014 16:00
by el Ducko
Chuckwagon wrote:...What? I'll have you know that I'm a REPUBLICAN! :roll:
Hmmm. Talk about yer coincidences, Colorado legend Alferd Packer, a prospector, was accused of cannibalism during the winter of 1873-4. The judge, upon Packer's conviction, reportedly said
"Stand up yah voracious man-eatin' s**o**b**** and receive yir sintince. When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven Dimmycrats. But you, yah et five of 'em, g*d*** yah. I sintince yah t' be hanged by th' neck ontil yer dead, dead, dead, as a warnin' ag'in reducin' th' Dimmycratic populayshun of this county. Packer, you Republican cannibal, I would sintince ya ta hell but the statutes forbid it."
Packer's legend lives on today- - the Packer Burger is a prominently featured item on the student union cafeteria menu at Colorado School of Mines.

There's a picture or five in the Wkipedia article, and they all look like... Hmmm... The moustache... Hmmmm... the beady eyes...

Jes' kiddin, CW. Uh... CW...? Whatcha doin' with that hatchet in yer hand, ol' buddy? Huh...?
YIKES !!!
:mrgreen: