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Pork Fat Rules! Italian Sausage

March 5, 2011 By 1 Comment
(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

If you have never attempted to make your own pork sausage, you will certainly enjoy the higher quality product you can make yourself. Commercial producers grind up various cuts of pork, and add those mysterious chemical ingredients that are hard to pronounce. They generally don’t use freshly ground spices either, which makes a big difference. Even if you don’t have a kitchen stand mixer with a meat grinder/sausage stuffing attachment, you can still make this recipe using ground pork from your local supermarket and your food processor to grind the pork fat. Form it into patties for grilling, or use it in bulk in pasta recipes. I often find recipes that call for removing the casings from Italian sausages – using the meat in place of ground beef. No need to mess with making links if you don’t want to go to the trouble.

Basically, home sausage making involves procuring a cut of meat suitable for the purpose and grinding it in a meat grinder. Additional fat is typically added, along with spices. If you speak to the meat manager of your local supermarket, they’ll tell you that they throw away all the fat trimmed off of pork roasts. Ask them to set a few pounds aside for you, and freeze it for use as needed. A good meat manager won’t charge you for that.  You can procure hog casing from your local meat market or butcher (not supermarket) which is what you want to stuff your meat mixture into for sausage links.  If you haven’t made sausages before, there are many how-to videos on YouTube and elsewhere online. It really is not difficult.

As I experimented with sausage making, I discovered that despite the addition of fat to the recipe the sausages sometimes cook up a little dry instead of juicy and tender. After some research, I found that adding phosphate fixes that problem. This is a food grade additive that is available from the Ames Company (http://www.theingredientstore.com). Its inexpensive and makes a real difference in the final result. It helps the meat retain moisture during cooking.

Ingredients:

Hog Casings
1/4 tsp coriander seed, ground fresh
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 tsp food grade phosphate additive mixed with ½ cup of water (we use Amesphos)
1 tsp fennel seed, ground fresh
2 tsp granulated garlic (we use Penzey’s)
2 tsp freshly ground tellicherry black pepper (Penzey’s India Special Extra Bold is highly recommended)
¾ Tbsp granulated sugar
1 Tbsp Kosher salt
1 ½ lb pork fat
1 tsp white peppercorns, freshly ground
2 tsp fennel seed, whole
4 lb boneless pork shoulder roast

Procedure:

Cut the pork shoulder and the pork fat trimmings into 1 ½ inch cubes. Spread the meat out on a sheet pan and pop it in the freezer for an hour or so. You want the meat to be almost frozen solid. Put your meat grinding equipment and bowl in the freezer as well. Everything needs to be kept very cold.

Grind the meat and pork fat, and return the ground meat to the freezer for a short time while you prepare the spices. If you do have a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment to mix the ground meat and spices on slow speed until thoroughly mixed. Otherwise, manual mixing will just take a little longer. Its important to mix the spices with the meat as completely as possible. You’re done. Now, wasn’t that easy?

If you are not making links, you can divide the bulk sausage into 1 lb packages and freeze any amounts that you don’t plan to use in the next day or so. If you are making links, rinse out the hog casing with warm running water and stuff the meat mixture into the casing.  Twist into links and hang the sausage up to dry for 2 to 4 hours. Refrigerate for short term use, and cut off and freeze links that won’t be consumed within a couple of days. Here are some pictures of the process in our kitchen, but this is where it’s most helpful to watch a few videos before trying it for the first time yourself.

Getting started
Caption
Getting started
Loading the casings onto the greased nozzle.
Caption
Loading the casings onto the greased nozzle.
This part is best done with a helper.
Caption
This part is best done with a helper.
Stuffed casing, and more on the way!
Caption
Stuffed casing, and more on the way!
(Click to enlarge)
Caption
(Click to enlarge)
Linked and ready for drying
PreviousNext

These are really good on the grill, and work very well in the usual array of pasta recipes. Impress your dinner guests!

 

Your Daily Bread

Luke 15:11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

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Make the Perfect Quiche

February 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Julia Child taught me how to make great quiche.  Well, not personally.  I used her “The Way to Cook” book which is big, colorful, and radiates personality, just like the great French chef herself!  Chef Child explains that quiche is somewhat of a state of mind.  Once you have the basic concept down, the possibilities are endless.  That basic concept is to follow these simple steps:

  1. Pre-bake your crust with weights
  2. Fill your shell with flavorful ingredients
  3. Pour in the custard to surround and fill the shell
  4. Bake until brown and puffed

I use frozen, store-bought shells and prefer deep dish for quiche.  Today, I chose Mrs. Smith’s brand, but have used Pillsbury and a couple of other brands.  Right out of the freezer, let the shell stand on the counter for about 20 minutes.  Prick the bottom all over with a fork, then line the shell with aluminum foil and weight with dried beans or pie weights.  If you don’t do this, your shell will puff and bubble and you won’t see a clear separation of custard and crust.  Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, discard the beans, and let the crust cool.

Meanwhile, you can prepare your custard and filling.  Because pie shells vary in depth and some fillings will take more space than others, it’s best to use a custard ratio rather than a set amount of eggs and cream.  It may seem strange to say, but quiche is not all about the eggs.  In fact, you want to be careful not to have too much custard.  The goal is to allow the custard to surround and embrace your filling ingredients and, as the eggs slowly cook, suspend them in a creamy cloud of goodness.  So, for each egg you break into your glass measuring cup, add enough liquid (you can use cream, low fat, or skim milk here, but I find whole milk is best) to reach the 1/2 cup mark.  It follows, then, that 2 eggs would need liquid to reach 1 cup and 4 eggs would reach 2 cups.  I used 4 eggs today, but I prepared custard with 5 eggs and had some leftover.  That’s better than having to mix up additional custard if you come up short, so I recommend preparing 4-5 eggs’ worth of custard.

Cheese is another must in quiche.  Finely grated cheese is best and any cheese will do.  If you buy a bag of pre-shredded cheese, you’re making your task much more pleasant and easy!  When you’re ready to fill your shell, start with a layer of shredded cheese covering the entire bottom.  Then, add your flavor ingredients (I’ll get to those in a minute), then the custard, and top with a few more tablespoons of cheese.  Fill the shell to the top, just below where the fluted edge begins.  The quiche will puff while baking, then settle on the counter.  Bake at 375 degrees, usually for about 40 minutes.  The top will get quite brown, which is a good thing.  You want to make sure the custard is fully set or you’ll have runny quiche.  So, don’t go for a gorgeous, pale yellow appearance.  I’ve used the toothpick test and also just slightly jiggled the quiche to see how much wiggle it has to help determine doneness.

Ready to go in the oven

Okay, now the filling!  Once you’ve got that whole feel for what a quiche ought to be, you can fill your shell with anything you like!  I have two favorites.  The one pictured here is broccoli, green onion, and mexican 4-cheese and it’s just delicious!  The other favorite is shrimp, green onion, and Parmesan cheese.  Here’s how I do those:

Broccoli Quiche

Cut florettes into small pieces to make about 2 cups
Slice 3 green onions thin, about 3/4 of the way up (discard the tops)
Prepare custard and add salt/pepper
Line the bottom of the pre-baked shell with shredded Mexican 4-cheese blend
Fill to top with broccoli and green onions
Pour in custard starting in the center and moving out to the edge in a spiral
Top with more cheese and bake

Shrimp Quiche

Chop 12-15 large cooked shrimp, cold (I buy shrimp cocktail)
Grate 1/2 cup fresh Parmesan cheese (don’t even think about the stuff in the green can!)
Slice 2-3 green onions thin, about 3/4 of the way up (discard the tops)
Line the bottom of the pre-baked shell with Parmesan cheese
Add the shrimp and green onions
Pour in custard starting in the center and moving out to the edge in a spiral
Top with more cheese and bake

Your Daily Bread

1 Peter 2:1 Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3 now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. 4 As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”

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Homemade Pizza To Die For!

October 26, 2008 By 5 Comments
pizza-20

Click to enlarge. Seriously -- click! Yummm!

My last recipe post included a complaint that we haven’t been able to find good Chinese food in Jacksonville.  New Yorker’s are pretty finicky when it comes to food.  Well, if there’s anything more scarce in Jacksonville than good Chinese food, it has got to be good pizza.  That stuff you see advertised anywhere outside of New York as, “New York Style Pizza?”  Fuggedaboutit!  Gimme a break!  So, once again, this household coped with the problem by simply making what we wanted in our own kitchen.

My husband makes his own bread regularly.  He enjoys messing with yeast and kneading and waiting for stuff to rise.  I, on the other hand, do not.  So, that’s his department.  He found a recipe for “New York Style Pizza Dough,” at Recipe Pizza online.  That link will take you to their version, but I’ve reproduced it here with a couple of modifications we’ve made after making it about a half dozen times.

Now, I’m not going to tell you this tastes exactly like the best pizzaria pizza in New York, because it doesn’t.  However, it does taste unbelievably good and close enough to satisfy us!  We discovered last night that the fresher your flour is, the easier the dough will be to work with.  Hubby prepares it a couple of hours before we want to eat and then I roll up my sleeves and take over

This recipe makes 1 15-inch and 1 12-inch pie

This recipe makes 1 15-inch and 1 12-inch pie

the shell forming and assembly.  He handles the baking peel (that wooden paddle) and the actual baking.  The system works flawlessly!

New York Style
Pizza Dough

Ingredients Required
1 1/2 cups warm water (105F)
4 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 tablespoons of olive oil
2 1/2 teaspoon of granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of yeast

Step by Step Procedure

  1. In a large bowl, dissolve sugar and salt in water.
  2. Add oil and flour and mix with a dough hook in a heavy duty mixer until dough forms.
  3. Turn out to a lightly floured surface and press into a circle.
  4. Sprinkle yeast evenly over dough and knead for 12 minutes.
  5. Divide dough into portions: 6 oz. for Calzones, 18 oz. for 12 inch, 25 oz. for 15 inch
  6. Roll each portion into a ball. You want a dough ball without visible seams except the bottom.
  7. Place dough balls in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to proof for 1−2 hours at room temperature to use the same day, or store in refrigerator to use the next day.
  8. Place dough ball on lightly floured surface, and lightly flour the top. Use fingertips to evenly flatten out the dough ball. Work from the edges to the center press dough into a 12″ circle. Place both hands within the shell edge and stretch with fingertips and palms maintaining an even pressure. Or, use a lightly floured rolling pin to stretch to desired shape. (I do both)
  9. Lift the shell onto a square of baking parchment placed on your pizza peel.
  10. Add desired toppings to the pizza.
  11. Carefully slide the pizza and parchment onto the stone in the preheated oven.
  12. Bake in a 550 degree oven for 10 minutes for a 15″ pie and 8 minutes for a 12″ pie, until crust is golden.

Additional Information
Cooking pizzas with this dough should be done on a baking stone. Using a pan will produce a very soft “doughy” crust. The stone in the oven should be preheated to 550F for an hour prior to baking, and should be placed in the middle of the oven.

Now, let me tell you about the toppings we put on last night’s pizza.  I’m telling you, you should have been there!  Since you weren’t, please enjoy this slide show of the process, featuring my step-son Matt sampling the meaty, cheesey goodness!

You can click on the slide show to visit the web album and see these shots full size.

We had some leftover grilled bratwurst in the refrigerator.  I cut that into thick slices, then tossed those into my food processor and pulsed for about 20 seconds until I had a nice, course, crumbled result.  I also had about a half dozed strips of chicken breast I didn’t use when I made the Pad Thai the other night, so I breaded and fried those in olive oil, drained them and cut them into bite-sized chunks.  We always have onions and jarred sliced mushrooms on our pizza.  I prefer to sliver my onions by cutting them in half, removing the centers and then slicing lengthwise as thin as possible.

So, the large pie got topped in this order:  sauce (Ragu Pizza Quick Sauce has worked fine for us), mozzarella (I prefer part-skim and always buy it pre-shredded for this purpose), bratwurst, chicken, a little granulated garlic and a little oregano,  onions, mushrooms.  Just look at that picture at the top of the post!  Doesn’t that look amazing?  It was, by a wide margin, the best pizza I have ever had in my life, New York or anywhere else!

We decided the smaller pie would be a white pizza.  I dumped an entire pint of ricotta cheese onto the shell (again, part skim) and spread it around with a tablespoon, nearly to the edge. Then, I added minced, jarred garlic (crucial to the flavor of this one) and some fresh ground black pepper.  The mozzarella was next (I went light on this layer) and then topped it with some freshly sliced, ripe plum tomatoes.

Of course, pizza toppings are a very personal thing.  We often like to crumble crisp bacon on ours.  If you haven’t tried that, and you’re not the slightest bit concerned about packing on the calories and making your pizza exponentially fattier (lol), you really must try this!  Hubby likes sliced black olives and pepperoni.  What are your favorite toppings and, have you ever made your own pizza?

Your Daily Bread

Leviticus 23:17 You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven. They are the firstfruits to the Lord.

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Baked Potatoes – Foil Wrap Fascination

August 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Sour cream or butter is no longer the biggest choice!

Have you guys heard of Cecil Adams, famous for his “The Straight Dope,” syndicated newspaper column and books?  I’ve been a fan for years.  The guy says he knows everything about everything and, with very few exceptions, seems to have backed that up impressively.  Not that he carries all of that information around in his head. He uses lots of experts and resources…and is very fond of the personal experiment.  I get an email from his website every week with a few highlights of his online version of the column.

This week, I was particularly fascinated by a column about the proper way to wrap a baked potato in aluminum foil.  Should it be shiny side in or shiny side out?  For my part, I had no idea there was such a controversy.  But, apparently there is.  I’ve always wrapped mine shiny side out and no one has ever given me any flack for it.

Sour cream or butter is no longer the biggest choice!

Seems, sour cream or butter is no longer the toughest choice we have to make!

Cecil covered this one from all angles, from consulting foil wrap specialists to actually wrapping potatoes both ways and cooking them side by side.  If you’re not itching to know the answer for yourselves by now, you must at least be hungry!  Go and check it out for yourselves here.  And while you’re there, I suggest poking around the site for more fascinating articles about any topic you can think of (and many that have probably never crossed your mind).  There’s a forum you can sign up for if you’re willing to fork over a few bucks, but subscribing to the weekly email blast is free and fun.  Hey, you might even get smarter in the process!

If you’re already a fan, leave me a comment and tell me why.

Your Daily Bread

2 Chronicles 1:11 And God said to Solomon: “Because this was in your heart, and you have not asked riches or wealth or honor or the life of your enemies, nor have you asked long life–but have asked wisdom and knowledge for yourself, that you may judge My people over whom I have made you king– 12 wisdom and knowledge are granted to you; and I will give you riches and wealth and honor, such as none of the kings have had who were before you, nor shall any after you have the like.”

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