A Sausage Saturday

In the post about the pork shoulder bacon I mentioned that due to the workmanship on the boneless pork butts I was only able to get one good slab per butt.  While that was disappointing, it did leave me with 17 pounds of pork trim with which to make sausage.  Since we eat a fair bit of sausage, the question became what kind of sausage do I want to make?


One of  the places I get sausage recipes from is Sausage Recipes and Formulations.  One of the things I like about this site is that not only are the formulations shown in both standard and metric measurements but many of them have the percentage of the overall recipe for each ingredient.  This lets you scale the base recipe up or down and still end up with a good product.  I ended up choosing a new sausage to try, kolbasz.  As I understand it, kolbasz is a Hungarian sausage that is eaten by itself or used as a component in many recipes.  Basically it was presented as a spicy smoked kielbasa type sausage.  Some research and correspondence with a person of Hungarian decent has shown that the recipe is not like it is in Hungary.  It seems the Hungarians cold smoke the kolbasz so that it dries and ends up with a texture similar to Spanish chorizo.  So, if you follow the same recipe I did be advised that the sausage won't be a traditional kolbasz.  At best we can call this Americanized kolbasz.

Kolbasz ready to hang for 24 hours.

Another site I use is The Spicy Sausage.  I've had good luck with their recipes and decided to go with a bratwurst recipe.  They have several so I picked the one that was for an amount of meat that matched what I had available to use.  After making the sausage mix, I fried up a sample as usual and both the good wife and I thought it a bit bland.  This resulted in adding more ingredients and more mixing until I got a product we were happy with.  Sadly, my hunt for a bratwurst recipe continues.

Freshly linked bratwurst

Finally, I went to Let's Make Sausage and chose their Northern German Mettwurst.  This was the first time using this recipe and we are both pleased with the results.  I followed the recipe with just minor deviations.  Many of the ground spices called for I had in whole form so I used a bit more to make sure I had enough once it was ground.  I probably ended up with slightly more of those spices than was called for in the recipe.

Fresh mettwurst ready to hang before smoking

The kolbasz recipe called for it to hang in a 60F place for 24 hours prior to smoking.  I made this first so it could hang and I could smoke it after we got home from church on Sunday.


The next in line was the bratwurst.  I did it 2nd so it could hang for an hour or so before being packaged.  I ended up with an odd number of bratwust because I kept some out to grill as brat burgers for supper on that Saturday night.

Bratburger with home made sour kraut

The mettwurst I made up and did the test fry but waited until Sunday to stuff it since it didn't need to hang as long before smoking.  Sitting in the refrigerator over night just let the flavors meld a bit better.


Smoking the kolbasz and the mettwurst was another experiment.  I decided  to try some wood salvaged from a neighbors Dogwood tree to smoke the sausage.  I ended up with mixed results.  The Dogwood made good smoke and gave the sausage good flavor which is the good result.  The less desirable result is that Dogwood burns hotter than I thought so some of the fat rendered out of the sausage and now they each have a little fat pocket under the casing.

Kolbasz, on the left, and mettwurst ready to smoke

A few nights after packaging the smoked sausage I cooked up one of the kolbasz with some home made sour kraut and nokedli (Hungarian version of spätzle).  This was an awesome supper.  Even with some of the fat rendering out because the smoker got too hot the sausage was still juicy and flavorful.  I will definitely be making this sausage again.

Nokedli, home made sour kraut, and kolbasz

Sausage is something that is easy to make and you can tailor it to suit your tastes.  You don't have to have a grinder or a stuffer either since there are many sausages that are meant to be used as a bulk sausage or as patties.  You can get ground pork from the store to make a small batch to see if you like a recipe before committing to making a 5 - 10 pound batch of sausage.

5 lbs of sausage ready to link.  I think this was the mettwurst.

Both the kolbasz and the mettwurst recipes are tasty and given how well the samples that were just pan fried patties tasted I believe they would do well as a grilled patty rather than a smoked link.


If you have a favorite sausage recipe let me know so I can try it out.


Uncle T

Kimchi Pizza

Yes, you read that right, kimchi pizza.  A couple of years ago, someone told me about seeing a kimchi pizza on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.  Thankfully, Food Network puts those shows online so I was able to find it.  Here is the video if you want to watch it, Pizzeria Lola.  The place it comes from is up in Minneapolis which is a bit too far away.  So, if I wanted to have kimchi pizza I'd have to make it myself.


One of the problems that came up was the use of Korean sausage.  I spent a year in Korea courtesy of the US Army and never saw any sausage.  Searching online didn't offer any help other than finding a  recipe for a Korean blood sausage.  I may have to try it because it is very different from European style blood sausage that I usually make.  I decided it was Korean sausage simply because a Korean made it.  So, I watched a couple of times and wrote down the ingredients and started experimenting.  In the end, I came up with what I call Korean sausage that works for the kimchi pizza or as a patty to make a kimchi burger.


Korean Sausage

3 lb ground pork

4 – 5 Tbs Korean hot pepper flakes

3 Tbs(rounded) ground fresh ginger

2 – 3 Tbs ground fresh garlic, minced

2 Tbs kosher salt

1 Tbs black pepper

1 Tbs sugar

Mix well and allow to sit for at least an hour to let the flavors fully meld.

Kimchi Pizza


Pizza dough
8 oz Korean sausage
8 oz diced tomatoes
kimchi, drained and chopped
2 - 3 green onions, cut lengthways
1 - 2 Serrano peppers
sesame oil
toasted sesame seeds
Sriracha sauce


Prepare dough according to your recipe.  Put the diced tomatoes on the pizza.  Pinch off small pieces of the sausage and scatter over the pizza.

Put on a layer of kimchi.

Put on the Serrano pepper and onions.  Drizzle with sesame oil.  It's a little hard to spot the peppers because I rehydrated some of my dried Serrano peppers and the ones I used were red.  The heat still comes through.

Bake according to pizza dough instructions.  Sprinkle with sesame seeds and drizzle with Sriracha sauce.

For a regular crust pizza I use this recipe, 10 minute pizza dough.  I have a baking stone in the oven that heats up  as the oven heats up.  As you can see in the pictures, I use parchment paper on my pizza peel to help the pizza slide off neatly.  I've used flour and cornmeal but they tend to leave a mess in the oven and if you go a little overboard with toppings the pizza can still stick to the peel.  Parchment paper alleviates the problems of a mess to clean up and a sticking pizza.


Naturally, I use kimchi I make.  If you want to make your own the instructions can be found here, Kimchi.  If you don't want to make your own then use any good kimchi.


This is a wonderfully tasty and hot pizza.  If you are a fan of heat then you'll like this pizza.  If you make it let me know what you think.


Uncle T

Shoulder Bacon

I've had people ask me personally and I've seen the question asked online; why make your own bacon?  That is usually followed by the comment that it is available in seemingly infinite varieties at the grocery store.  It comes down to two reasons, I like making my own stuff and taste.


I started learning how to process an animal some time after I killed my first deer.  I took it to a local meat processor and paid to have it done.  The cost back then was far less than it is now even taking inflation into account.  However, I wasn't pleased with the packaging, how it was cut, and overall workmanship.  The workmanship part was the fact that they hadn't scraped the bone dust off the various cuts.


Fast forward a few  years and I'm an Army Food Inspector trained in conducting red meat inspections to ensure contractual compliance with USDA guidelines.  Part of that training was attending a red meats course that was conducted at the Veterinary Services schoolhouse at Fort Sam Houston.  The main instructor for that class was the head of the Standardization Branch of the USDA.  The course taught us the proper names of the important muscles, the landmarks for dividing the carcass, and how to go from a hanging carcass to retail cuts of meat.


A natural outgrowth was making sausage out of what I killed.  After all, I do use as much as possible of each animal.  Mostly I made bulk sausage for breakfast.  Making other types will be the subject of a separate post.

Shoulder bacon fresh from the smoker

After I retired from the Army and had settled down I got interested in charcuterie.  One of the best references I have found for that is Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn.  It has clear explanations of the techniques and reasons behind each type of charcuterie and excellent recipes of many types.  I use the basic bacon cure as found in their book.

I found out a few weeks back that my source for pork bellies was no longer carrying individual bellies and I don't have room for a case of bellies.  Since I was about out of bacon I had to resort to what I had done in the past, use pork shoulder butts.  I bought boneless butts since they were on sale and cheaper than the bone-in butts.  The downside was the plant workers are a little less careful than I'd be removing the blade bone.  I was only able to get one good slab from each butt though I was left with 17 lbs of pork to use to make sausage.

Shoulder with cure and Sriracha sauce applied, ready for the refrigerator

Shoulder with cure applied, ready for the refrigerator

Now comes an experimental part of this production.  After I'd weighed out the cure and rubbed into the smallest slab and had it in the vacuum bag ready to seal I had an idea.  I put about a 1/2 cup of sriracha sauce on each side to help flavor the meat while it cured.  I let it cure for a week and it was ready to smoke.  The bacon was rinsed after pulling out of the cure as usual and dried.  I even rinsed the sriracha bacon because I didn't want the surface to be too salty or the sauce to burn while smoking.  The bacon was smoked using cherry wood to an internal temperature of 150F.  After I brought it in, I rubbed a thin coat of sriracha sauce on each side.  Once that dried I rubbed on a second coat.  Once the second coat dried it was wrapped and put in the refrigerator to chill for a few days.

Sriracha bacon on the slicer

A couple of mangled slices were fried up after all the bacon was sliced.  I will say the sriracha bacon is a keeper.  You don't get much heat but the sriracha flavor comes through with just a hint of heat that builds as you eat more.  After eating her sample, the good wife wanted to know why I hadn't done this before.

Sliced shoulder bacon

As a disclaimer, I'll add that adding sriracha to bacon is not original with me.  I first saw it in commercial bacon when we were visiting our son when he lived in Kansas City.  That bacon looked like they'd just squirted some sriracha sauce on top of the sliced bacon before they sealed the package.

I vacuum seal my bacon to hold the cure close to the meat.  This is not necessary to make bacon at home.  All you need is a Ziploc bag and a pan to put it in.  The difference is that with the Ziploc bag you'll need to flip the bacon daily to ensure good contact with the cure and resulting brine.  If you don't have a smoker you can either add a bit of liquid smoke to it as it cures or forego the smoke and just cook it low and slow in the oven until it reaches 150F.  If you have a grill, you can set it up for indirect cooking and use it as a smoker.  I've done that many times.  There are some good videos on Youtube showing you how to make your grill a smoker.

Give making your own bacon a try.  You'll be amazed at the difference in flavor.  Plus, you can experiment with different flavor combinations to suit your tastes.  If you make it, let me know how it came out.

Uncle T 

Kimchi Chicken Soup

Yeah, I know, you're thinking this is an odd combination.  It did start as one of those let's see how this works kind of things.  I think I've mentioned before that we do a calorie restriction diet two days a week.  During the Fall and Winter our meals for those two days tend to be soups.  This soup has the benefit of being filling while consuming less of it.


Usually when I'm making soup for a fast day I pick kale or bok choy from the garden and add it to whatever broth and protein I've selected.  Add some sautéed sliced mushrooms and you have a quick flavorful soup.  When using bok choy I'll usually season the chicken or shrimp with Korean red pepper powder to add some heat and an Asian flair to the soup.


As you know, I make my own Kimchi and for the past two years I've made it from bok choy grown in my garden.  I did buy a large nappa Cabbage from our favorite international grocery and  made some with that while waiting for the time to fully harvest the bok choy.  Once the freeze threatened I harvested  and converted the bok choy to kimchi.  Once all the fermentation was done, I dumped both jars into a large bowl and mixed them thoroughly and put the mixture back in the jars.  That gave me two gallons of mixed nappa and bok choy kimchi.


We had been out running errands and didn't get back to the house till after dark.  So, instead of putting on my head lamp to go pick some kale, I decided to throw in some kimchi.  This is lighter and less hot than my standard kimchi soup but still filling.  I've fixed it twice and neither of us has finished our bowl.

Steaming Hot Kimchi Ckicken Soup

The written recipe is combined and should make four bowls for a normal meal with a little something extra on the side, like a bowl of rice.


Kimchi Chicken Soup


2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
8 oz mushrooms
5 cups chicken broth
18 oz kimchi
3/4 cup kimchi liquid
3 Tbs sesame oil, divided
salt
pepper
garlic powder


Slice the chicken breast into three strips each and then slice about 1/4 thick.  Set on plate and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Slice the mushrooms and place in hot skillet with half of the sesame oil in it, season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  While the mushrooms are cooking, put the chicken broth, kimchi, and kimchi liquid in a pot and turn on medium heat.  When the mushrooms are done, transfer to the pot.  Add the  rest of the sesame oil to the skillet and when hot, add the chicken.  Cook the chicken till brown on that side then flip.  Once the chicken is done on both sides add to the soup.  Stir to combine.  Bring the soup to a simmer, if not already there, and simmer for 15 minutes.  Serve hot.


See, quick and easy.  My batch had more than the good wife's and the whole bowl came to just under 400 calories and I ate about half of my bowl.  This is a flavorful filling soup that you ought to try, especially if you are a fan of kimchi.  If you give this a try let me know what you think.


Uncle T