Kolbasz, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Mushrooms, and Roasted Beets and Carrots

I've detailed how I like to make my own sausages and cured meats.  Of course making them means I get to eat them.  While I try not to, I still end up sticking with a couple of tried and true combinations for meals to utilize them.  When I get to pair a sausage I made with something that came from our garden then things are even better.


This past fall was the second time I'd tried my hand at raising Brussels sprouts.  We finally got some this spring.  I think the key, at least in our area, is to plant them in the fall and hope they over winter well.  Since we had a very mild winter this year the Brussels sprouts did well.  The first picking yielded 18 lovely sprouts.  I already knew I would be making Brussels sprouts with bacon and mushrooms but I hadn't decided on anything else.

Brussels sprouts fresh from the garden

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Mushrooms


18 Brussels sprouts
1/2 lb bacon, cut in 1/2 inch lardon
8 oz sliced mushrooms
salt
pepper


Trim the Brussels sprouts and slice in half.  Steam until almost done, about 3 minutes.  Fry bacon in skillet until desired doneness and remove from skillet.  Use bacon grease to cook the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper.  When the mushrooms are halfway done, add the Brussels sprouts to the skillet cut side down.  Cook until the mushrooms are done and the cut side of the sprouts has gotten some color.  Add the bacon back to the skillet and stir/shake to get everything combined.  Leave on the heat long enough to reheat the bacon.  Serve and enjoy.

Kolbasz, Brussels sprouts with bacon and mushrooms, and roasted beets and carrots

As fate would have it, we were in a small local shop that usually has a table near the checkout full of wines that are only $7.50 that we usually take a look at.  For a good cooking wine or just an every day table wine you don't have to get a high priced wine.  Save the high priced stuff for special occasions.  One  of the wines was a Hungarian red wine with the name Bull's Blood.  The name intrigued me so I had a look at the label.  It said it was good with grilled meats and spicy foods.  A light went off as I thought about the kolbasz I had made a few weeks ago.  Surely a Hungarian wine would go well with a Hungarian style sausage.  That settled the protein part of the meal to go with the Brussels sprouts.


Roasted beets was something I'd been wanting to try so this seemed like a good opportunity.  The good wife has liked beets as long as I've known her, whether they were canned or pickled.  I'd never cared for them.  I started growing them because she wanted them for making pickled beets.  I'm a fan of the home canned beets.  I'd also sliced beets and grilled them with good results.  I just hadn't oven roasted any.  This past fall I'd planted a mix of seeds to try different varieties, alas, they didn't produce as well as the Detroit Reds had.  That said, I did have a golden beet and a red and white beet that had gotten to a decent size.  I used them to try roasted beets and added some carrots from the store as we'd finished the ones we'd grown.


Roasted Beets and Carrots


2 - 3 beets
2 - 3 medium carrots
olive oil
salt
pepper


Cut the beets and carrots into cubes of the same size.  Put in bowl and toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Put on baking sheet and put in 425F oven for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and toss then return to oven for another 15 minutes.  The beets and carrots should be tender and slightly caramelized.


I put a small rack on the baking sheet and put the kolbasz in with the beets and carrots for the last 15 minutes.  This reheated the kolbasz and crisped the casing up nicely.  Not surprising at all is the fact that a Hungarian red wine paired well with a Hungarian style sausage.\


I hope you try at least one of these at some point.  They are all easily done and quite tasty.  Let me know what you think of them.


Uncle T

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