Another "stick in the freezer for event lunches"

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Bologna sausages.

Take lean beef and pork, as much of one as of the other, a pound of each. Remove the skin, chop very fine with one pound of rich fresh lard, and to assemble take five ounces of whole pepper, one ounce or so of fine salt, mix all well together, then stuff into cleaned beef bungs quite tight, and press and tie them at good half-foot lengths, each by itself. Put them in salt for a space of two days, then put them to dry in the chimney. (Livre Fort Excellent, 1542)

1 pound beef
1 pound pork shoulder butt
1 pound pork lard
1 ounce salt
1 ounce pepper
1/2 teaspoon curing salt #2 (sodium nitrite)
casings: beef middles
coarse sea salt

Chop or grind the meats and the lard together. Mix in the spices and continue to mix until the meat becomes tacky. Wash the casings thoroughly and knot the bottom of each casing used. Stuff and tie off at six-inch lengths, piercing with a needle as necessary to fill evenly. Knot to finish.

Pour some of the coarse sea salt into a container just large enough to hold the sausages. Nestle the sausages in the salt and pour more salt on and around the meat. Refrigerate for two days, then cold smoke for two to four hours until thoroughly dry. Hang in a cool spot around 50-53º F and 75-80% humidity to dry for 2-4 weeks, until the sausages have lost approximately 13% of their weight.

I reduced the pepper as the original amount overpowered any other flavors. I added in curing salt #2 for safety reasons; it helps prevent botulism bacteria from forming during the curing process and does not noticeably change the flavors. I used a cold smoker and separated out the smoking and drying process as I do not have a wood-fired chimney in which I can hang sausages. The drying instructions come from modern sausage recipes that similarly call for smoking and then drying (which also aids fermentation and flavor).

Sources
Anonymous; Ariane Helou trans. Livre Fort Excellent. Lyon, 1542. Facsimile copy.
Marianski, Stanley. The Art of Making Fermented Sausages. Seminole, FL.: Bookmagic LLC, 2009. Print.

What worked: Good taste, like a mildly smoky summer sausage. Not terribly tangy as the smoking inhibited fermentation. It will make appearances as lunch at events.

What didn't: It wasn't quite dry enough after 2 1/2 weeks hanging in our oubliette, but I wanted to forestall further mold growth and I'm too busy with school to pay as close attention as I should. I'd like to dip them in Bactoferm MEK4 mold culture, similar to what is done with modern dry salame. That should help with appearance and keeping fuzzy mold from forming. I'm not sure if the high amount of lard keeps it from drying out as much - I need to investigate. I used rendered lard from Prather as opposed to chopping straight fat, which also might alter the mix (unrendered would provide pockets of fat like salami).

I might try mildly cracking the pepper next time.

Will I make it again? I'd like to try it again as noted, yes. In the fall.

Comments

[ornerie.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I'm very much enamored of the idea of making real salumi like this...but I'm also a bit afraid. it could go so terribly terribly wrong and you might not know until ilt was too late....

is there a way to sample/test it without having to eat it and maybe get sick?

(note, I'm not above tasting milk to see if its gone off, or cheese or other such...the worst thing is that it tastes nasty....)

[nibuca.livejournal.com]

Hmm.. so if the only thing I have access to is a hot smoker then would you amend this to just use the hot smoker for XXX hours?

For sale now at Home Depot:
$149 Vertical Propane Smoker
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xr5/R-100661410/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

Added bonus, we took one v. similar to this to Estrella and used it for baking biscuits, breads and pot-pies at the war. In addition to hot smoking and serving ~40 lbs of pork (which was darn yummy).

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I don't have any of the bacterial measurement devices an industrial maker would use to test. Instead, I focus more on prevention: cleaning all my work surfaces thoroughly before and after, keeping the meat cold, etc. If I have any doubts, I throw it out.
I've never gotten sick from one of my tasty salty piggy parts.

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

I only had a hot smoker until this year. Use the water bowl and keep the temperature as low as possible -- the idea is to flavor with smoke, not cook.

[vittoriosa.livejournal.com]

I meant to tell you, I actually really liked the soft texture of this -- and the fact that it was a coarser grind than nduja. It was almost like a pâté de campagne. I also like the idea of cracking the peppercorns. I love pepper but found the whole pieces a little intense...admittedly, I picked several of them out.

[loup_noir]

My sausage book arrived Saturday and I've just started reading it. I want to try making our own chicken, lamb, and turkey sausages. Salami would be wonderful, too. New skills to learn!

[madbaker.livejournal.com]

Which one did you end up with?

[loup_noir]

Excellent! I picked up the fermented sausages book after attending the Not-so-simple Fair in Boonville. The darn sasusagemaker.com (or something similar) hasn't sent me a catalog yet. Guess I'll have to just suck it up, figure out which recipes we want to try, and order the various cultures.

Man, homemade sausage is tons better than the best of the stuff we've purchased at the market.