madbaker | Taking The Easy Way Out

I don't have a Resolution Recipe queued up for this week, so I'm posting this recipe from a few months ago - which surprisingly, I never put up because I wanted to see how it came out. Then I forgot to. That still counts, right? Even though I made this the right way already?
Bacon Sausages

Take Martinmass beef [salt beef], or if you can not get it, take fresh beef, or the lean of bacon if you will. You must mince very small that kind of flesh that you take. And cut lard and put it into the minced meat, and whole pepper, and the yolks of seven eggs, and mingle them altogether. And cut the meat into a gut very salt, and hang him in the chimney where he may dry. There let him hang a month or two before you take him down. (The Good Huswife’s Iewell, 1596)

Note that when they say "the lean of bacon", they mean pork belly meat. I decided to run with it and try using bacon as fat in a pork sausage, just for amusement value.

1000 g pork shoulder butt
225 g (house-cured) bacon
3 3/8 g curing salt #2
10 g peppercorns, lightly cracked
2 large egg yolks
10 g salt
casings (I used standard hog)

Hand-chop the pork and bacon. Mix in spices and egg yolks, working until tacky. Stuff and cold smoke for four hours (you want these fairly smoky). Hang until they have lost 30-35% original weight, about 30 days for standard hog casings.

What worked: These were surprisingly glorious for a first attempt. Accessible. They were still moist but smoky and porky. Apparently the last batch had a bit of lactobacillus fermentation - I let them hang overnight in the cold smoker over the declining low fire before I put them in the oubliette. I can't taste the slight San Francisco zing, but that may be because I'm accustomed to its flavor. I lowered the salt from the standard 2-2.5%; I'm okay with that because the bacon will leach out some of its salt into the meat. Safety shouldn't be compromised while keeping an acceptable overall salt flavor.
The fuzzy upstairs neighbor called them "bacon you don't have to cook", and requested a batch in exchange for making us a box. Works for me.

What didn't: I was pretty happy with them. I have to admit that this is not a valid interpretation of the original, though. %*#$ Laurel conscience.
These continued to dry out after we wrapped them and stored them in the fridge. They are much bacon-ier when relatively moist and fresh, though.

Will I make them again? I've already made two batches, and suspect this will be a regular feature. I might also try them in larger casings, which take longer to dry out but are more appealing. I tend to make a first batch in small casings, because the smaller format only takes a month to dry. Quicker turn-around time = test the recipe sooner.