day 66
Been busy the last week or two, what with the little Zs starting school, me starting school, and part time wannabe goose sniping with the loyal reader on the weekends.
But yesterday and today we're back in the deer processing business. I thawed out nine pounds of Bambi's mother yesterday and ground a pound or so of frozen pork fat to make some more summer sausage. Loyal reader's macho grinder sure has come in handy (remind me to buy him some more beer) . . . . I discovered I had only enough commercially made spice mix to do 4 pounds of sausage, so I spent the afternoon yesterday sifting through about a dozen summer sausage recipes online and came up with my own "special blend." Apparently the secret ingredient for summer sausage is coriander, which Mrs. Z said (after the fact) is obvious. Not so obvious to me though. The other common ingredient to nearly all the recipes was whole mustard seed (that and cracked black pepper).
So here is Vassili's "special blend" spice mix, which will account for six pounds of the sausage in the smoker at this minute:
Vassili's summer sausage special blend:
1 tb coarse black pepper
1 tb whole mustard seed
1.5 tsp ground coriander
pinch allspice
2 tb garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cumin
To which is added 6 tsp of Morton's Tender Quick salt cure (1 tsp per pound). We'll see how this mix goes. Smelled good going into the casings last night! Put the commercial mix into two dark fibrous casings and put my own mix into clear casings so I can tell them apart.
Today's smoke schedule is as follows:
6 am to 8am: bring sausages up to room temp in kitchen oven
8am to 10am: bring sausage temp up to 90 deg F in smoker
10am to 12am: begin smoke (hickory) and cook at 135 deg F
12noon to 2pm: raise cooking temp to 155 deg F and continue smoking
2 pm to 4pm: finish smoking at cooking temp of 175 deg F.
Remove sausages when meat temp reaches 152 deg F.
Give a cold shower with the garden hose until internal meat temp cools to 100 deg. F.
I am indebted to Mr. Ask the Meatman for making this process more intelligible for me.
That's about it for today. Perhaps I'll be back again tonight with an update on how Vassili's special blend turned out. I have to think that with six hours of hickory smoke, just about anything would taste good.
And that's confessions of a deer sniper.
But yesterday and today we're back in the deer processing business. I thawed out nine pounds of Bambi's mother yesterday and ground a pound or so of frozen pork fat to make some more summer sausage. Loyal reader's macho grinder sure has come in handy (remind me to buy him some more beer) . . . . I discovered I had only enough commercially made spice mix to do 4 pounds of sausage, so I spent the afternoon yesterday sifting through about a dozen summer sausage recipes online and came up with my own "special blend." Apparently the secret ingredient for summer sausage is coriander, which Mrs. Z said (after the fact) is obvious. Not so obvious to me though. The other common ingredient to nearly all the recipes was whole mustard seed (that and cracked black pepper).
So here is Vassili's "special blend" spice mix, which will account for six pounds of the sausage in the smoker at this minute:
Vassili's summer sausage special blend:
1 tb coarse black pepper
1 tb whole mustard seed
1.5 tsp ground coriander
pinch allspice
2 tb garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cumin
To which is added 6 tsp of Morton's Tender Quick salt cure (1 tsp per pound). We'll see how this mix goes. Smelled good going into the casings last night! Put the commercial mix into two dark fibrous casings and put my own mix into clear casings so I can tell them apart.
Today's smoke schedule is as follows:
6 am to 8am: bring sausages up to room temp in kitchen oven
8am to 10am: bring sausage temp up to 90 deg F in smoker
10am to 12am: begin smoke (hickory) and cook at 135 deg F
12noon to 2pm: raise cooking temp to 155 deg F and continue smoking
2 pm to 4pm: finish smoking at cooking temp of 175 deg F.
Remove sausages when meat temp reaches 152 deg F.
Give a cold shower with the garden hose until internal meat temp cools to 100 deg. F.
I am indebted to Mr. Ask the Meatman for making this process more intelligible for me.
That's about it for today. Perhaps I'll be back again tonight with an update on how Vassili's special blend turned out. I have to think that with six hours of hickory smoke, just about anything would taste good.
And that's confessions of a deer sniper.
posted by Frank Zappai at 9/11/2006 10:05:00 AM
2 Comments:
deer sniper.
something very refreshing
abot this blog. how'd the
sausage turn out?
levon
crescent moon...
the last ham hung to cure
in uncle luther's smokehouse
hey, you found me here! sausage turned out great as far as taste--no complaints. I made the mistake this time of not adding enough fat (1:9 too lean, next time 2:8), so it turned out a bit dry and crumbly in texture. But ground up and put in omelettes etc.? excellent! like smoked summer sausage bacon bits. So ... next up is breakfast sausage links.
I've been trying to figure out how to do a smokehouse 'ku for the haiku blog, may have to borrow or adapt yours here!
still hoping to get out for the last doe on the permit, but right now I've pretty much got more deer meat in the freezer than I can eat. But I am giving some away, so hopefully I'll get out for that last one before nuisance season ends. And before grouse hunting starts up for real.
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