I am a little over half a century old but I can STILL remember the taste, texture and smell of my grandfather's home made, home smoked sausage from when I was just a kid. He died when I was very young when I still didn't totally comprehend the whole idea of mortality but in my childish mind I did know this ... he wasn't going to be able to make any more home made home smoked sausage and I would never again be able to have a hunk sliced off a cold link, which I would devour with a thick slice of fresh crusty bread for my school lunch. I missed my grandfather dearly and I missed his sausage almost as much .... such is the mind of a child.
It is perhaps one my earliest food memories ... one of many. It's funny when I look back how many of my strongest early memories are about food ... the taste, the texture, the smell, the company, the joy and discovery. It's probably why I have had such a love hate relationship with food all my life ...
One of the things that has haunted me all these years though, was the search for the perfect sausage .. THE sausage that was like my grandfathers .. I've found many pretenders over the years, some even BETTER than his but they WEREN'T his and that's all that mattered. It was like a hole that I needed to fill and I would not be complete until I found it ....
Well, it took me 50 years but I finally found it, and in a place I didn't expect although maybe I should have ... in my mother's recipe files.
My mother died a few years ago and one of the things I inherited was her old recipe box and all her old recipe books and clippings, many of them with hand written notes. Sometimes I go through all those old clippings and file cards looking for inspiration and sometimes just to remember my mom :(
My mother was a bit of a romantic, a sentimental soul but someone who always vigorously denied that fact especially to herself and others, but I knew better. She knew the value of passing on treasured family relics, and was always telling both my sister and I detailed stories about each piece she was bequeathing to either of us over the years and I still have the notes she so lovingly taped to many of the old treasures before she died .... she was a collector ... ostensibly I think she liked to think she was collecting things of monetary value but in fact the most important things she collected had no monetary value at all.
I think this recipe is one of those, at least it is for me... I don't know HOW she came to have the recipe but I like to think my grandmother shared it with her, although I suspect that was not the case My grandmother didn't make sausage as far as I can recall even though she loved to cook and many of her cherished recipes have been handed down and still grace my table :)
It was a very old recipe so I did have to tinker a bit with the ingredients to modernize it and to conform to safe food practices but the base recipe is the same. I'll include both the original recipe and my variation below with explanations of what I changed and why.
They say that taste and smell are powerful memory tools. As soon as I mixed the spices with the meat I started getting smell memories ... as I stuffed the casings I started getting more ... by the time I had links I was getting more certain ... then I took a couple links and made them for supper fresh ... and it was like taking a trip through time .. I WAS that little girl again ...
I smoked the remaining links on my BBQ (I don't have a smoker) and by the time I was done the smell, the taste, the texture ... everything remminded my of my grandfather and his sausage ...
Was it the BEST sausage in the world ... probably not, but to me it was ... and it was darn good. I cannot even begin to explain how it made me feel ... somehow I became *complete* it's weird. After a lifetime of wondering and searching without even realizing half the time that I WAS wondering and searching, I had found the holy grail of sausages .. at least for me.
Thanks Grandpa ... I think you'd be proud, a family tradition has been reborn and lives on. It took 50 years but it was worth the wait. It might not be your sausage recipe, but in my mind it is or at least it's darn close :)
So while I may try new and different recipes and while I might even prefer a spicier version of my grandfather's basic recipe, I am still content in the knowledge that I have recreated a little piece of my history and while I may stray from time to time I will always return to make this basic recipe just as it was intended simply because it's a darn good sausage and it warms my heart as well as my tummy and a giant hole that used to be there, isn't anymore :)
ORIGINAL RECIPE (as written makes a LOT of sausage)
50 lbs ground pork (lean pork shoulder)
1 lb curing salt
1 lb paprika
3 oz Black pepper
2 oz Garlic salt
1Tbsp Cayenne Pepper
1.5 Tbsp Coriander
1.5 Tbsp MSG
8-10 cups water
Directions
Mix, taste, and form into patties or links.
Now, while that recipe is fine for a fresh sausage I would not recommend using it if you intend to try and smoke this, as I was going to do since the curing salt listed is somewhat ambiguous and you don't want to mess around with something that important. I decided instead to substitute kosher salt for the *curing salt* and to ADD cure #1 in the proper amount for the amount of meat I was using to make MY version to make it food safe for smoking purposes. I also decided that the msg was probably not required as it is just a flavour enhancer often used in the old days to enhance the flavour of inferior ingredients and I had no intention of USING inferior ingredients and in any case I didn't think the sausage needed any flavour enhancing .. it was plenty flavourful without it. I may add it in future attempts just to see if it makes a significant difference but I suspect not. My updated version follows and I have scaled it down to a more reasonable amount of meat ;)
German SMOKED Sausage - recipe scaled to 1.5 kg of meat
1.5 kg Pork shoulder (butt end)
26g kosher salt
30g Hungarian paprika
3 tsp Black pepper
1.5 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp Cayenne
1/2 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Cure #1
water/ice (as needed)
Directions:
First I cubed meat and put in the freezer for 30 minutes to partially freeze. I then ground it through the course grinder using my kitchen aid mixer attachment. Every 4-5 handfuls of meat I would grind an ice cube through the grinder to both help keep the ground meat chilled but also to add some moisture to the mix. I didn't actually measure the water as listed in the original recipe but I added a similar amount using the ice method and it seemed adequate. Next time I may try and be more precise.
After grinding I made slurry of the spices by adding 1/2 cup of water to the pre measured spices. I poured this over the ground meat and mixed well by hand, then I RE ground the meat, again using the course plate, to evenly distribute the spices throughout the meat mixture.
After grinding I covered the meat mixture and placed in the fridge while I cleaned and prepared my mixer for stuffing.
The night before I had rinsed several natural pig casings with water several times and I soaked them overnight in the fridge. The day of stuffing I rinsed them well again (inside and out) with cold running water, then I loaded one casing onto my greased stuffing tube in preparation to stuff my sausage, and tied a knot in the end to close it. (I popped a tiny hole in the end with a toothpick to allow air to escape initially instead of blowing it up like a balloon when the meat started to enter the casing)
I then removed the meat mixture from the fridge and I slowly stuffed my casings taking care not to over or under stuff them. Basically I tried to reduce air pockets and leave enough *play* so that I could twist into links when done without risking breaking the casings.
Once all the meat was in the casings (I did have to reload with more casing part way through) I twisted into the desired link size and put in the fridge overnight on a flat cookie sheet (loosely covered) to cure. I did cook a couple links the same night as a fresh sausage and it was delicious, I also froze a couple links at this point prior to the overnight cure.
The next morning I removed the links from the fridge and hung them at room temperature for an hour to start the drying process and bring them slowly up to ambient temperature.
I then put then in a SLIGHTLY warm BBQ under indirect heat at about 100'F for another hour to continue the drying process slowly until the casing was nicely dry to the touch and slightly tacky. I then slowly increased the heat by adjusting the flame on the far burner and added my moistened wood chips to start to apply smoke. Monitoring the ambient temperature and adjusting it by slightly raising or lowering the BBQ lid as needed to maintain about 150' for about another couple hours under smoke conditions before raising the temperature to 175 ish to finish.
All the while I was monitoring the internal temperature of the sausage using a remote probe. It was my intent to get it to an internal temperature of 155' to finish off the smoking and cooking process. When the internal temperature reached 140' (after about 3 hours)I discontinued the smoke and raised the final temp to 175ish (no higher, you don't want to melt the fat) to try and finish the cooking process and get the sausage to an internal temperature of 155' but I could not seem to get it to go above 140 so after a reasonable length of time I decided to give up and finish in the oven where I could control the temperature much more precisely and I would not be at the whim of the weather, wind or my BBQ ;)
After moving indoors the cooking process proceeded much smoother and I reached the required 155' internal temp to call this done.
Immediately after removing from the oven I quickly brought the temperature down by plunging the cooked sausage into a large bowl of ice water.
The sausage was a beautiful reddish brown, it was slightly dry and it smelled divine! I hung it at room temp to air dry some more and to allow it to *Bloom* for a couple hours to further develop the final colour and taste before I stored it in the fridge. I had some last night for supper, and the memories started to flood back ... I do not know if this IS my grandfathers recipe or not but if it isn't it's darn close and good enough to satisfy me :)
To prepare: Simmer in about 1/2" water turning frequently til water is evaporated then fry a minute or 2 to develop the outer skin crust and to heat throughout, OR bake in oven with a little water OR even have cold sliced with a little bread, sausage was already *cooked* while smoking, so you are only bringing up to temperature and/or developing the skin's crustiness and flavour. Serve with fresh bread - brown beans and pan fried potatoes accompany this nicely as well. Dip bread in the pan juices for an extra hearty earthy rustic treat, yum!
Delicious and only mildly spicy ... I love ya Grandpa and I love this sausage but next time I make this I am going to spice it up some more and maybe add a few new spices to the mix as well, what can I say I love experimenting :)
Oh yeah one more thing ... any good sausage is roughly 30% fat (2% salt). When I cubed my meat I tried to separate the lean from the fat, then I weighed both to see what my ratio was. It turned out to be almost exactly 30% so I didn't add any extra fat to the mix but next time I think I might (Pork BACK fat from the local butcher) and I might skip the second grind as well. My mixture was a tiny bit too emulsified for my liking and I think it could have benefited from a tiny increase in the fat content as well although it was pretty good as is ... these notes are just for my benefit to help me tweek this so it's perfect :)
PS: the short of it is, I have no way to know if this is indeed my grandfather's recipe but if not, it's close enough to trigger all sorts of memories for me and in my mind it IS his recipe. Memory can be a funny thing sometimes and if this is how I remember his sausage then it's good enough, even if it turns out that this is from another source. I'll just keep tweeking it until I have MY sausage recipe and that's the one I'll pass down to my kids .... along with this one too of course.
