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At the risk of starting another 'cassoulete' type debate I would still like to find one or more "definitive" recipies for Toulouse sausage. The name 'Toulouse' seems to be somewhat generic for most of the pork based fresh sausage produced here in the South West of France. As I eat the sausage produced by various butchers in the towns around our area I can detect differences, sometimes subtle, somethimes not. Please let me have your thoughts. Looking in some of the other forums I note that there seem to be a lot of sausage makers out there.

Don't know if anyone has posted on this topic yet... I don't think so. I would be very interested to hear reactions to Julia Moskin's excellent article in today's dining section of the New York Times, "Dry-Cured Sausages: Kissed by Air, Never by Fire". There's an especially poignant quote from the owner of Il Buco, when health inspectors recently destroyed all the cured meats at the restaurant because the temperature in the curing room was six degrees above regulation, not because they found the meat contaminated: "'These are pigs that were raised for us... We knew their names. We were trying to do something sustainable and traditional, and this is what happens.'" Personally, I am puzzled by the mentality that a supermarket ham injected with embalming fluid is somehow healthier than an air-cured prosciutto. I am also enraged and frustrated at how traditional, sustainable methods of food preparation in the United States seem to be constantly stymied and penalized in favor of anonymous mass production. In a year of travelling up and down the length of Italy eating traditional cured meats wherever I could, I got food-poisoning exactly once: from a plastic-wrapped carton of industrial pancetta I bought at a supermarket.

Venison Sausages Inspired by this book -- Charcuterie, the art of smoking, salting and curing, a whole bunch of us have become obsessed with home smoked bacon, homemade and stuff sausages, dry cured items, etc. Many of us have taken parts and parcels of the recipes and come up with our own creations. You'll find out about our obsession on this topic: Charcuterie My father-in-law gave me two deer this season. Recognizing that the freezer is not a safe deposit box, and recognizing that venison and sausage are a natural, this is what I did. I wanted something quite different from what most meat markets here do with venison and sausages. 3-1/2 lb diced venison, all tendons and sinew removed 1-1/2 lb diced pork back fat, skin removed 1/4 c minced sage (packed) 2 T toasted fennel seeds 1-1/2 T granulated or minced garlic 3 T Morton's kosher salt (scant 3 T.) 1/2 c diced dried cherries 1 c red wine 10 feet hog casings 1. If your casings are dried and packed in salt, remove 10' from the package, rinse with water. Open up the opening and flush water down through the casings. Soak in water in the fridge overnight. 2. Soak the cherries in wine for a couple of hours. Drain, reserving wine. Put wine in fridge. You'll want the wine to be very, very cold! 3. Combine venison, fat, sage, fennel seeds, garlic, salt and drained cherries. 4. Follow instructions in the book to grind, bind and stuff. Make sure that everything is as cold as possible as you grind and bind! You could also just grind and bind and fry the sausage as patties. These sausages were wonderful grilled to an internal temperature of 150 (F). Keywords: Main Dish, Intermediate, Game ( RG1716 )

Over in the miraculous, slightly obsessive, and wonderful Charcuterie topic, many eGulleteers have been learning from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn's Charcuterie. As a result, we've got freezers full of bacon, andouille, hocks, pancetta, and who knows what else. This topic is for cooking with those salted, smoked, and cured products. For example, I'm going to start with a very basic recipe, just a simple few steps that lead to a fantastic plate: the classic bistro frissee salad with lardons. This salad -- frissee lightly dressed with a vinaigrette, tossed with lardons (thickly diced and well-cooked pieces of bacon), and topped with a fried egg -- is a fantastic showcase for the high-quality bacon you'll be producing if you start curing and smoking your own. Being able to add lardons that are both crispy and meaty into your salad is a remarkable joy. What else are people doing with their cured products?

I will be doing alligator sausage for our game v. the fla gators--thinking of a sausage and pepper type thing and will, of course, have other sausage for those who will not eat the gator. I will not need it until the fall but am trying to get things together now. Perhaps the kind folks fr/ Louisiana are my best source but thought I would post here and see what happens. Mail order is fine but if there is some thing around Atlanta even better. I want some thing good but also reasonably priced. Any help is appreciated in finding the stuff as well as any ideas for preparation.

I've been thinking about confit lately and how the duck begins surrounded by fat, but, over time, it releases it own juices so that the top of the pot is always cooking in fat, but the very bottom layer, to an extent, stews in it's own juices. Has anyone noticed the bottom layer, the layer below the water line, tasting any different from the top? Anyone notice a difference in texture?

[Moderator note: The original Cooking with Ruhlman & Polcyn's "Charcuterie" topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: Cooking with Ruhlman & Polcyn's "Charcuterie" (Part 1)] That is a Great Outdoors brand Smokey Mountain Cooker which is actually propane-powered. In many cases, that gas power is great because it makes maintaining temperature fairly easy. It's basically built for efficient hot smoking. A cast iron box sits in a frame above the heat source and the wood chunks burn pretty evenly over time. I think the manufacturer recommends using chips but I've found that chunks burn longer and produce a better smoke. Because I was too lazy yesterday to rig my dryer vent-aided cold smoker (a weekend project, it seems), I decided to try something new with the SMC. I only used the gas flame until the cherry wood chunks started to burn. Once they did, I shut down the gas entirely and loaded up the water pan with ice. From there, via the use of damper control, I was able to keep those chunks smoking for about 4 hours. It worked out great because the temperature stayed low and it was largely controllable. During those 4 hours, I dumped the melted ice from the water pan and refilled it with fresh ice 2 times. Also, one time near the end, I placed a single ice cube in the fire box to cool things down a bit. I'll be curious to see how it turned out because if it did work well, I think there's some cold-smoked salmon in my very near future. At this point, I don't foresee any reason why it may have failed. But, until you taste the final product, you never know for sure. *fingers crossed* =R=

forum. Hi guys. Haven't been around for a long while, but I've been curing some pork confit, made P. Wolfert style (original edition), and I have been racking my brains for something different (read: un-bean-related) to do with it. I got an eGullet email and I figured I'd post a topic here. Only to find that two prominent topics are charcuterie and the new edition of Cooking of Southwest France! Unfortunately, I do not have the stamina to read all 24 pages of these two topics to ferret out any suggestions. I did see M. Ruhlman's suggestion to treat it like a leg of duck confit and saute a good slice of it. Alas, I used country-style spareribs, and I deboned them after poaching to fit them in the pot. So that's right out. Any way, any suggestions? The stuff has been curing since before Christmas so it should be good and confited. I thought of making ravioli (nah) or perhaps some beggars' purse type thingee with chard leaves (mebbe). I'd love to hear what you good people might have up your sleeve. Great to be back, yr humble servant, essvee

source for post Actually, this sounds not unlike the Luther Burger named after (the late) singer Luther Vandross ... seems, according to Snopes.com, that he made the burger but had no bread in the house and opted instead for using a Krispy Kreme doughnut .. a mix of salty and sweet tastes ... Does this sound: (a) temptingly different? (b) bizarre and repellant? © a bit too heavy on calories? (d) "this one scares even me!"

Curing Lop Yuk (Chinese Bacon) Lop yuk or Chinese bacon is a fantastic ingredient in a number of Chinese dishes, most notably Naw Mai Fon or Chinese sticky rice (Click here for Russell Wong's great recipe). It's also great simply sautéed in scrambled eggs. To see a few photos, click here. To participate in a topic devoted to curing lop yuk, click here. To prepare lop yuk you'll be doing some dry curing, which requires a few special things. First, you'll need dry curing salts a.k.a. DC or DQ #2; I get mine from Butcher Packer in Detroit MI. You'll also need a dry (under 50% humidity) and cool (under 60F) place to hang the lop yuk to cure -- on a porch, covered by cheesecloth, if your weather is perfect! -- and a little fan for air circulation is a good idea. Finally, plan for about ten to twelve days of curing, start to finish. One final note. Multiple batches of lop yuk testify to the fact that using a quality shaoxing wine in this recipe makes a significant difference. Most decent Chinese markets should have non-salted shaoxing available for about $7-10. If you cannot find such shaoxing, then cooking (that is to say, salted) shaoxing can be used, but you should cut down on the added salt. Thanks to Ben Hong, jmolinari, Michael Ruhlman, and the folks at the Chinese American Market, on Park Ave in Cranston, RI, for their help in developing this recipe. 1-1/2 kg pork belly (about three pounds) 3 g DC #2 dry curing salt 10 g kosher salt 20 g sugar 60 g dark soy 60 g (light) soy 60 g shaoxing or sherry 1. Cut the pork belly into strips that are 2" wide and as long as the belly. You should not remove the skin. Strive for strips that are of consistent thickness, if possible. 2. Combine the dry and then the wet ingredients and mix well. (If you are using cooking -- that is to say, salted -- shaoxing, do not include the kosher salt.) 3. Place the pork belly strips in a large ziploc bag and add the marinade, mixing well. Marinate the pork for a day or two, moving the strips around occasionally to distribute the marinade. Remove the pork from the marinade and dry the strips with paper towels. Tie a 10-12" piece of kitchen twine at the top of each strip, and then tie the twine to your drying line. Hang the strips in your cool (60F or lower) and dry (50% humidity or less) area for seven to ten days. If the temperature or humidity rises a bit for a day or so, that should have no lasting effect. However, several days significantly over 50% humidity will slow things down quite a bit, and several days significantly over 60F temperature will be dangerous. When the strips are fully cured, they'll have lost that squishly feeling even at their fattest points and will feel firm but not utterly inflexible. You're going for the density of a good, firm salami: there should be a little give throughout the piece when you squeeze it, but anything even remotely mushy in the interior isn't ready yet. Once they are fully cured, you can store them in a cool, dry place (they'll drip lard if it gets too warm, by the way) or in the fridge or freezer for a good long while. Keywords: Intermediate, Pork, Chinese ( RG1652 )

In September 2005 I started a business called "Simply Sausage, Inc.™". I'm making fresh sausages in Landover, MD, (USDA-approved facility). I love sausages but want to eat only the best. One essential in making great sausages is the use of the highest quality ingredients. In fact, I'm somewhat fanatical about that. For example, I use only pork shoulders for my pork sausages; and in some cases I use only shoulders from certified 100% purebred Berkshire hogs. (Berkshire pork is incredibly flavorful, but I digress). I use gray sea salt from Brittany and the most flavorful Hungarian paprika available. I'm willing to offer advice to amateur sausage-makers. I'm interested in learning to what extent eGullet members think of sausages as providing good eating and the ways in which they like to eat them (what meals? how prepared?). I would appreciate hearing your views.

Here's an interesting little science experiment. I have a freezer full of pig. Really. At one of my son's baseball games this summer one of the moms leaned over and said, "Hey, Chad, you wanna buy a pig?" I said "Sure!" After all, how often do you get asked that question? As it turns out, her boys raise pigs for the 4H competition at the state fair every year. They sell the pigs and have them processed. So I bought a pig. Actually half a pig -- but it did take a blue ribbon. Anyway, I got a great pork shoulder, some gigantic, Flintstone sized pork chops, lots o' ribs, about 20 pounds of various sausages and lots and lots of bacon. Yay! Everything else has been chock full of porcine goodness, but the bacon is just plain boring. I don't think they cured it long enough or smoked it long enough. It tastes like pork, but not like bacon. Major bummer. However, on the Cooking from Charcuterie thread someone mentioned that Ruhlman & Polcyn recommend hot smoking bacon and that you can hot smoke it after it has been cold smoked. Ding! The little light goes on. Maybe I could resmoke my bacon. Worth a try, anyway. So I had a free afternoon, some applewood chips and a willingness to experiment. I figure that even if everything goes wrong, I have a rack of grilled bacon and that can't be bad. At the moment I have a pound of bacon and about half a pound of cured jowl on a roasting rack in my Weber. There's a big roasting pan of water underneath to act as a heat brake and a handful of hot coals and soaked applewood chips smoking away. I think I'm going to let it go until the bacon is actually cooked. I kept the temperature about 200 degrees for the first hour, now I've opened the vents and plan on letting it go for another 45 minutes to an hour. Anyone ever tried this? Oh, the bacon is going on what I hope to be my finest sandwich creation -- grilled pseudo-jerk chicken, applewood smoked bacon, homemade aioli, arugula and cherry tomatoes on freshly baked french rolls. Should be interesting. I'll keep you posted. Chad

This is one of a series of compendia that seeks to provide information available in prior threads on eGullet. Please feel free to add links to additional threads or posts or to add suggestions. A saucisson sec tasting Charcuterie, Best Programs? Boudin Noir

Hi guys an gals, Can anyone give me a few helpful hints on smoking meat and fish at home. Thanks

What do you think of North American charcuterie producers such as P.G. Molinari & Sons (San Francisco), Zerto, Citterio, Schaller & Weber (New York), Groezinger, Espanola. These are the major brands available in the finer delis Austin, TX. Some of the aforementioned brands are US-based, while some are European but sell their products in the US. For those that have had quality charcuterie in Italy, Germany or Spain how do these brands compare? Of these brands, which of their products do you like? Just off the top of my head, my favorites are the Molinari Toscano-style dry salame, Groezinger Moldavska sausage and Schaller & Weber summer sausage.

Over a week ago I cooked up some bacon and saved the fat to make ginger cookies with bacon. I haven't made the cookies yet, and I find myself wondering how long the bacon fat will stay fresh enough to use. Anyone have an idea?

I love gumbo. Oh how I love gumbo. My favorite part of gumbo is the andouille. It fills me with such glee If the andouille wasn't so darn expensive I'd eat it every week. In the interest of budget, I've tried swapping kielbasa and that was sorely dissappointing. I was getting andouille from Trader Joes for a reasonable price (can't recall the brand, just that you had to peel it), but they stopped carrying it and now all they have is crappelgate. Whole paycheck has a couple of brands, but at $9+/lb. that's way too rich for my blood. Ideally, I'd like to find andouille for 4 bucks/lb. Not great andouille but okay quality. I know this is a pipe dream, but I thought I'd throw it out there just to see if anyone had a cheap source. Most likely, I'll end up making it myself.

It's official. I do NOT like kielbasa as a sub for andouille in gumbo. NOT at all. The whole coriander hot dog note drives me bonkers. At around $2.50 a lb. it's a shame I can't work with it. I can get okay andouille, but it costs me around $8/lb. It's my favorite part of gumbo but that's a little too rich for my blood. As I can get pork butt for practically nothing, I've been considering making my own. Anyone make their own andouille? What do you think about this andouille recipe? Any tips/tricks you'd recommend?

I'm thinking of purchasing a smoker. I have been browsing through catalogues online and the Bradley looks interesting. I can't find any reviews on the product though, does anyone have any feedback on this smoker? Can I use woods of my own selection in it or can I only use the briquettes made by the company? Look forward to hearing your recommendations.

Hi, I've done a search through several useful threads about sausage making but I haven't been able to find much information about sausage stuffers. I'd like to purchase one but I'm really not sure what to look for. What makes a good one? What kinds of features/attributes should it have? Is there a particular material or construction method which makes for a superior machine? I'm sure there are dozens of other nuances of which I'm not even remotely aware -- but I'd like to be. Can any of you well-seasoned sausage makers walk me through this? I'd appreciate the benefit of any experience you can share. Thanks, =R=

Does anyone have a recipe for piragi? My "step-grandfather" is Latvian and gets them every Christmas from a Latvian bakery in Toronto. I have never made them, but have had a craving and do not know of any Latvian bakeries in my neck of the woods. Besides, I'm always looking for a new "cooking project" (I can picture my partner rolling his eyes). A quick internet search has turned up a few recipes, which sound straightforward enough, but I know that if there is a wealth of information to be found about any food-topic, I should look here first.

Last Saturday, a group of intrepid friends gathered at our place to taste the following varieties of bacon: 1. Boczek Domowy (Polish Home-style Bacon); Andy's Deli, Chicago IL 2. Boczek Pieczony(Polish Smoked & Cooked Style); Andy's Deli, Chicago IL 3. Tocino Original Mexicano de Corazón; FUD 4. Kolozvári (Hungarian Smoked Bacon); Bende & Son Salami Co. Inc. Vernon Hills, Il 5. Boczek Wedzony Mysliski (Double Smoked Hunter Style Bacon)" Bobak Sausage Company Chicago, Il 6. Classic Dry Rubbed Organic Bacon; Wellshire Farms Swedesboro, NJ 7. Kirkland Signature Naturally Hickory Smoked Bacon; Costco Wholesale Corp. 8. Tyson Thick Cut; Tyson Foods, Springdale, Ar 9. Farmland Thick Sliced Bacon; Farmland Foods Inc. 10. Niman Ranch Dry Cured Center Cut Bacon; Niman Ranch,Oakland, CA 11. Nueske's Applewood Smoked Thick Cut Bacon; Nueskes Hillcrest Farms,Wittenberg, WI 12. Scott Petersen Premium Hardwood Smoked Bacon; Scott Petersen & Company 13. Smart "Bacon" Meatless Low Fat Strips; Lightlife FoodsTurners Falls, MA 14. Oscar Mayer Hearty Thick Bacon You’ll note that the selection is heavy on supermarket bacon. Were I to do this again, I would eliminate all the supermarket bacon except Farmland and maybe one other. Then I would concentrate on the interesting locally produced ethnic bacons and cool mail-order bacons. Samples 3,6,7,8,9,12, and 14 all were almost indistinguishable. You’ll also note that sample #13 is false bacon. It was awful and will not be mentioned again. Here is a picture of M. cooking one of many pounds of bacon. He was stuck in the kitchen cooking most of the party—if we did this again, we would do more pre-cooking. Here is the table of bacon: Here is our vegetarian friend: What is a vegetarian doing at a bacon tasting? Drinking mimosas! Also, we needed someone there to call 911 in case of bacon overdose. We presented the samples with numerical labels and gave out a tasting sheet to allow people to score each sample on saltiness, meatiness, smokiness, fattiness, mouthfeel, and overall ranking. At the end we asked each person to rank their three favorites. And the winners are: Nueske’s Our favorite even before the tasting garnered the most favorite votes and comments such as "YUM-O". It's been reported to be too smoky for small children, but all our adults liked it. Home-made style Polish bacon from Andy’s Deli: This local bacon was succulent and meaty, but less smoky than the Nueske's. If you live in Chicago, it's worth seeking out. Note that the label on the deli wrapper is not the same as the label on the meat in the deli case; it's actually the Boczek Domowy. Regardless of the label, you will know it by its ominous black color. Hungarian bacon: This salty bacon had its proponents. It was the only bacon cured with garlic and would be a wonderful ingredient in bean or egg dishes. On its own it was too strong for some! Thanks to all our hearty tasters for helping with this event! And a bit hurrah for M, who cooked all that bacon!

Cora, who lost big on taste to challenger Neal Fraser in the taste category, created an…unusual dish during Pork Battle last night. The dish also included sautéed blueberries, a sweet little pork cutlet, and a streusel topping composed of flour and lard, among other things. Only ICA Judge Harry Smith loved the bacon ice cream; even Steingarten demurred, and visibly calmed down when Burke soothed him with crispy pork skin, a more conventional fat-delivery system. The third Judge, 80s celebrity author turned wine writer Jay McInerney, said the bacon ice cream freaked him out. Well, scaffolding masquerading as shoulder pads freaked me out, Jay. We all have our fears. Am I the only one who saw it? Because I would have thought the words, “bacon + ice cream,” would spark lardophiles and dreamyfrozendessertophiles into a spirited debate. edited because I messed up on the challenger's name.

Ahrash (andalusian sausage bits) Serves 8 as Appetizer. This is loosely based on a 13th c. Andalusian recipe Trranslated by Charles Perry. A honey-mustard sauce called Sinab is a traditional accompaniment. 1 lb ground lamb 1/2 tsp black pepper, ground 1/2 tsp cumin 1/4 tsp ground coriander 1/4 tsp caraway seeds 2 eggs 2 T soy sauce 0.3 c flour 1 tsp minced garlic 1/2 tsp salt Directions (such as they are) Mix the ingredients together. (I use a fork, but if you want to use something high tech that's fine too) heat some oil in a frying pan. drop meat by spoonfulls into pan, smoosh down a little with the spoon to make little flat patties. Fry till nicely golden, flip and do the same on the other side. Drain on paper towels, serve with a honey mustard sauce, or what you will. Keywords: Appetizer, Lamb, Easy ( RG1541 )

Every now and then since December 2004, a good number of us have been getting together at the eGullet Recipe Cook-Off. Click here for the Cook-Off index. For our seventeenth Cook-Off, we're making sausages. Wait! Come back!! I think sausages get a lousy rap. There are many, many bad sausages around, ones that include animal body parts that even Fergus Henderson won't eat, and as a result a lot of folks here probably don't incorporate them into their diet regularly. But they're perfect for a cook-off, and here's why. Your effort is rewarded amply, because you can make a huge batch of sausages in roughly the same amount of time it takes to make a small batch, and most sausages freeze with ease. You don't really need any fancy equipment; indeed, you can make patties instead of links and "grind" the meat with a chef's knife or cleaver. Of course, there are more kinds of sausages than you can shake a link at. If you look at the list below, you'll see that there's a wide variety of pork-based European (and some Chinese) sausages explored in the eGullet Society forums. However, there are many kinds of sausages that aren't made with pork and that come from other cuisines. For example, I'm looking forward to making a new batch of sai oua, Thai sausage, in the next week or two, and I might take a crack at lobster sausages for a new years eve treat. Finally, sausages are one of the world's great foods. The snap of the casing, the flavor of the meat, the aroma of the seasonings, the lovely coating of fat on your tongue... once you start making your own, you'll begin to realize that there really is not limit to what you can make into sausages. Sausage fans should certainly check out Klink's sausage diary, days one, two, three, four, five, and (no typo) twenty four. There's also a great newer thread devoted mainly to cured European sausages here. There are other threads devoted to fat ratios in sausage, fresh Chinese pork sausages, a boudin making, equipment, sweet Italian sausage recipes, Nullo Modo's sausage-making party, and homemade sausage. There's even a previous sausage cook-off in the China forum. Finally, folks are cooking from eGullet's own Michael Ruhlman's new Charcuterie book here. So, all you sausage-phobes out there, remember that the purpose of a cook-off is to try to make something that you've never made before. As far as I can tell, sausage making is a bit precarious, but all the more fun because of that; I stress out about air pockets, while the gang curing their own get to worry about maggots and botulism. It's all part of what makes a cook-off great, though, imposing your anxieties on willing chums, right? Trust me: if you take a crack at making sausages from scratch, you'll never look back. Of course, we then need to discuss dishes in which to use them, so if you'd rather start on the bunny slope using storebought sausages, have at it! Let's get to grindin' and stuffin', folks!