Kielbasa
Makes 10 to 12 sausages.
By Dennis W. Viau; modified from an internet recipe.
When I was a child my mother occasionally bought kielbasa as a huge U-shaped sausage. It was precooked and had the texture of a hotdog. I can’t remember how she heated it, but I’m fairly confident it was in a pot with water and the sauerkraut she liked. I didn’t like sauerkraut, so she usually made mashed potatoes as well. A friend sent me a link to a kielbasa recipe that looked good enough to try.
Ingredients:
2½ pounds (1.13kg) ground pork and fat, preferably:
1 pound plus 12 ounces (795g) pork shoulder meat
12 ounces (340g) pork fat, such as fat back or pork belly
½ large onion, grated
2 to 3 garlic cloves, grated
1 teaspoon dry oregano flakes
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
½ tablespoon salt; adjust to taste
¼ to ½ tablespoon ground pepper; adjust to taste
1 or 2 hog casings
Directions:
Assemble a meat grinder with a medium disk and process the meat and fat.
Combine the pork, onion, garlic, oregano, mustard, salt and pepper in the bowl of the stand mixer. Mix well and knead in the machine until a little sticky, about 2 minutes. This step can be done by hand.
Cook a small dab of the mixture to taste for seasoning. Adjust to taste.
Clean and soak the hog casing(s) according to package directions.
Assemble a sausage stuffer and arrange a casing on the tube. Fill the cylinder with the sausage mix. Press the meat into the tube until it begins to appear at the end. Pull a little of the casing off the end of the tube and tie. Fill the casing with the meat mixture, full enough to be plump but not so full as to burst the casing. Tie the final end. Poke in several places with a sausage pick, especially where there are air pockets. One casing might be enough for all the meat mixture, but prepare a second casing if necessary.
Either leave in a spiral or twist into links. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
To cook, either place in a 350°F (175°C) oven and bake for 30 minutes or cook 10 minutes in boiling water. The sausages can be grilled or fried. As with any ground meat, it should be cooked thoroughly to an internal temperature of 168°F (76°C).
The sausages can be wrapped in plastic and stored in a freezer bag for freezing, or use a vacuum sealer.
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