Making X-mas Sausage

Bratwurst 016a

We started the Boomers as a subgroup in our church and, as we have a couple of “Meatmen” in our group, decided to host an evening of Christmas sausage making as a social event and fundraiser for the church. Our guess was that in our small congregation we would probably end up making about 50 to 60 pounds of sausage and would call that a success. What a surprise on the order cut off day we had close to 200 pounds on order.

We made three different types of fresh sausage, a fine and a coarse ground Fresh Polish and a recipe we got from the local Transylvanian Saxon organization. The recipes for the Coarse Polish and the Saxon sausage can be found on our Inge’s Kitchen recipe page in the Sausage and Lunch-meat section. If I can get the other guy’s recipe for the fine ground Polish we will post it there.

As we ran that as a social event we had quite a few members show up to help and have a good time.

A few beers, some snacks and samples of the sausage we made rounded of the evening. The extra pounds we had leftover after we weight up all the order were gobbled up by the participants by the people present within no time.

The support of Butcher and Packer Supply Company and Ilowski Sausage made this a very successful fundraiser for our church.

With all the help we had, the sausage was made in under 2½ hours.

Serving Sizes

Almost all the nutrition labels nowadays include as a measure the “serving size”.

This is okay with nuts and potato chips and if I compare the Nouveau Cuisine recipes some people will actually pay large sums of money for these amounts on a plate.

From personal experience at our meat store, catering and also serving food at dinners at our house, these serving sizes are a joke and any normally physically active person probably could not even survive on these servings.

When I was young, working in the meat business, a two pound Sirloin Steak with two nice sized baked potatoes, a bowl of salad and one quart of full fat milk was a serving size for me and at that point in my life I did not gain an ounce of weight!

On the other hand, one of my more affluent customers who I knew from my involvement in an organization came to me for advise on quantities for an Oktoberfest: 20 people (mixed couples). I suggested 1 Knockwurst (about 4 oz each, which is a serving size) per person and to figure 2 for the men. So a total of 30 Knockwursts, 1/4 pound of potato salad per and 1/4 pound of our precooked Bavarian Sauerkraut, so a total of 30 sausages, 5# potato salad and 5# of Sauerkraut.

She finally decided on 15 sausages and 3# each of the potato salad and sauerkraut as the only food served. I actually said to her that it was only good that I was not invited to that party.

Now the variable here is male and female eating habits, with women usually eating smaller portions than men, with that in mind the amounts served should be enough that none of your guests will leave your dinner table hungry. I would feel embarrassed if we would ever run out of food during any party at our house which includes a meal.

Here I have to quote an old German saying:

Das Schönste am Feste sind nicht die Gäste, sondern die Reste” (The most beautiful thing about a festival are not the guests, but the leftovers!)

Now to the actual serving sizes.

Meat:

In the industry we always considered half a pound of meat per person in cuts without a bone and one pound on bone-in cuts (spareribs would be actually higher as we figured a whole three pound slab as enough for two people). These are pre-cooked weights.

Potatoes:

We always figured at least one nice size potato per person and if you mash them you would have to increase the amount as we noticed that our guests always ate more of them.

Rice:

We consider one cup of raw rice to give you 4 servings

Noodles:

About 2 to 3 ounces of dry pasta per serving

Vegetables:

We suggest about a 1/4 pound per person.

and now for

Desserts:

Eat all what you can stuff in, you can always go on a diet tomorrow. LoL

Now these amounts should be sufficient so that you do not run out of food when entertaining guests.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has some pretty comprehensive webpages on the subject  “Nutrition Facts Label Programs and Materials” (click on title to go there).

They also have a 2¾ minute video about it.

Food Labels

A lot of information on this subject can be found at the U.S. Food and Drugs Administration website “Nutrition Facts Label Programs and Materials” (click on title to go there).

We also found a 29 Minute YouTube video from them with a lot of facts but kind of corny.

Hugo

What is a Hugo?

A drink which is popular in Germany and one of the best summer drinks we came across in a long time!

We served it a few times to our friends at our house and almost everyone requested the recipe. So we published our version of it at ingeskitchen.com.

“A Trip down Memory Lane”

During the “Meat store owner” period of our life, catering and supplying parties with food used to be part of our weekly routine. So, when recently asked by one of our former customers/friends if we would consider cooking for a party at their house we agreed to do it for them for old time’s sake.

According to the remarks we overheard from some of the about 100 guests present, the food, which was 100% Bavarian-German, was a total success. The menu included Rouladen, Schnitzel, Bockwurst, Spaetzle, Potato Salad, Sauerkraut and Hard Rolls.

Rouladen with Spaetzle and Red Cabbage

As always we are not that secretive about the recipes and refer you to our website at ingeskitchen.com for the recipe links of the different dishes listed above.

Schnitzel and Potato Salad

For the Sauerkraut we went back to the somewhat simpler recipe we used to make at our store, which differs from the published one from our site as we did not add carrots and juniper berries and spiced it up somewhat with Maggi Liquid Seasoning instead.

Franken Sauerkraut

The “Wurst”, ordered and shipped from Geier’s Sausage Kitchen in Sarasota, Florida, arrived in good condition and was a hit with the guests.

Picture courtesy of Geier’s Sausage Kitchen

Although it was a lot of work preparing it the “right” way, doing this event brought back quite a few memories and it was fun doing it for them.

 

Wurst – Sausage and Luncheon Meats

Wurst is German for what we label separately as Sausages and Lunchmeat/Luncheon Meats. We have the famous Bratwurst, the Knockwurst (spelled Knackwurst in German), Leberwurst (liver sausage), Fleischwurst (bologna) and among many others the category of Hartwurst (salami). Most whole meat products such as hams, corned beef and turkey breasts fall here into the category of luncheon meats but are not considered “Wurst”.

How do we define “Wurst”? Meat chopped, ground or cut up, mixed with salt, spices and other ingredients, shaped and finished for your consumption. (Chopped in this case is very fine, like bologna, which is processed in a “chopper”)

The Bratwurst falls, with all the other fresh sausages, into the “Fresh Sausage” category, which includes any sausage which you buy uncooked from your meat store. Breakfast links, fresh Italian, fresh Polish, any type of fresh Brats, also fresh Chorizo and any other ethnic sausage, which you should cook before eating, are part of this category.

Picture courtesy of Geier’s Sausage Kitchen

Cooked Sausages, I would consider the most famous here to be the Weisswurst. Many of the fresh sausages listed above are nowadays precooked for longer shelf life. You also would add the liver sausages and blood sausages including Kiska to this category.

Smoked Sausages include the Knockwurst and smoked Polish Kielbasa, also Salami sticks or Hunter sausages, Landjaegers, Cajun Andouille and all other “wurst” which is smoked and in sausage form.

Luncheon meats come stuffed into casings, baked in a loaf form or just shaped.

Bologna, Krakowska, Lyoner Bologna, New York Ham are just a few examples of the wide variety of luncheon meats in casings, which cater to almost every taste.

There is a large variety of “Loaves” like the Veal Loaf, Pepper Loaf, Olive Loaf, Pizza Loaf and again here they add mushrooms for a mushroom loaf or cherries or nuts. In my travels I have experienced quite a few add-ins which tasted good, some I would not touch and others that you have to have an acquired taste for or you had to grow up with it.

The last category I can think of would be the Salamis. Here the main goal is to preserve meat over a long period of time by reducing the moisture content so that they can be stored without refrigeration. Hartwurst (hard sausage) would be the German term here and this describes the consistency of these sausages very well.

It probably is my duty here to at least mention Head Cheese and Haggis. As for a type of head cheese we published a Suelze/Souse recipe which is made without head and cheese and conforms to the high standards of what my wife will eat and in my and my friends opinion can compete with any quality test ever given. As for Haggis my personal advise would be: “Eat at your own Risk!”

As the most common ingredient used to be salted pork and the sausages and luncheon meats were all meat it is hard for me to get used to all the other meats like turkey, chicken and even fish being used in the production nowadays. That bygone time was also when sausages tasted the way they were supposed to and not like a sausage shaped lollipop with all the high fructose corn sweeteners and dextrose fillers in them now.

This is only a short list of the different “Wursts” you will encounter in your butcher shop.

By the way, did you know, that jokes about German sausages are the Wurst?

No Nitrite Smoked Meats

Posted on by September 17, 2019

We went to do our “civic duty” today and helped clean up a city park to get it ready for the summer. After completing the job we were invited for a hot dog and potato chip lunch which was donated by a local business. As a “healthy” gesture they served us the usually much higher priced, natural “No Nitrite and No Nitrate Hot Dogs”.

They were very good tasting hot dogs and after the work we all did they tasted even better.

Now, let’s mention the Sodium Nitrite scare of the late seventies early eighties in the last century which linked nitrite to cancer. It made front page news all over and was rescinded in an article on page 5 of the same paper a couple of years later with this little known fact, that they fed the rats the equivalent amount of nitrites which a human would consume by eating 40 pounds of bacon per day!

As the use of sodium nitrite became restricted by law during that time the processors were and still are only allowed to use 4 ounces of pink cure per 100 pounds of meat.

Pink Cure is a mixture of not more than 6% of nitrite and 94% sodium chloride (regular salt) with a few drops of food coloring added to make it pink.

Adding this little bit of nitrite makes the processing procedure safer, gives lean meat the nice “pink” color and extends shelf life.

Now, back to the “All natural Dogs”, how do they accomplish the three points mentioned in the previous paragraph. It would need nitrites for that, guess what they add celery based juice and powder to do the trick, as they contain, like many leafy green and root vegetables, “naturally” occurring nitrites.

Some lab results actually came back with a higher nitrite content in these “No Nitrite” Smoked Meats, than you find in the old fashioned  “cured” products.

The bottom line here is the question, is it worth to you to spend the extra money? This you have to answer yourself!

For myself, I rather check on the ingredient label the amount of “sugars” and fillers used and buy accordingly. To see my article on that subject click here.

 

The “Why” of Home Sausage Making

Posted on by May 3, 2012

During our time in the meat business we were very fussy about the quality of the lunch meats and sausages we carried or made ourselves to sell in our store. With this in mind we are still picky and came to the conclusion, that besides buying the lunch meats and sausages that we can approve of according to their ingredient label we should make some ourselves at regular intervals.

By making our own we can easily control:

    • the quality of meat
    • the percentage of fat
    • the quantity of salt
    • the absence of fillers
    • the seasoning to our liking

and this gives us a product that is better, cheaper and healthier.

Better and Healthier:

As for the meat, there are no meat by products in our homemade sausage just 100% pork shoulder butts and lean ground beef. We also never use “Mechanically deboned Turkey or Chicken Meat”.

The fat content in our “Wurst” is way below the up to 50% allowed by our government in some sausages.

Salt and fillers, we cut down on salt and do not use any fillers and extenders and with that the carbohydrate count does go down.

Cheaper:

The pork shoulder butts we use are priced well below $2.00 per pound, just check your supermarket to see what you will get for that price in the deli.

As an example of how cheap top quality can be, see our recipe of the “Suelze” (our version of headcheese without the head and without the cheese) at our Inge’s Kitchen website. This again can be produced at today’s prices with a minimum of work for under $2.00 per pound. You will not find the quality of this end product at any supermarket, not even at most Delicatessens with their average headcheese costing way above $5.00 per pound.

By the way, if you look at any sausage or lunch meat always consider that anything ground coarser will show more of the meat ingredients, so in the chopped meat of a headcheese not much can be hidden or like the computer jargon wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) then just look at the bologna!