about the banger

Kinda wanted to call them Bangor sausage, but didn't.  These are Freeport Bangers.  Not entirely unlike the English or Irish bangers but definitely not identical.  I've got an Irishman critiquing them this weekend for giggles after a chat about his disdain regarding the poor representation of the style stateside.  I have been meaning to take this one on but have been waiting to meat the chap upon whom to sharpen my skills with authentic European recipes.  Haven't been there myself, what would I: know.  I took several recipes at a glance and assembled what I thought to be an amalgam of the bunch with a personal tweak or two, couldn't help it. 
  Anyway, for stats it's mostly veal with about 40% pork.  To this was added copious amounts of bread crumbs which serve to thicken the meat but also hold a lot of juice into the sausage during cooking and make it somehow lighter on the palate.  There's small amounts of pepper, salt and garlic along with nutmeg and mace, which I gather are rather crucial to the recipe.  Also, pinches of ginger, marjoram, basil.  Forgive if I forgot, but I believe that's the list.  The most noticeable qualities are probably the juicyness, the lightness and the nutmeggyness. 

for some banger trivia, visit:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangers_and_mash

I could see them sitting along a broad variety of foods as they are flavorful but mild and easy enough to like.  To the Europeans in the crowd, I'd love to hear how the fare fares upon the trained palate... feedback on the feed?

black and blue burger sausage, asiago cheese bread

  That is one whole package!  We were thrilled by the running start this small batch of sausage took yesterday, selling a third of the production in one half of a day.  That's a pretty good rate for a new recipe.  Paul called it "a winner," Michael said we hit it "out of the park," and Bob called it "darn good."  I think it's wicked tasty. 
   It's a 50/50 pork and beef blend seasoned with bacon bits, black pepper and crumbled blue cheese, with a touch of garlic, salt, and onion powder.  We debated a chopped red onion but held back thinking it would make the recipe too busy.  Add the onion on the side if you must or chop it over this indulgent sausage in a toasted roll with a hit of ketchup and mustard for a complete meal with a side of pickles and fries.  We had a couple on a white pizza today with grated cheddar cheese blended to the predictable mozzerella.  That as well was wicked tasty :)  sausage news for the day, checking out, GET MEATY.

On another note, last night was a bread production night.  Shanna ordered something fancy for a friend who did her a favor in a time of need so the asiago cheese bread came to be.  It's about 30% whole wheat with a tough of sourdough starter for levity, then there's grated asiago rolled into the loaf on the last stretch, and a bit atop along with fresh garden parsley and cracked black pepper.  It didn't smell too bad to me.  For those who cared: 1 c warm water, 1/4 c sourdough starter, 1 c whole wheat flour, 2 c bread flour, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp dried yeast, 1/4 lb grated asiago.  blend water, starter and yeast, allowing yeast to hydrate, add salt and flour and mix till smooth and elastic.  proof till double, knead 3-4 minutes with plenty of flour, proof till doubled again, knead, then stretch to 14" square and cover with grated cheese.  roll into a log shape tucking in the ends to keep in cheese and improve the shape of the loaf.  place on baking sheet with a heavy dusting of cornmeal, cover and proof till well risen, about 45 min to one hour in a warm oven.  remove from oven and preheat oven to 450 F.  wash loaf top with beaten egg, and top with more grated asiago, chopped fresh parsley, and cracked pepper.  slash top a few times.  Bake 10 minutes, rotate 180 degrees and bake another 8-10 minutes until golden. 

stats don't lie... pesto sausage, whole wheat slackdough and tempura smelts

I guess one could call me an international blog-star... that's right, folks in Russia are peeping on my meat blog.  strange, but neat.  Serbia and others as well, small world.  Anyway, busy times.. wife's on full steam selling her goodies on ETSY and doing crafts fairs right now and life goes on alongside.  Like I said, busy.  But not too busy to innovate
   Take sausage for example... I haven't posted in a while but wanted to mention the newbies.  Last week a small batch of Extra Hot Italian which was basically our house Hot Italian with added cayenne, a nice amount and it did fairly well too, bonus.  We'll keep making it, thank you.  Also a Lamb Spinach and Feta sausage.  a few obvious flavors tossed together for a friendly reunion.  Rather Greek I guess, really seems like a Mediterranean pizza or sautee for atop pasta to me.  I'm sure there are applications aplenty.  Then Thursday last week we produced a Basil Pinenut Pesto Sausage which required quite a bit more pesto than I had expected.  It was jazzed a tad with some extra salt, pepper and garlic but otherwise drew it's flavor straight from the pesto jar.  Lovely, untainted, fresh, delicious. 
   Otherwise, having pleasant success with bread I couldn't resist sharing.  The photo is of the loaf I've been chasing for quite some time now.  It's a 35% whole wheat loaf based on a slack dough with a touch of sourdough starter for flavor and baked at a crisping 450 F.  That high temp gives the dough a great bounce in the oven and creates a nice dark crust with a very moist interior.  It's really the big pockets of air which are the greatest achievement for me.  The challenge is not getting them, but getting lots of them uniformly distributed throughout the loaf.  This batch worked out especially well. 
 
                                                                                    Last cool tidbit for tonight, tempura smelts.
These fishies are really popular up here and I'm told most people eat them with all the bones intact, but gut them and cut off the head, dredge them in flour and fry them in butter.  They're most often eaten by the guy who caught them and if you come up here mid-winter you'd see folks fishing in shacks on lakes or over the river when it's all iced up.. it's called "smeltin' " and is apparently a valid excuse to take a few days off work to drink beer.  These were store bought.  I de-boned mine and tempura fried them.  The sauce was of apricot preserves, soy sauce, cayenne and a dash of fruit juice.  I was also yummy.  Got this idea from a sushi restaurant downtown in Portland where I ordered them years ago when I had extra money for going out. Theirs were a tad nicer. 

luv me some beef ribs

The short rib is truly one of my favorite cuts on the carcass..  This here are the chuck short ribs, or the first three ribs of the chest cage, near the front of the beast, not to be confused with the very similar plate ribs which come from the next seven ribs in line.  Both versions are delicious.  Anyway, today was photo day and these were prepared for the fine folks at Pineland Farms who came to photograph we, the meat staff, and the meat.  I cut these just for the event.  They're normally separated and cut in half or thirds, or left unseparated and cut against the rib into a thin strip with narrow eyebones strung in between, as flanken ribs.  There's some other cool ethnic habachi-style preparations which are hard to describe. 
  For a taste of heaven on earth take these ribs in any form you can find them braise them.  Braising is to cook "low, slow, and moist."  First, season them generously with a dry rub.  If you care to marinade them overnight, do that first, then dry rub them with basic spices like garlic, pepper and salt.  Get ethnic and add chili and cumin, etc. or go over the ocean with a heavy curry crust... awesome.  Give them a sear to color them and add some flavor and then submerge them in wine or dark beer in a crock pot or dutch oven for 3 hours or so.  They'll require a temp of 350 F or high on the crock to get flaking tender and the more stuff you put in the braising liquid the better.  Check them by digging a fork into the meat and turning it... the muscle should easily shred apart and be "tender but yielding", in other words flakey, but not a mushy mess... When they get there they are ready and just need to be served.  This is the very basic preparation and there are countless versions out there but please, PICK ONE AND TRY IT!  short ribs rock.

Veal, at long last....

I didn't think far enough ahead to consider whether or not we could even afford to try a sausage with veal, but it turns out ground veal is not that expensive.  cool, right?  So this week I took a stab at it and created a recipe with about 40% pork and 60% veal with "Fresh sage and Apricots."  I think it's delicious, though I suppose I would.  My co-worker Mike was like, "whoa, it's like, fluffy."  He's right in a way.  The meat has a light flavor and a light and juicy texture that makes the sausage somehow a bit "fluffy."  The apricots are the dried variety and remained in pretty large chunks so they're less dispersed and you can find them as you chew, pleasant surprise.  There's a little bit of some other things as well, but mainly fresh sage.  This is the beginning of something delicious, I can tell already  :)