Thread: Sausage and Smoke Cooking

Here is a post from our DNR.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/enforcement/motorkill.html

Originally Posted by 32t

Here is a post from our DNR.

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/enforcement/motorkill.html

Interesting! Thank you

I did find the last sentence a bit interesting and curious--

"Officers are encouraged to give salvageable game and fish to charitable organizations".

I for one have never seen a roadkill fish---maybe being run over by a boat OR perhaps fish that were confiscated for being illegally taken

The last time I used one was one problem I was near the county line and then called one county and the next. Then it was on a state highway so I called them because that is their route/problem.

I understand that there are people that might shoot a deer and leave it in the road to say road kill but I have an issue waiting for an officer to put it out of its misery...........

Originally Posted by 32t

The last time I used one was one problem I was near the county line and then called one county and the next. Then it was on a state highway so I called them because that is their route/problem.

I understand that there are people that might shoot a deer and leave it in the road to say road kill but I have an issue waiting for an officer to put it out of its misery...........

My grandfather was a Washington State Game Protector. I used to spend the summer vacations with them. He would get a call when someone hit a deer, elk even small game.

I'd often ride with him to remove the dead animals from the road and then there was a place he'd dump them over a very tall bank.

One night the road kill was a doe and the impact had actually forced the fawns out of her. One of the few times I ever saw my grandfather emotional about disposing of the dead.

Originally Posted by spazola

I like Malcolm Reeds videos and approach toward cooking.

I also enjoy his videos. Not a lot of BS (with the exception of trying to sell his brand of spices) but even with the selling most of the times he'll tell people what they could use instead.

I'll say this; If I had the money that Malcolm Reed has invested in all of his various smokers/cookers and he had a feather up his butt--We'd both be tickled. Man what a selection that man has at his disposal.

I checked and Walmart currently doesn't have any beef cheeks but this new outfit in town (Smart Food Service) has them frozen. Looks like $3.65 a pound and I have to purchase a 10# unit so I'll wait a bit and keep checking online at Walmart to see if they get any fresh in AND see how much per pound they want. If there's a big difference I can be patient and wait for the ones to thaw and then once trimmed and cooked I'll vacuum pack what I don't need now for later down the road.

My youngest brother was coming down to spend a few days this past weekend and WalMart had some beef cheeks come in so I decided to play a bit.

We never had beef cheeks in the meat shop where I worked for a few years. There was never any demand for them and way back then we'd probably would have ordered whole heads in to get them. Hell the Skirts and Flanks were just put in the grind. You could always tell if the local newspaper had a recipe that used flanks or skirts in the Sunday edition as we'd have women asking if we had them Monday morning

So since I had zero experience with these cheek things I blindly purchased two units. The bigger one was about 3 lbs 4 ounces and the smaller one was 2 lbs 12 ounces. The bigger pack had a huge chunk of fat and after removing the block of fat and trimming silver skin, blood clots and other undesirables I ended up with about 1 lb 5 ounces. The smaller one didn't have a lot of fat so I lost a lot less to trimming and I ended up with 1 lb 8 ounces.

So there seemed to be A LOT of waste----however after going through the trim and removing the clots, fat etc I ended up with 1 lb 25 ounces to make my stock with.

I had taken the smaller pieces and tied them together so they would cook at about the same rate as the larger ones. NOTE: (The pieces weren't initially cooked in the pan but on the grill, the pan was just for the dry marinade) See here:



I seasoned all sides with Kosher salt and once a bit of moisture appeared I applied fresh ground coarse ground black pepper and granulated garlic and let it dry marinate for about 1/2 an hour. While they were marinating I started my Traeger and let it heat up to 225 degs. After the marinating was over I put the pieces in and let the Traeger do it's job for about two hours with turning once after a bit over an hour.

In the meantime I made the stock with the trimmings and a bit of onion. One I had a really nice bark (that's 'Black' for Bruno ) I pulled the pieces put them on a rack, added the stock. It barely came up over the racks so the pieces were 'Steamed' instead of 'Braised'. I tightly covered the vessel with foil.

I'd inserted a probe set for 205 degs and after about 3 hours it sounded so I checked on them for tenderness and putting the Thermapen they were still offering a lot of resistance so the foil went back on and back in the Traeger it went.

I reset the probe for 210 degs and once it went off the thermapen slid in like I was putting it into room temp butter.

Right out of the cooker--



I let it rest covered for about 1/2 an hour and then shredded it in a bowl and added most of the steaming liquid and let it cool and then refrigerated it tightly covered.

It really jelled up overnight, but once I broke off enough for Breakfast Tacos I put the meat I'd removed from the block in a Ziploc bag and reheated it in hot water. Sorry about no pics but DAMN was that meat moist and flavorful! Even with the scrambled eggs, smoked Colby jack cheese, sour cream and a bit of salsa you could really taste the meat.

Depending on what my brother does I'm hoping to make chimichangas with the meat for supper along with Mexican rice and homemade refried beans. He spent the night at his stepson's place last night and has said he'll let me know if he'll be here for supper------I have leftovers in case he won't be here and hopefully we can have a nice supper tomorrow.

I hope your brother enjoys that meat as much as I enjoyed reading your description of the process of cooking it.

Yum!

Some spare ribs, 6 hours around 225-250 in the ugly drum smoker, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Originally Posted by spazola

Some spare ribs, 6 hours around 225-250 in the ugly drum smoker, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

I bet that some beans and potato salad would go well with that great looking side of ribs.

I'm patiently waiting for pics of the gnawed on bones----

Originally Posted by cudarunner

I bet that some beans and potato salad would go well with that great looking side of ribs.

I'm patiently waiting for pics of the gnawed on bones----

I made beans and cornbread to go with it, coleslaw would have been nice. Sorry no after pics.