Thread: Sausage and Smoke Cooking

You are very welcome my friend. I am a firm believer that family should be passed on and by that I mean things like remembrance of events, cooking, celebrations etc.

Funny you should mention your grandmother's cornbread. While my family never seemed to be into using buttermilk both sided loved cornbread. I had made cornbread since the scouting days and it was decent but I couldn't get it to taste like my maternal grandmothers so when I was in my early 20's I decided to ask her for her recipe.

I called her and asked her for her recipe and she said to get a pencil and a piece of paper and she'd be right back with the desired recipe. I already had the pencil and paper. When she got back on the phone and read me the recipe I carefully wrote it down and read it back to her to confirm that I had it right and I did.

A day or so later I decided to make red beans and ham along with some cornbread. It was then that I found that my grandmother's cornbread recipe was word for word off of the Albers Corn Meal Box.



Then I realized that there was one 'Secret Ingredient' that I couldn't add and that was A Grandmother's Love.

Over the years the only thing that I do different than my grandmother did and that is she always baked her cornbread in a a cake pan and I now preheat a 8" cast iron pan and then pour the batter in. Damn nice crunchy top and bottom.

Now back to buttermilk:

If the buttermilk you purchase is a 'Cultured Buttermilk' you can make more at home. It's similar to making yogurt. I've made Butterhalf and half. I just add store bought buttermilk to the regular half and half then put it up in a cupboard overnight and Viola! It's Butterhalf and half. I use it to make Tc's Irish Soda Bread instead of adding cream to richen the dough. Yes it will work with any fat percentage milk.

I’ve got some good cooking coming up. If you’re going to buy some poultry, buy some poultry.

Originally Posted by OCDshaver

I’ve got some good cooking coming up. If you’re going to buy some poultry, buy some poultry.

I have a feeling that your recent purchase of poultry just 'Might' amount to 1/2 of my monthly rent--------

I do hope that all goes well so it all is used as intended and nothing goes to waste.

I have two Son in Laws and my favorite (who is an avid hunter/fisherman) came by on Friday with some fresh salmon fillets. He said that they were payback for doing so much for his family.

Anyway I decided to cure and smoke them. I'd asked my son in law if he liked salmon dip and he said he loved it so part of the batch will become dip.

De-boned as best as I could (I found a couple more after the pieces were cured for two days) Here they are going into the smoker.



I used the smoke tube filled about 1/2 full of Pit Boss's Competition Pellets and they smoked for about 2 and 1/2 hours, then I turned damper closed and turned the heat source on and started to slowly cook them.

I really didn't pay any attention to how long it took to bring them up to 140 degs as I had my probes in and just waited till they went off. When they did, I checked the internal temp with my ThermoPen to make sure they were up to temp.



The 3 and 1/2 lbs of smoked fillets are in the frig under plastic wrap and I'll package most up and make the dip with what I set aside tomorrow.

I climbed up into the attic of my garage tonight looking for some canning jars....

I came across this that I think that I inherited from my mother in law long ago but I forgot it was there.

I tried with about 2 pounds of corned beef and it worked reasonably.

I wouldn't want to do less than 2 pounds of anything cause the cleaning takes a while!

Light duty for sure.



Also found a couple of dice cups and dice.

Gonna bring one set to work and have fun at lunch.

Should work well for small batches, it doesn't take long to get 2 pounds--

So did you find any jars while you were up there?

No jars...........