Thread: Sausage and Smoke Cooking

I always hate to post back to back at a thread but I need to today.

As I've mentioned I'd like to try my hand at some luncheon meats. So my first attempt is a 4inch OD chicken roll.

Yesterday I picked up a 10 lb bag of (fresh) chicken hind quarters from WalMart for $6. They were still partially frozen but by this morning they were pretty well thawed.

The recipe in Rytek Kutas's 1984 Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing book is what I used as a guide.

The recipe was for a 10 lb batch but I only wanted to make a 5 lb batch. The recipe called for using semolina flour or regular flour which didn't sound right to me. So I decided that I'd use the same amount of chicken broth but omit the flour and instead use about 1/3rd of the total meat along with the spices and cure to make a emulsification. The recipe also called for all of the meat to be finely ground but I wanted some meat chunks.

I started boning and de-skinning the thighs but found that I was shy of the required 3.5 lbs of meat that I'd need so I used some of the larger legs and made sure they were set aside since they would have the tendons and I thought they would work well in the emulsion.

The recipe was a bit confusing about the fat and skin so I decided to remove all fat I could and use the skin which ended up being about 1/2 lb. I cut the skin into small strips and placed them on plastic wrap on a tray and froze them solid.

I cut the leg chunks into 1/2 inch pieces and froze them until almost frozen. I then used my Kitchen Aid stand mixer with the small plate that I'd placed in the freezer and ground the skin first and then the legs. The KA did struggle but it managed.

I then added them to my food processor along with the spices and cure and ground them into a mass and then slowly added the broth and processed the mixture until it was fully incorporated. It was on the watery side. I would call it a slurry.

I'd cut the remaining thigh's and a couple of legs into 1 inch or so chunks and had them very cold. I then added 1/2 of the thigh/leg chunks to the bowl of my KA and 1/2 of the slurry and mixed each batch until they were Very Sticky.

I combined both batches in a large bowl and hand mixed them until they looked well blended.

Into the stuffer with the 1 inch ID Stainless Steel tube that Joel (Benz) made for me and into a 4" Fiborous Casings that had been soaking in some warm water.

Here's what 1/2 of the batch looked like before being combined with the other.



After stuffing I hung the chub in the smoker just to be able to take a decent picture.



Normally I'd have ground all of the meat and the cure would start protecting against Botulism but since I had some bigger pieces in the batch I decided to let it cure overnight under refrigeration. BUT I didn't want a D shaped casing so here's my solution since I can't hang the chub. Only time will tell how well it works.



I'd formed the towel into a round to cradle the chub.

The project will continue tomorrow with the smoking, water bath cooking, cooling and hopefully some slicing.