Thai Chicken Coconut Milk Soup (Tom Kha Gai)

From the moment I first took a sip of this classic Thai soup at Manora Thai Restaurant in San Francisco, I was smitten. So rich, so creamy, so nuanced in flavor - a little spicy, a little sweet, a little sour, a whole lot of richness. But the flavor profile was so far outside my comfort zone, I never dreamed I could make it at home, especially not in 20 minutes with a short list of ingredients. I felt resigned to only eating it in restaurants.

But when an acquaintance kept talking about how she was going to whip up a batch for dinner for her family that night, after picking the kids up from swim class..... and then this recipe from a home cook turned up in Sunset Magazine's quick recipe pages - well, that demystified it quite a bit. I went for it. It was easy, it was fast, and it was delicious. All of these ingredients are available from a decently stocked grocery store. Don't be shy - you can do it, too!

Thai Chicken Coconut Soup (Thom kha gai or Gai Thom Kha)

adapted from Jiranooch Shapiro, Anchorage – Sunset Magazine, December 2008

1 can (14 ounces) coconut milk (Native Forest Organic is outstanding)

14 ounces chicken broth

6 quarter sized slices ginger

1 stalk lemongrass, cut into 1 inch pieces

1 lb. Boned, skinless chicken breasts or thighs

1 cup sliced mushrooms (preferably oyster mushrooms)

1 TB fresh lime juice

1TB Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp Thai Red Curry Paste (Thai Kitchen is a good brand)

2 fresh lime leaves (optional - I pick mine in the back yard, but a good Asian grocery will have them)

Fresh basil and/or cilantro leaves for garnish

In a medium saucepan, combine broth, ginger, lemongrass, and chicken. Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then simmer until chicken is firm and opaque. Remove the chicken from the pan, and let it cool until you can easily cut it into 1” chunks. Using a slotted spoon or “spider” remove and discard the lemongrass, and optionally, the ginger, and discard them.

Add the coconut milk, chicken and mushrooms, along with the remaining seasonings to the chicken broth. Bring the mixture back up to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce the heat and simmer until the mushrooms are cooked and flavors are melded. Test and adjust the seasonings. Serve, garnished with herbs.

Notes from Christine: while this is a lovely outline of the dish, I like to add a little bit more of each of the seasonings; please feel free to adjust this according to your taste preferences. For the mushrooms, I prefer oyster mushrooms, but other choices are delicious too – shiitake, crimini, button....

More notes: the recipe author leaves the lemongrass and ginger in the soup and serves it that way. Personally, I just got tired of fishing inedible bits out of every bite of soup and devised the filtering plan outlined above to eliminate the problem. However, leaving them in most likely imparts more flavor to the soup, and faithful reader "Miss Nati" has reported how much she likes eating the ginger. You be the judge!

The Whole Hog: Pork Fried Rice with Leftover Ham

I'm not sure why it took me so many years to learn to make Chinese-style fried rice. Sometimes I allow myself to get into certain habits, where I cook in a certain style, using the same palette of spicing, the same cooking techniques, the same pots and pans, because it gets comfortable and it's easier on my brain.... I'll look at a delicious-sounding recipe in my new cooking magazine and say to myself "deep-frying?" or "squid?" or "a wok?" and turn the page dismissively. I suspect I am not alone in this.

Well, I must report to you that when I finally made fried rice for the first time, it was an immediate, sure-fire, hands-down, perfect-every-time winner. It worked so well that I resisted the urge to just trust that I would remember it the next time; I jotted down the order of steps, the spicing techniques and the quantities. I am very confident that this will be a sure-fire winner for you, too!

On this particular evening, I used some of the leftover ham in coke from Easter. (Ham is a common ingredient in cooking from the Hunan province.) However, this recipe has proven equally tasty with the following different meat choices: odds and ends of leftover pork chops saltimbocca, leftover odds and ends of steak, leftover bits of lamb chops, of roast chicken, of the Thanksgiving turkey... Really, any leftover tidbits of meat or tofu will do; this is an especially useful recipe when there is just too little of some leftover dinner item to serve as a main course. The only adjustment I ever make is to sometimes adjust the spices slightly; I like to toss chicken or turkey with teaspoon or two of Chinese Five Spice powder, for example. (A spice blend which includes star anise; it is available in bulk at Country Cheese or Berkeley Bowl in our fair city, or in well-stocked grocery stores elsewhere.) Otherwise, everything really stays the same.

I do get down the wok for this, but I think a well-seasoned large frying pan would work. There are two key elements in making this recipe; using cooked rice that has had a chance to dry out, and organizing the ingredients in small bowls in order of cooking. Once you start cooking with a hot wok, you have to work quickly; you don't want to stop your momentum to get that next ingredient ready. If the rice is still moist, it can get too mushy during cooking. Cooking the rice the day before or using leftover rice is great, but you can make the rice fresh that day; just be sure to spread it out in a broad bowl or cookie sheet to dry and cool for a couple of hours before you fry it.

Chinese-Style Fried Rice

1 batch of pre-cooked, dried brown rice, at room temperature
(2 cups of raw rice, cooked with 4 cups water)

High smoke-point/high heat cooking oil; peanut or safflower, e.g.
Keep the oil at hand for the wok

In a small bowl:
One knob of fresh ginger, about 1-2", peeled and minced
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 bunch of scallions (green onions) chopped
1/2 - 1 tsp red pepper flakes

1-2 cups leftover meat, cut into 1/4" - 1/2" dice, in a bowl OR
(If chicken or turkey, tossed with 1 - 2 tsp five spice powder) OR
1 cup of spiced, baked tofu, cut into dice

As many eggs as you have people to feed, (at least 2) lightly whisked, in a bowl

2 cups thawed frozen peas

2 TB soy sauce and 1 tsp toasted sesame oil, in a small container

Optional: Hot chile oil

Arrange your ingredients to have readily at-hand; you will not be turning off your burner in-between steps. Turn on your fan, or open your windows, then heat your wok over high heat until it is very hot. Working quickly, pour a TB or so of the oil down the sides of the pan. Then add the ginger, garlic, scallions and pepper flakes. Stir them constantly with your special wok spatula tool. After a few seconds, add the meat. Stir it constantly for several minutes, and when it has browned nicely, remove it and put it back in the bowl it started in.

Pour in another TB or two of oil down the sides of the hot pan, and add the eggs. Using your spatula-tool, spread the eggs up the sides of the pan, cutting the cooked portions and letting the liquid portions onto the hot metal. When the eggs are cooked, remove them from the pan and add them to the meat.

Pour in another 2 TB of the oil, and add the rice. Working constantly, scoop up the portions of the rice which are on the bottom and let the other parts of the rice take their place. Since you are working with a lot of rice, this part will take the longest and require the most physical effort. When the rice is completely hot and beginning to take on a nice glossy appearance, add back in the proteins. Use the side of your spatula to cut the eggs into smaller pieces. Lift, scoop and toss the ingredients to combine well. Now add in the peas; again, toss and lift until all is well-combined and the peas are hot all the way through. Now add in the soy sauce and toasted sesame oil, pouring it all over the surface of the rice mixture. Again, toss and lift to combine thoroughly.

When all is hot, test the seasoning. Does it need a little more soy sauce or a little more spice? Now is the time to add them.

Serve in bowls, to universal applause. (Yes, kids really like this, too.)

Wine: A Riesling or Alsatian white wine, or beer are good matches.

Bon Appetit!

The Whole Hog: Black Bean Soup with Ham in Coke Stock

As I wrote in an earlier post, by the end of Easter week the hambone was clinging modestly to its last morsels of pink. It was time to make the famous Ham and Coke soup!

My thoughts were that the sweetness of the coke mixed with the salty ham would be a bit like the classic Brazilian stew Feijoada, which combines black beans with smoked beef, orange juice and other sausages and meats. Therefore, I spiced it accordingly; cumin, carrots, onion.... It certainly needed no salt! I used just one pound of beans, and when the soup was done, although truly delicious, I needed to add more beans to balance the flavors. The recipe I have given corrects for this.


Ham and Coke Black Bean Soup

For Soup:
Leftover Stock from Ham in Coke, strained
(4 quarts or more - if you don't have enough, add some water)
2 pounds dried organic black beans, soaked overnight and then drained
1 small piece of ham fat
1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped
4 large carrots, washed and chopped
2 tsp ground cumin

For Garnish:
Whole milk Greek yoghurt or sour cream
Fresh lime wedges
Fresh cilantro sprigs

After you have strained out any unwanted solids from your stock, combine the stock with the soaked, drained black beans in an eight quart stock pot. Add the ham bone, and bring to the boil over high heat; then cover and reduce the heat to a simmer.

Meanwhile, heat the ham fat over medium high heat in a large, cast iron skillet until it gives up enough fat in which to cook. Add the onions and reduce heat to medium. Cook onions, stirring frequently, until they are wilted. Add the carrots, and, stirring frequently, cook until they are just barely tender and beginning to turn color. Stir in the cumin and cook until fragrant, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add the onion/carrot mixture to the stock/bean mix. Deglaze the pan with a ladle-full of stock, scraping the bottom of the pan to get the rest of the cumin and any tasty bits that have formed in the frying pan, and add them to the stock pot, too.

As the beans become tender and the soup nears readiness, take out the ham bone and any big pieces of ham that have fallen off. When they are cool enough to handle, remove any meat from the bone and chop the meat into nice little chunks, 1/4-1/2" in diameter, to your taste. Add them and any other tasty bits back into the soup pot. Save the bones for a doggie friend.

Serve, garnished with a nice big dollop of Greek yoghurt, lots of fresh cilantro leaves, and wedges of lime.

Delicious with - of course - corn muffins! A nice ale or a Rhone-style red wine on the side.... You can choose the vegetable course!

Bon Appetit!

Phoenix Pastificio's Almond Macaroons

I clipped this recipe, developed by Berkeley's artisan pasta shop Phoenix Pastificio, from the San Francisco Chronicle's food section several years ago. Then it sat in my recipe file for quite a while; yes, they sounded delicious, and yes, as a good German daughter I LOVE anything with almond paste. BUT - a pastry bag? And they have to dry for 24 hours? No, thanks. However, after a while I overcame my resistance, and when I finally made the recipe, I found that it really wasn't that much work at all, and they are well worth the effort; these are exceptionally good. Disposable pastry bags are available for 50 cents or so at Spun Sugar on University Avenue in Berkeley, and I hear that a heavy, large ziploc bag really does work well. Counter space is the other serious issue in my house; three cookie sheets are optimum for this recipe, and we have no work space to spare. Not to worry! The cookie sheets turn out to stack easily with cooling rack spreaders in between, or on the racks inside your oven until you're ready to bake them.


p.s. They are kosher for Passover, and gluten-free, too!


Phoenix Pastificio's Almond Macaroons

Ingredients:

3/4 cup egg whites (8-9 eggs)

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

1 1/2 pounds almond paste

1/8 cup (approximately) Meyer lemon juice

Powdered sugar (optional)

(Christine's Notes: High quality almond paste is available in bulk in the refrigerator at Berkeley Bowl, near the bulk section, or in containers from Country Cheese. This is an ideal recipe for using egg-whites left over from a recipe which calls for lots of egg yolks, such as ice cream or custard. When I made these recently I used just such a container I'd had in my freezer for about six months.)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Put egg whites and sugar in top of a double boiler or bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Whisk occasionally, until sugar dissolves and mixture is temperature of a very hot bath, about 15 minutes.

Transfer mixture to a mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer for 5 minutes, then at high speed 1-2 minutes. On low speed, add almond paste in tablespoon-size chunks until completely incorporated, 10-15 minutes. Add lemon juice to taste.

(Christine notes: I used the whisk attachment for beating the egg-white/sugar mix, then switched to the paddle attachment when adding the almond paste.)

Transfer mixture to a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe 2 1/2-3-inch circles onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. If you don't have a pastry bag, put mixture into a heavy-duty Ziploc bag, seal and snip corner to make an approximate 1-inch opening to squeeze mixture through. Let dry at least 24 hours, uncovered, at cool room temperature or in the refrigerator.

(Christine notes: if you don't have a star attachment, don't sweat it. Just cut off enough from your bag to squeeze a nice, wide ribbon, and, starting from the center, pipe it around in a spiral/snail shape until you've reached the right size.)

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325°. Use a spatula to remove macaroons from baking sheet and shower with powder sugar, if using. Return cookies to baking sheet. With your thumb and forefinger, gently squeeze perimeter of each macaroon to break the dry skin in a few places so cookie can expand while baking. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Remove to a rack and let cool.

(Christine notes: I haven't dared take the raw cookies off the sheet to sprinkle sugar on them - they seem mighty squishy underneath, and bound to fall apart if I tried this. I just skip this step. When I've seen these cookies for sale at the Phoenix Pastificio table at the Saturday Berkeley Farmers' Market - for $4 apiece - the sugar looks really pretty. But the cookies are very rich and very sweet - no need for more.

Per cookie: 175 calories, 4 g protein, 25 g carbohydrate, 8 g fat (1 g saturated), 0 cholesterol, 20 mg sodium, 1 g fiber.

The Whole Hog: Easter Ham in Coca Cola

Easter certainly seemed like an excellent excuse for selecting a big ol' ham from our collection of pig parts. I picked out the biggest one I had - 13 pounds - and commenced to invite a lot of friends over for dinner. Then came decision-making time; how should I cook it? When you have a good ham from a good pig, you really can't go wrong simply baking it and serving it with the classic sauce my Daddy always made (mustard, mayonnaise, and brown sugar.) But my friend and fellow pig-shareholder Ondine had told me about how she had baked one of her hams in Coca Cola, resulting in rich and flavorful meat, and that the cooking liquids had then made a delicious black bean soup base - ooh, sign me up! She had been meaning to write it up for the blog, but time had gotten away from her; she referred me to the Nigella Lawson recipe she had used.



Crazy as it sounds to us northerners, cooking meat in "Co' Cola" is a classic southern technique, and I had recently made and enjoyed a phenomenal Mexican-style beef stew with (of course) Mexican coke, which is made with cane sugar. (American coke is made with corn syrup. Feh.) Also, at my last job I worked with a number of Filipina women who had waxed poetic about whole pig roasted in Seven Up, so my mind was open to the idea. So, after doing a little research, I decided to go for it. There are many different recipes out there, most of which call for glazing the ham, then baking and basting it with the Coke. British celebrity chef Nigella Lawson starts her version of the recipe by confessing that she first made it as a joke, expecting it to be disgusting, but now has a hard time making it any other way. Her version calls for braising the ham in Coke on the stove top for some hours, then glazing it and baking it. She does, however, say that she often skips the glazing and baking part, opting to just cook it in the Coke for longer.

After much deliberation, I braised the ham in Coke in my large enameled cast iron Dutch oven, then glazed and baked it. Nigella Lawson's recipe calls for glazing it with a tablespoon of "black treacle" - blackstrap molasses - topped with Demerara sugar and powdered English mustard. I used my own variation of Daddy's classic ham sauce; I mixed brown sugar with both dried and prepared mustard, smeared it all over the top, and baked it in a foil-lined roasting pan. It was quite delicious, a huge hit with the guests, and frankly, I wouldn't know it was cooked in Coke if I hadn't been told. Ham is already a sweet meat which is complemented by additional sweet glazes and sauces; the Coke is actually pretty mild compared to the classic application of pineapple rings in heavy syrup and super-sweet glazes.

As for that definition of eternity as "two people and a ham" - so far we have absolutely no data that corroborates this famous quote. Although I wondered if I might come to feel that way as I packed away the somewhat substantial leftovers on Sunday night, on this the following Saturday, we are now down to a (generously upholstered) ham-bone. On Monday night, I made a pasta dish with cream, shallots, white wine, Parmiggiano Reggiano, and ham. Johanna (our nine year-old) happily ate grilled ham and cheese sandwiches every night this week for dinner, while I ate it fried (Joel was at a conference in San Francisco all week, eating at restaurants with colleagues.) The fried surfaces of the ham caramelized beautifully and intensified the delicious flavors. And last night, as we polished off the last of the fried rice with ham (recipe soon to follow) I had made the night before, Johanna was heard to wistfully remark that she wished that "eternity was two people and a ham. Then we would never run out of it."

Today, as I write, the ham bone is nestled in among the black beans as they cook in the leftover braising liquids; it looks and smells divine. (Recipe also soon to follow.) Ah, ham; gone again so soon.


Ham in Coca Cola
A Southern Classic: Adapted from Nigella Lawson's Version

For the Ham:
1 Fully Cooked Ham (Please get one from a sustainably raised pig)
2 Liters of Coca Cola made with Cane Sugar (available at Latin specialty stores)
1 large onion, peeled and halved

For the Glaze:
1 heaping TB molasses
2 tsp dried mustard powder
2 TB Brown or raw sugar

Or:
2 TB Brown sugar
1 TB Dijon mustard
1 tsp dried mustard powder

Put your ham, fat side down, with the cut pieces of onion, in a Dutch oven large enough to hold it and the cola. Add the cola to the pan, bring it to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to the simmer and cook it, partially covered. Allow 1/2 hour per pound of meat.

While it cooks, cover your roasting pan with foil to make sure that you can clean it later!

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees at the appropriate time, (close to when the ham is done braising) and when the meat is braised, turn off the burner. Stick your carving fork in to remove the ham from the liquid (be sure to save the liquid for the soup yet to come!) - and put the ham in your roasting pan, fat-side up. If you have excessive fat on the ham, carefully remove it from the ham using your carving or chef's knife; it will come off easily, as everything will be quite soft now.

If you are using the molasses-based glaze, smear the top with the molasses, then combine the sugar and mustard powder and pat the dry mixture onto the molasses until it sticks.

If you are using the prepared mustard glaze, combine all three ingredients and spread them on the top surface.

Pop the ham into the hot oven and bake until the glaze is bubbly and lovely, about 10 minutes.

An excellent accompaniment is, of course, corn muffins (see my earlier post) or biscuits.

Wine match: A Riesling or Gewurtztraminer, Prosecco or other fruity/sweet white wine blend is an excellent match. We enjoyed ours with an Alsatian white.

Bon Appetit!

The Whole Hog: Time for Meatballs!

Well. If you read my last entry (Sausage-making party with Ondine) then you know the happy news that I now have 10 pounds of freshly made sausage in my freezer; this breaks down to approximately 3.5 pounds of spicy Italian, 3.5 pounds of sweet Italian, and 3 pounds of Mexican-style chorizo. That doesn't sound quite as nuts as it did when you heard I was making 15 pounds of sausage with Ondine, now does it? Somehow, when you divide it up at the end, you look at it and say, "Well now, that's really not very much sausage at all. We should have made more!" and then you catch yourself and say "Get a grip, girl."

So now that we have all that great product in the freezer, it's time to do something with it. In addition to the 3/4 of a pig in the freezer, I also have 1/8 of a grass-fed, organic cow I bought from Mike and Sally Gale of Chileno Beef (http://www.chilenobnb.com/beef.html) in there. Let me be frank; since reading about how industrial beef cows are processed in Fast Food Nation I will never buy pre-packaged, commercially ground hamburger again. And after I read about how meat animals are raised commercially in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma I have tried very, very hard to buy all of my meat directly from ranchers. So it's a darned nice thing to reach in my freezer and take out a pound of hamburger that I know is safe, sustainable, healthy, and delicious, take off the compostable paper (!) wrapper, and get to work. Today's Menu: meatballs.

I like meatballs. I really do. Once again, however, here is a tasty food item where you look at most of the recipes and say to yourself "Self, that looks like waaay too much work. Next!" You know, grate, soak, mix, shape, THEN brown, THEN braise. So, when I found this recipe a few years ago, I was sold. It skips the browning step, instead braising them in some good quality canned tomatoes, but the flavor - the flavor does not taste like you skipped any steps at all. The sausage adds a delicious complexity to the flavor and texture, the meat juices and Pecorino Romano cheese mix with the tomatoes as they bake and flavor the sauce, the sauce thickens and becomes rich as they bake. It takes very little time to mix these simple ingredients together, and then you pop them in the oven, where they tend to themselves while you make the rest of the meal, stress-free. It's a winner!


Old-Fashioned Meatballs in Red Sauce
adapted from The Simpler the Better by Leslie Revsin with Rick Rodgers
(reprinted in Gourmet Magazine, October 2005)

Serve with a nice batch of soft polenta, over pasta, or on some nice crusty bread - do I need to say more?

For The Meatballs:
1 pound grass-fed ground beef (15% fat)
1/2 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage
1/3 cup plain dry bread crumbs, combined with 1/3 cup water
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly grated black pepper
1/4 cup freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese

For The Sauce:
1 large can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes (I highly recommend Muir Glen brand)
1/4 tsp salt
Plenty of freshly ground pepper to taste

Garnish:
1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano

Remove meats from the refrigerator 30 to 60 minutes before cooking, if possible. Remove the sausages from their casings. (Ha! Remember what I said in the sausage recipe? Now you can congratulate yourself on NOT putting them in casings!)

Place bread crumbs in a large bowl and stir in 1/3 cup water. When absorbed, blend together with eggs, garlic, 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper.

Pre-heat the oven to 425 F. Add the meats to the bread crumb/egg mixture and combine well with your hands. Form into 16 to 18 even-sized balls. As you make them, lay them in a single layer in the bottom of an 9x13" heavy baking dish, separating them by about 1 inch.

Mix the salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper into the tomatoes, and pour them over and around the meatballs. Then sprinkle the tops with the grated cheese garnish. Bake in the center of the oven until just cooked through, around 20 minutes.

A note on the cheese: Freshly grated cheese really is the tastiest, but pre-grated is alright in a pinch. Please note that if you use a micro-plane (a kitchen must-have!) the volume is greater than with a "regular" grater, so don't be skimpy - there's nothing wrong with a little extra cheese!

Whole Hog: Sausage Making Party with Ondine

When I buy an animal from my rancher friend, Mary Pettis-Sarley, (barngoddess@dishmail.net) one of the first things I think about is sausage. Having a few pounds of sausage in the freezer, whether pork or lamb, is like having a pile of money in the bank. When you come home from work, the gym, ferrying the kid home from swim class or some other event with precious few creative brain cells available to conjure up what you will make for dinner that night, you can quick-thaw some sausages and make something truly tasty in a flash. They are splendid on their own, as a flavoring agent for soups, sauces or beans, combined with vegetables such as broccoli for a filling in a calzone, or served over a delicious whole-grain such as polenta, brown rice, or bulghur wheat - or of course, pasta. With that in mind, I asked the butcher to cut up one of the hams instead of smoking it, with the intention of committing it to sausage-making.

It is indeed true that sausages take some time and effort to make, and there was a time (not so long ago) when I wouldn't have dreamed of making them myself. I still buy and stockpile a number of different flavored sausages that I do not make myself from the local, sustainable charcuterer The Fatted Calf. It's also true that casings are not readily available to the public, and that injecting the filling into the casings adds another time-consuming step. Plus, it seems like most recipes involving sausage seem to start with "first remove the casings from the sausages..." So I say, skip it and make some patties! Joel had some strong feelings in favor of our using casings, so to humor him, we chose to make links out of one of our three varieties. All that said, sausages do not take much high-level skill, and when you grab a friend or two and have a sausage-making party, it's a blast! One person can measure the spices while the other feeds the meat into the grinder. Then one can feed the seasoned, ground meat into the chute while the other makes the links. And finally, one person can make patties while the other makes the packages. Meanwhile, once you've gotten past the brief bit of concentration required to calculate the spicing quantities, you can yak away and get caught up on things while your hands do the work.

So, on a recent school vacation day, I invited my friend Ondine, a 25% stake-holder in this year's Duroc breed pig, to come on over for a sausage-making event. She arrived with five pounds of cubed pork and some seasonings. I, meanwhile, thawed out ten pounds of pork, and checked to see if the casings I purchased from Niman Ranch five years ago, and had been storing in heavily salted water in the deep freeze, were still good - they were (!) I gathered my recipes, doused my meat-grinding attachment for the KitchenAid mixer in boiling water, and got ready to go to work.

Having agreed that Italian-style sausages are one of the major backbones of cooking, we chose sweet and hot Italian sausages to be our main products for the day, and Mexican style chorizo as our third variety. Then, our first order of business was to cut the meat into strips that would fit easily into the feed tube of the grinding attachment for my mixer. As we cut, we assessed whether or not we needed additional fat; we agreed that a little more backfat from my stash was needed to reach the desired ratio of 3/4 of a pound of fat to 3 pounds of meat. (Of course I asked the butcher for all of the fat - I'll be making lard later!)

If you are making sausage, it is easy for your inner Puritan - (or the voice of your mother) - to jump in and say "No! No more fat! No, I said NO! That's enough!" But here's why it's necessary to hush that joy-killer up: first, be aware that home-made sausage is way leaner than most store-bought sausage. Bruce Aidells, in his Complete Book of Sausage, states that commercial sausage can contain from 30 to 50% fat. His recipes, meanwhile, range from 15 to 25% fat; compare that to the ratio for store-bought lean hamburger, which is 15-22%. When you cook the sausages, the fat melts right out and can be drained off (or left in for flavoring or as a sauce base.) However, if you decide to craft lean sausages, there is no fat to be released in cooking, so, needing to give off something, the sausages give off their other juices instead, leaving you with a very dry, tough, piece of (well-spiced) meat. Also, do you remember the discussion of good pig fat in the introductory "Whole Hog" entry? (http://foodierthanthou.blogspot.com/2010/01/whole-hog-around-pig-in-80-ways.html) Executive summary: pig fat is much better for you than you might think. If you've bought a nice, clean living pig, why not indulge in a little of its tasty fat?



Here are our recipes:

New York-Style Spicy Hot Sausage
from Bruce Aidells' Complete Book of Sausage


This is a well balanced spicy sausage - a great all-purpose blend which goes well in tomato sauce, on pizza, or with broccoli.


3 lbs pork butt, cut into long pieces, about 1" wide
3/4 lb pork back fat
2 TB anise-flavored liqueur, such as Sambuca (optional)
2 TB anise or fennel seeds
1 TB minced garlic
1 TB red pepper flakes
4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/4 cup water, as needed
Medium hog casings


Combine the pork and fat with the liqueur, anise seeds, garlic, red pepper, salt, black pepper, and cayenne in a large bowl. Grind everything through a 3/8" plate. Moisten with the water, and squeeze and knead the mixture until it is well blended. Stuff into casings, and tie into 5" links (or make into 1/4 lb. patties.) The sausage will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator, or 2 to 3 months in the freezer.



Tavella Family's Sausage
from Sunset Magazine, November 2003

This sweet sausage is unusual in its use of cinnamon and nutmeg as its main seasonings. This gives it a lovely aromatic, nuanced flavor.

1/4 cup dry red wine
2 tsp pickling spice (bay leaf, juniper berry, mustard seed, whole allspice, peppercorns, whole cloves,whole mace, cinnamon stick, cardamom seeds, pepper flakes, ginger)
5 lb ground pork butt (shoulder) including around 20% fat
2 TB salt
1 1/2 TB fresh ground black pepper
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg


Step 1: In a small saucepan, bring wine and pickling spice to a boil. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Pour through a strainer into a large bowl; discard solids.

Step 2: Add ground pork, salt, pepper, cinnamon and nutmeg to the bowl. Mix very thoroughly with your hands to distribute spices evenly.

Step 3: Shape about 1/3 cup (3 oz.) pork mixture into an oval-shaped patty about 1/2" thick. Place on a waxed paper-lined baking sheet. Shape remaining mix into patties, separating them with layers of waxed paper.


Homemade Chorizo
from California Rancho Cooking by Jacqueline Higuera McMahan

Ms. McMahan, an eighth generation Californian, grew up on one of the last Spanish land grant ranchos in the San Francisco Bay Area; this is one of her family recipes. The classic way to eat this tasty sausage is with eggs and tortillas.

2 lbs. boneless pork with some fat
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp cumin seed, crushed very fine
1 TB sea salt
4 to 6 TB powdered red chile, preferably New Mexican, Californian, or mixed, or powdered red chile and pureed chipotle en adobo
1 to 2 tsp chile seeds, reserved from whole chiles (optional)
1/4 cup paprika
1/2 cup red wine or cider vinegar
2 TB port wine

Grind the pork, using the coarse plate in the meat grinder.

Combine all of the spices, then add to the ground meat and work it in well with your hands. Let the mixture meld in the refrigerator for 24 hours; the flavors will intensify as it sits. Freeze excess in either patties, or small packages.

Christine's notes: Due to the high content of spices and liquids, this sausage is very loose and will fall apart when cooked. The vinegary scent as this cooks is divine....