Cocktail Confessions

Following on the tails of the previous entry (they were originally together, but my beer memories grew too lengthy), here’s my take on homemade sausage.

It’s another hobby I really enjoy.  There’s a lot of creative freedom in making your own sausage, the marrying of fresh meats such as pork and beef with all those fresh ground spices.  It’s very satisfying to stuff your own casings and see how very plump and juicy they are, and you know how fresh your ingredients are.  There is absolutely no comparison when it comes to store bought, pre-packaged sausage and the stuff you make on your own.  There’s no sulfates, preservatives, colorings, or questionable cuts of sub-par filler meat you have no idea what part of the animal comes from (lips and assholes anyone?).

And like brewing your own beer, there’s definetly some bragging rights somewhere in the mix when you can cut off your own links and grill ‘em up for your friends.

I was never too keen on breakfast sausage.  It’s okay, and I’ll eat it, but I normally don’t go for the little maple infused breakfast sausages.  They always taste either a bit too greasy or to burnt for my liking, and I know the meat in those comes from questionable sources.  I’m also not a fan off too much fennel seed, or sausages that have been frozen weeks ago in their travels to the store.  A lot of larger grocery chain stores will have their own ‘mild’ or ‘spicy’ Italian sausages, but I always think they lack the flavor I’m really expecting.

My favorites include the oh-so-bad-for-you Mexican Chorizo, and German (or is it Polish) Kielbalsa?  Of course a good beer-brat with grilled onions on an artisan roll is also divine.  And if you make your own beer, how can you deny the perfect synergy of craft beer and sausage…they go togother like Lindsey Lohan and….well…everybody I suppose.

Just over 7 years ago, (even before I started brewing my own beer), I got a small electric meat grinder by Rival, I think.  I even bought a book of professional sausage recipes that went way beyond just pork and beef.  There were exotic game ones that included venison, ostrich, boar and some to be made with poultry and veggies such as artichoke hearts and others that incorporate other mixtures such as pesto or a tapenade.

I also made them pretty traditionally, that is with actual hog casings (meaning cleaned intestine lining) and not this artificial paper-esque collagen stuff.  I used to go to a local butcher an get a few pounds of both beef and pork, and often needed to call ahead of time and ask them to same my all the back fat they could (a required ingredient for ‘real’ sausage making…by controlling the fat..you’re controlling the amount of flavor and moisture you introduce into the mix). 

And not being satisfied with over the counter spices that may have been sitting in my pantry for years on end, I even bought my very own stone morter and pistal to grind my spices and release their fresh aromas and oils.  You can’t beat the taste or smell of freshly milled spices, and that’s the sign of an above average sausage.

I made a chicken and artichoke pesto sausage once.  Turned out pretty good, but I was super nervous handling the chicken and keeping it cool while I worked.  Stripping raw meat off the bones was harder that you think as chicken tends to get a little slimy, and can cause major food poisoning if not handled correctly.  You must clean all your surfaces both before and after, at least twice, and I suggest using those new Lysol or Clorox towelettes to clean counter tops to avoid any change of contamination.  I’ve had food poisoning from bad and uncooked chicken before…..it is the worst!!

Of course, the beer infused ones are even better, because often during my mixing process, the recipe may ask for a few ounces of beer.  So what do you do with the rest?  Well, drink it of course.  I don’t think I ever made a round of sausage in my kitchen that I also didn’t have a buzz going on from Negro Modelo.

It was a sad day about 5 years ago when I made a fatal mistake of becoming lazy for a moment and put the plastic stuffing tube into the dishwasher.  It was only after I ran the dishwasher did I realize that the spinning arm inside took a chunk out of it and deformed it, and thus my electric grinding and sausage stuffing days were over….

Until now.

Today I found two replacement universal stuffing tubes on Amazon.com for the low, low price of $9.98.  I added it to my electronic shopping cart (as well as a copy of WoW: Cataclysm for all you gamers out there), and now I’m already salivating at the idea of breaking out my old grinder (wife says it’s in the garage somewhere….I’ll try and find it this weekend.) and getting wrist deep in ground meat in the coming weeks.  Oh the joy of soon calling my long lost friend, the butcher, to once again request he save me 2 pounds of back fat and make sure he has about 10 feet of hog casings.  I’m actually looking forward to making a nice spicy summer sausage.

This past weekend we celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday with a BBQ at our house. Not only was it a celebration of her birthday, but also a few of our neighbors birthday’s as well that all fell around the same time frame these past two weeks.

I’m not exactly sure how and when it happened, but it seems that our house is the goto house for parties as of late, since our other neighbor picked up his family and moved out to Texas last year.  See, we used to have block parties that spanned the end of our culdesac street that primarily centered out of his driveway and that of his neighbor. But now that they are gone, the street scene now tends to migrate down to our house. Not that I’m complaining. We enjoy entertaining and hosting cookouts. We have a corner house with nobody behind us, and a nice sized backyard. The only issue for me is I kinda do get tired of cleaning it up the next day. In that respect, I wish my neighbors volunteered their homes a bit more often.

So the main theme was somewhat latin in flavor. We decorated the house and backyard with Mexican themed streamers, banners, and cutouts.  Tacos, Spanish rice, ranch style beans, and margaritas were on tap, but these weren’t your typical tacos. I ended up making two different gourmet style types. The first were three large top sirloin steaks in a citrus-chipotle marinade that were cooked out on the grill and then cut up for easy service.

The second was a slow cooked pulled-pork shoulder that I had marinated in an achiote paste recipe served with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple. All the usual condiments were present: sour cream, shredded cheese, red onions, cilantro, various salsas and hot sauces. Monica happened to make a salad as well, and we had plenty of margarita’s, Jack Daniels, wine, and beer on hand.

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Listen to the podcast on how I prepared the pulled pork, and check out my earlier post on achiote paste and powder to know what it is and how to make. I can tell you it was delicious and I got some solid thumbs up from our guests.  I also discuss the preparation of roasted pasilla/pablano and Anaheim chili peppers (on the grill or in the oven), along with grilled pineapple.  I guarantee the added color and texture of fresh roasted peppers along with the sweet caramelized taste of fresh grilled pineapple bring these pork tacos full circle as a treat to the taste buds.

Monica did very well in the gift department as you can tell by the pictures, that is if you like alcohol as a gift. The more I think about it though, it may appear that by the amount of Crown Royal she received, one would think she has a problem. But I’m sure that Crown will be used up by everyone in future parties and I’m sure I’ll have a slug here and there.

As the night marched on, one of our friends Anthony found himself taking a liking to the Jack Daniels…perhaps a bit too much…and we had an entertaining ‘exit’ show as his wife (who drove) was rounding him up to leave.  There were plenty of hugs to go around initiated by Anthony, as well as multiple ‘good-byes’ and the almost wipe-out of our entertainment center which includes a 42″ plasma television, blu-ray player, stereo system, XBox and Wii gaming systems.

Even later when the natives got restless an impromptu session of Rock Band 2 broke out, with yours truly attempting to sing, and sing badly I did.  Girls took turns playing the drums and guitar and even singing.  Needless to say, there were plenty of pictures taken and all had a good time. 

The part at its peak was about 30 people strong, enjoying each other’s company, the outdoor fireplaces, drinks, jokes, games,and of course, food.  It wrapped up by 1:15am, and I did some preliminary cleaning until I finally crashed at 1:45.  The next day consisted of cleaning the house and resting.

Show Notes:

• Intro Song: Cumbia De Los Muertos (track 3) of the self-titled debut album, Ozomatli.
  

  Ozomatli

• Pulled Achiote Pork preparation along with roasted peppers and grilled pineapple.
• The Crown Royal Easter bunny.
• Anthony almost takes out the entertainment center.

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