It seems to me, I finally managed to find a recipe for the ideal cooked sausage. Surely, being an ambitious fighter for the minimum use of food additives, like flavorings and colorants, I’ve been looking for a recipe which nearly completely excludes the use of the ingredients mentioned. My «charcuterie friends» advised to take as basic recipe so-сalled «sausage bread», another words, uncoated paste put in a plain cooking mould.
Ingredients:
Semi fat pork — 1 kg Beef — 1 kg Salt — 2.1%
Sugar — 0.8%
Black pepper fried and molted in large pieces — 0.7%
Ground coriander — 0.6%
Garlic — 0.5%
Cold water — 230 ml.
I chopped the meat in cubes 1,5 — 2 cm, salted pork and beef separately and left for 2 days. Then the beef was passed through a mincing machine with 2 mm disks. And after the remaining spices were added I mixed the beef with the pork. You should stir it hard and long time without letting the temperature of the meat goes up. On top of that, I used a stand mixer kitchenAid, constantly pouring cold water to the paste. When the water was absorbed by the meat paste and the latter became very sticky, I put an iron tray on the table, greased my hands with oil and started throwing the meat ball down the tray with all my force and care. This way the excess air was knocked out and it was easier to put the meat paste into the cooking mould. I put the mould into the fridge for 24 hours so that the spices could «open» its aromas to flavor the meat.
Next day I heat the water up to 75 C, put the mould with the meat into it, stuck a thermometer into the center of the paste and left for relaxing and reading facebook. As soon as the temperature of the meat paste reached 72 C, I took the «brick» out of the mould and put it on the tray into the oven under 180 C for 10 minutes. The purpose was to get a more thick crust so that it wouldn’t dry in the fridge.
The taste of the product satisfied me as it was the one I’d been searching for, bright and moderately spicy. The «brick» can be perfectly frozen as it doesn’t lose its form and taste. The only disadvantage is that after you cut a slice, due to the contact with air the meat changes its color and becomes grey. But it doesn’t influence the taste at all.
The only way to preserve the color is to add the nitrite salt though I try to use it only with the products which pass through heat treatment. So, I can be absolutely sure my charcuterie products do not contain a hint of chemical additives and it makes me even happy.