Ham Sausage

(excellent sliced and served on sandwiches)

Ingredients:

• Fresh Pork Ham meat – Lean  – 80%
• Fresh Pork shank (cut from Hocks) – 20%

 Spices % of meat weight:

•  Kosher Salt mixed with Cure#1 in 10:1 proportion – 1.7%
• Sugar white – 0.2%
• Black Pepper – 0.1%
• Coriander ground – 0.02%
• Nutmeg – 0.02%
• Water or better Stock from boiling bones and skins from hocks – 9.0%
• Artificial Smokable casing 75-100 mm (3-4 inch) diameter

 Curing:

• Remove meat from the hocks and cut into pieces suitable for grinding. Use bones and skins for making stock (NO SALT).
• Cut Ham meat with knife into 40-50 mm (1.5-2 in) cubes removing any pieces with fat or sinew and separating lean meat only. Keep the fatty meat separately.
• Weight the meats.
• Split Salt mix and sugar proportionally to meat weights and mix them well with meats, keeping meats separately. Place the meats in separate containers and push down to remove all air.
• Place containers in the fridge and cure for 3 full days

Meat Preparation after curing (grinding):

• Ham lean meat – no grinding – already cubed with knife into 40-50 mm (1.5-2 in).
• Fatty and sinew pieces separated from Ham; grind 2-3 times through 3mm (1/8”) grinder plate.
• Meat from Hocks – grind 2-3 times through 3mm (1/8”) grinder plate.

 Meat Preparation (mixing):

• Ham lean meat (cubes): tenderize slightly with meat mallet, add about 20% of bone stock and mix until becomes gluey. Next add ground fatty and sinew pieces and about 30% of bone stock and mix well for few minutes. The added liquids need to be cold, close to 0°C (32°F). Resulting mixture must be gluey.
• Meat cut from Hocks is best mechanically blended with 50% of bone stock using either hand blender or food processor. The meat and liquid must be close to 0°C (32°F) cold and never exceed 9°C (48°F) during processing. Add the remaining spices and keep blending until the meat has gluey consistency and the spices are evenly distributed. Alternatively you can grind slightly frozen meat for the third time by 3mm (1/8”) grinder plate and mix with spices in a mixer or by hand.
• Finally mix all meats by hand or in a mixer very well 5 to 10 minutes. The meat mixture should stick to your hands when mixed properly.

Stuffing:

• Soak the casing for 15 minutes in warm slightly salted water.
• Stuff the meat mixture very tight into casing pushing down and making sure there is no air trapped in the casing. Use needle to prick the casing to remove air. Tie the ends with butcher twine.

Drying:

• Hang in the room temperature for 2 – 3 hours to dry and bring to room temperature.

Smoking:

• Preheat smoker to 40°C (105°F) and place sausage in the smoker.
• Dry for another 30 minutes in the smoker without smoke.
• Smoke with wood of your choice (Cherry suggested), using high density smoke, in 45° C (115°F), for 2.5-3 hours.

Poaching:

• Poach the smoked sausage maintaining water temperature at 75-80°C (167-176°F) until internal temperature of the sausage reached 67°C (135°F) or 10 minutes per 10 mm of thickness (25 minutes per inch)
• Remove and cool down completely in the air.