Sausages with high moisture content

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 19:57

I just turned out a cured sausage which has, among other things, 10%+ fresh onion content. I've hot-smoked 'em, poked holes in 'em, and they're still pretty moist. Where do I go from here? Would a cheap food dehydrator be a good thing to use? Can I just leave it lying around the kitchen for a day or two? (I don't have the fancy temperature + humidity control rigs that you fermented sausage guys have.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Expected reply: I had a friend from New Jersey who drove into "the city" quite a bit. He kept a beat up old car for the purpose, hoping that no one would break in. ...but after a few weeks, someone broke in anyway, and stole his good radio and CDs. ...so he got it fixed, and taped a sign to the dash that said in big, bold letters, "NO RADIO."

Someone broke in a few days later and wrote on it, "GET ONE."

Big Guy · Post by **Big Guy** » Sat Aug 04, 2012 20:04

try leaving them open in the fridge for a few days they should dry out there.

crustyo44 · Post by **crustyo44** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 00:12

Hi,
Obviously you had Cure #1 in the mix. They will dry out nicely in the fridge or outside, depending on the temperature and humidity.
Snagman and me use the fridge for this most of the time with good results.
Let us all know how you go with them, and the recipe. Anything new and I have to try it out, especially if smoking is involved.
Good Luck,
Jan.

Post by **Butterbean** » Sun Aug 05, 2012 06:47

Another thing you can try is to chop your onions up seperately then put them in some cheese cloth and squeeze the water out of them. You'll be amazed at the amount of water you will get out of the onion. Once you do this you will be left with onions with only a fraction of the water in them and no noticeable difference in the taste.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 04:49

I guess I should check the onion weight before and after squeezing, then write "squeeze" into the recipe. Good idea.

I guess I could sweat or saute the onions before use, too, to drive off some moisture, but that would alter the onion taste. ...maybe to the good, rather than the bad. ...gotta try that, too. Maybe a combination of weigh oil& onion, squeeze, saute, dry on paper towel, weigh again would work best.

...anybody out there do this?

tooth · Post by **tooth** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 14:23

If you add some salt when you chop/grind the onions and let them sit for a few hours, it makes the squeeze easier and you'll get even more water out without having to cook the onions. Just remember there's that extra amount of salt going into your recipe.

I do this with cucumbers when I make tzaziki sauce. It makes the end product far less runny.

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Mon Aug 06, 2012 19:14

I'll try it.

Meanwhile, share that tzaziki sauce recipe, and hopefully some more Greek recipes. We visited Greece a year or so back, looking forward to more of the good cooking that the Greek restauranteurs in the Charlotte, NC, area, do. ...especially lamb recipes. It was a great trip.

...got a good loukanikos recipe? I'd sure like to try your version. I can tell by the way that you spell "tzaziki" that it'll be good.

tooth · Post by **tooth** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 00:05

El Ducko,
My tzaziki is pretty darn easy, but I don't measure anything. It's just something I've made by eyeballing it, but I'll give it a go.

Slice a cuke in 1/2, and use a spoon to remove the seeds. The run it through a food processor or shred the cuke down. Add salt and drain off the water. If you're in a hurry, just let it sit salted for a little while and squeeze it out yourself. Otherwise you can let it sit in a strainer as long as overnight, then give it a gentle squeeze to get as much out when yu're ready to use.

Add the shredded, drained cuke to a couple cups of greek yogurt, add some minced garlic (1-2 cloves, 2 will be pretty darn garlicky if you let it sit a day or two before using). Squeeze in some lemon and that's it! You can use as much or as little cucumber as you want, more and it gives it more of a fresh taste. We make a lot of marinated chicken kabobs that we use the sauce on. Its pretty healthy and quick, that's why we like it!

Never tried any loukanikos so can't speak to that. But I did make some gyro sausage that me and a buddy called our "secret weapon". After reading CW's post about keeping sausage secrets, I guess I don't mind sharing

Again, this is going from memory, but I do believe we wrote it down, I'd just have to find it.
50/50 beef and lamb, ground up with a little pork fat back
kosher salt
marjoram
LOTS of garlic
thyme
rosemary
Black pepper
ice water

We tried out a couple spice mixes until we liked what we got. Tested it out by making burgers. They key is to almost overspice it. Greeks use a lot of seasoning and gyros are no slouch, that's for sure. And we even froze some of the gyro burgers since I ran out of casings before we were done. Those were as good, or even better than the sausage because you got more of the char.

Good luck and let me know how it goes!

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 13:25

Thanks. I'll definitely try the gyros recipe. Great comment on the garlic!

We seek out places where gyros is done on a rotating spit, because the char is so tasty. Done on a griddle, it's just not as good. (...although it still beats hamburger by a mile. ...couple of kilometers, maybe?) I'll try it on my grill.

And i think you just convinced me not to stuff it as sausage. Hmmm... Maybe small diameter casing, charred...

tooth · Post by **tooth** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 23:37

I forgot about the oregano as well, that's a staple of greek seasonings.