First time making Summer sausage and Mortadella - Result: almost disaster
Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2020 18:06
Hi guys! Hope you're doing well during these crazy times.
So yesterday I attempted to make summer sausage and mortadella with no experience (yes yes! I should have tried something easier but I just love to put myself on the fire trying new things). So I had 1,5kg of pork shoulder in the freezer and I decided to make a 500gr summer sausage and 1kg of mortadella.
I used two recipes I found somewhere on the web and I had to tweak it a bit because where I am from I can't find all the spices like mace and caraway (just to name a couple). I stuffed the sausage in pork middle and the mortadella in pork bung. Both were scalded at 70ºC until 65ºC in the centre.
For the meat I used:
1200gr of lean pork shoulder.
300gr of back fat.
All the meat and fat were parcially frozen (300gr of back fat and 1200gr of lean meat). I ground the meat and fat together and put it back again in the freezer.
I mixed in a cup:
20gr salt
6gr sugar
7,5gr citric acid (5gr/kg according to the manufacturer) - The recipe stated that it would give a nice fermented-like tang.
4,5gr cure #1
I mixed everything with the meat and back to the freezer.
At this point I separated 500gr for the sausage and the rest for the mortadella. I started to work the sausage while the rest of the meat was in the freezer.
For the sausage I used:
20gr crushed ice
10gr of spices (I used garlic, yellow mustard, basil and coriander) - I did not measure how much of each.
I mixed everything by hand. Now, I have to say that I mixed for 5min and the meat didn't get sticky. Yes, I am aware that I should have mixed for a bit longer but the kitchen was very hot (33ºC) and I was having some pain in my leg (I had ankle surgery recently) so I decided to stuff it. After this, back to the freezer.
For the mortadella I used:
40gr crushed ice
20gr of spices (I mainly used nutmeg, yellow mustard and coriander with a bit of clove, cinnamon and cummin).
I mixed the spices with the meat by hand and then put everything in the food processor. It run for approximately 5min until I saw it was like a sticky -homogeneous pink dough. I added the crushed ice in 2 rounds. After the 5min the meat had a temperature of 15ºC. I stuffed it in the bung and then tied it. Then back to the freezer.
I heated up water until it was 75ºC and threw both the sausage and the mortadella. The water was at 68ºC the whole time.
- I took out the sausage after 1hr (it had an internal temp of 66ºC).
- The mortadella was there fo 1hr48min with internal temp of 65ºC).
After I took these out of the hot water I put them in a bowl of tap water (at 25ºC) and after a couple of minutes I threw them in the fridge. I cut them open today.
Now.... I was so happy that I was finally making these (after 3 months of recovery from the surgery). Surprise surprise!!! The sausage didn't look as a summer sausage and the mortadella... well, it looks like anything but a mortadella.
- The sausage has a great flavor... that was 1 point for me. But look pale and it falls apart when I cut it or press it with my fingers. At this point I thought I had it coming because I dind't mix long enough.
- The mortadella... oh boy! It bloody broke my heart. It is pale, falls apart when I cut it or press it. It doesn't taste like mortadella but it's not bad at all. If I think of it as something different than mortadella it's not bad at all. It just ugly!
I don't know what I did wrong (maybe the whole process from thinking of doing them until the end? ). The good thing is that I still can eat them somehow.
Anyway.... I thank the person who is reading this line because I suppose he/she read the whole thing (I know I write a lot and my english is not the best).
My best wishes to you guys! Cheers!
So yesterday I attempted to make summer sausage and mortadella with no experience (yes yes! I should have tried something easier but I just love to put myself on the fire trying new things). So I had 1,5kg of pork shoulder in the freezer and I decided to make a 500gr summer sausage and 1kg of mortadella.
I used two recipes I found somewhere on the web and I had to tweak it a bit because where I am from I can't find all the spices like mace and caraway (just to name a couple). I stuffed the sausage in pork middle and the mortadella in pork bung. Both were scalded at 70ºC until 65ºC in the centre.
For the meat I used:
1200gr of lean pork shoulder.
300gr of back fat.
All the meat and fat were parcially frozen (300gr of back fat and 1200gr of lean meat). I ground the meat and fat together and put it back again in the freezer.
I mixed in a cup:
20gr salt
6gr sugar
7,5gr citric acid (5gr/kg according to the manufacturer) - The recipe stated that it would give a nice fermented-like tang.
4,5gr cure #1
I mixed everything with the meat and back to the freezer.
At this point I separated 500gr for the sausage and the rest for the mortadella. I started to work the sausage while the rest of the meat was in the freezer.
For the sausage I used:
20gr crushed ice
10gr of spices (I used garlic, yellow mustard, basil and coriander) - I did not measure how much of each.
I mixed everything by hand. Now, I have to say that I mixed for 5min and the meat didn't get sticky. Yes, I am aware that I should have mixed for a bit longer but the kitchen was very hot (33ºC) and I was having some pain in my leg (I had ankle surgery recently) so I decided to stuff it. After this, back to the freezer.
For the mortadella I used:
40gr crushed ice
20gr of spices (I mainly used nutmeg, yellow mustard and coriander with a bit of clove, cinnamon and cummin).
I mixed the spices with the meat by hand and then put everything in the food processor. It run for approximately 5min until I saw it was like a sticky -homogeneous pink dough. I added the crushed ice in 2 rounds. After the 5min the meat had a temperature of 15ºC. I stuffed it in the bung and then tied it. Then back to the freezer.
I heated up water until it was 75ºC and threw both the sausage and the mortadella. The water was at 68ºC the whole time.
- I took out the sausage after 1hr (it had an internal temp of 66ºC).
- The mortadella was there fo 1hr48min with internal temp of 65ºC).
After I took these out of the hot water I put them in a bowl of tap water (at 25ºC) and after a couple of minutes I threw them in the fridge. I cut them open today.
Now.... I was so happy that I was finally making these (after 3 months of recovery from the surgery). Surprise surprise!!! The sausage didn't look as a summer sausage and the mortadella... well, it looks like anything but a mortadella.
- The sausage has a great flavor... that was 1 point for me. But look pale and it falls apart when I cut it or press it with my fingers. At this point I thought I had it coming because I dind't mix long enough.
- The mortadella... oh boy! It bloody broke my heart. It is pale, falls apart when I cut it or press it. It doesn't taste like mortadella but it's not bad at all. If I think of it as something different than mortadella it's not bad at all. It just ugly!
I don't know what I did wrong (maybe the whole process from thinking of doing them until the end? ). The good thing is that I still can eat them somehow.
Anyway.... I thank the person who is reading this line because I suppose he/she read the whole thing (I know I write a lot and my english is not the best).
My best wishes to you guys! Cheers!