Kiełbasa cygańska or Gypsy Sausage

Darwin
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Kiełbasa cygańska or Gypsy Sausage

Post by Darwin » Mon Aug 11, 2014 05:18

Hello
I purchased a few links of Kiełbasa cygańska from a local Polish grocery store and I thought it was very good.

After doing a bit of searching (Google & Books) I can not find a recipe, can anyone point me to a source or share one with us? It reminds me of Wedding sausage (weselna), maybe a bit more coarse in texture. This one seemed rather simple, mostly garlic and a hint of pepper. The lady told me it was double smoked, thus the near black casing.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
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redzed
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Post by redzed » Mon Aug 11, 2014 06:10

I have heard of this sausage many times but have never tasted it, Strangely enough, I can't find a recipe for it, even though there are numerous versions out there selling it in the US and Poland. I will post a query on the Polish site, I'm sure someone there will help you.

Google comes up with a gypsy salami here:

http://swiat-wedlin.pl/przepisy-na-wedl ... -cyganskie
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Post by Darwin » Mon Aug 11, 2014 20:49

Thanks redzed, that is very kind of you.
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Post by el Ducko » Wed Aug 13, 2014 03:53

I couldn't stand it- - I had to put Mister Google to work on it. Translation as follows.
From the "mature or cold smoke for about 6 days" statement, I surmise that a short natural fermentation takes place. The author doesn't give details about drying, but it may be that weight loss due to drying during the 6 day period drops the Aw to a range suitable for inhibiting bacterial growth.
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Salami cygańskie {Gypsy Salami}
Needed ingredients:
● 1.5 kg beef,
● 0.5 kg bacon,
● 40 gm peklosol,
● 16 gm ground pepper (white and black),
● 8 gm sugar,
● 6 gm ground paprika,
● 2 garlic cloves,
● sausage casing, hog 34/36 (length 4-5 m)

Method:
Clean beef thoroughly of tendons and fat. Then finely grind - sieve with a mesh of 4 mm. For the stuffing add spices, sugar and finely chopped garlic. Then mix everything very well. After making, stuff thin pork casings (length {of links} 50 cm), tying the ends with string.

Wywałkować {prick?} sausage on the pastry board to get rid of air. At the end of sausage {making} hang in a cool place to mature or cold smoke for about 6 days. Gypsy Salami tastes great as a side dish for sandwiches, as well as cooked to heat.
Experience - the ability to instantly recognize a mistake when you make it again.
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Post by redzed » Wed Aug 13, 2014 06:16

Hey Ducko, that is not a bad translation! The recipe comes from collection of official recipes used in Poland during the Communist era. There is a bit more to it since there were standardised production procedures as far as cold smoking and environment for curing, fermenting, drying etc.

The ingredients in that salami recipe could very well be converted to a smoked sausage. I would only cut the sugar in half. And again, boczek here should have been translated into side pork (pork belly).

Darwin, the Polish members have been working on finding recipes and so far three interesting versions have been contributed. I am traveling these days so I don't have time to condense the discussions and translate anything, but will do so when I have better internet access and time. Can you give us a better description of the gypsy sausage you had? Type of casing, appearance, dominant flavours, texture, pork, beef (or maybe horsemeat) etc.
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Post by Darwin » Thu Aug 14, 2014 04:11

Hi redzed,
No rush on a recipe, its way too hot down here for anything but hot smoking or better yet to just eat salads. The sausage I had was on the bland side from my perspective, pork and garlic were the dominant flavours that I picked up on. maybe a very subtle hint of marjoram. It was pale pink on the inside and very dark on the outside almost black and a lot like the 'wedding' sausage (could have been the same). The lady told me it was double smoked and made in Chicago. It was definitely a sausage and in pork casing.
again, no rush on my account and thanks a bunch, greatly appreciated.
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Post by redzed » Sat Aug 30, 2014 18:52

The gypsy sausage question intrigued me so I did lot of research on the subject. Several members of the Polish forum also did a bit of digging. It turns out that what is called "gypsy sausage" differs considerably from each commercial producer in Europe and in North America. I suspect that the sausage Darwin feasted on might have been a style of Csabai. The nearly black casing seems to be the variant that makes it a "gypsy sausage". I am still working on finding out how to achieve that black finish on the casing. It is unlikely that it's from using conifers in smoking (such as in traditional black forest ham), since any significant amount of smoke from that type wood produces a bitter flavour. My 90 year old father who was a butcher and still makes sausage (last week I helped him make 120lbs of sausage), unfortunately was not familiar with that process. Maxell posted that it is usually achieved by painting the casings between smoking sessions with blood or a specific mixture. I would bet that it is the latter, and I will find that out soon. The black forest ham you see at the supermarket is probably made with using such a colourant since commercial products are usually smoked very lightly so that they lose as little weight as possible.

Image
I found this picture of a product described as "Kiełbasa cygańska (keeyehw-BAH-sah tsih-GAIHN-skah) or gypsy sausage is a dark, deeply smoked sausage made with seasoned pork, salt, pepper and garlic that is best eaten at room temperature as an appetizer.

Below are four recipes for gypsy sausage, none of which duplicate Darwin's sample, but nevertheless sound interesting and something I will try in the future.

Gypsy Sausage #1

Gypsy Sausage No 1.
This sausage, Zigeuner Brühdauerwurst was submitted by Polish forum member Jagra and came from a German sausage forum and from the website operated by the large sausage making supply firm Wiberg. I translated it frm German with the help of Google. Unfortunately the preparatory instructions are brief since they were aimed at commercial producers. Smoking temps are also on the high side.

Recipe for 1 kg
250g Class 2 beef
400g Class 4 pork
300g Class 3 pork
50g ice water
20 g Nitritpökelsalz (use 2g Cure #1, and 18g salt)
2g mincing seasonings (This is a commercial product but can be replaced with ground mustard seeds)
2.5g black pepper
1g nutmeg
0.7g coriander
2g mustard
0.5g caraway
1 clove of garlic
5.0g sweet paprika
3-5g chili powder

Grind pork and beef through a 6mm plate. Add water, salt, cure and spices. Stuff into casings (size not specified) Dry in smokehouse at 60-65C (140-149F). Smoke at 65-70C (149-158F), finishing at 78C (172F)until IT reaches 70-72C (158-161F). Cool at 13-15C (55-59F) and 75-80 relative humidity.

The finished sausage will look like this:
Image

Gypsy Sausage #2

This sausage called in Slovak Čabajská klobása (Csabai kolbász) was suggested by Pacan Wojciech, Polish forum member. He translated the recipe from Slovak to Polish and I then translated it to English. Wojciech worked in Slovakia at one time and there this Csabai was commonly known as a Gypsy Sausage. The sausage was made from large, heavy pigs, weighing over 150kg.

Recipe for 1kg
700g pork shoulder
300g oversized pork belly
18g salt
2g Cure 1
20g ground sweet paprika
5g ground hot paprika
4g crushed garlic
3g grams of whole cumin

Grind the meat and bacon through a medium plate (10mm) The paprika is to be of the lighter colour variety. Neither pepper or all spice are added. All the ingredients are mixed and stuffed into thinner hog casings. Allow the sausage to set/dry until the next day. Smoke for 8hours with a fruit wood such as sour cherry, peach, apricot, but the best is wood from and old hollow willow. The sausage improves after 4-5 days in the fridge or even freezer.

Gypsy Sausage #3

This recipe submitted by Gregtom, also from the Polish WD forum who translated it from German to Polish and I translated it into English. It probably is not what Darwin is looking for, but I thought it was interesting, especially since it is marketed in Germany by a producer named Klaus. It's an emulsified high fat content product but has a nice spice combo, so it should be tasty. Note that the sausage is poached only and not smoked. However, I see no reason why it can't be cold smoked for a few hours after cooling.


300g Class 1 pork (lean without sinew)
200g Side pork/belly
500g Side pork/belly (cube this portion into 1.5cm pieces and add to the emulsified meat)

20g Salt
2g Cure #1
2g Brown sugar
4g Sweet paprika
2g Cayenne powder
2g Smoked paprika
1g Coriander
1g nutmeg
1g Granulated garlic (or fresh according to taste)
1g Celery salt (celery flavor)
2g Ascorbic acid (vitamin C)
4g Mincing spice mixture (This is a commercial product but can be replaced with ground mustard)
250g crushed ice

Cure the cubed bacon with the salt and cure # 1 with a small addition of the granulated garlic overnight. Grind the rest of the meat and spices through the smallest plate twice. Add crushed ice and blend/emulsify and cool in the fridge. After it has cooled down, mix vigorously with the cubed bacon. Stuff firmly into artificial 50 - 75mm casings. Poach at 80C (176F), for one minute for each millimeter of the diameter of the casing, plus 10 minutes (for safety purposes). After poaching cool the chubs immediately in ice water and hang them to dry.

This sausage made by Klaus looks like this:
Image

Gypsy Sausage #4

This is the Salami cygańskie (Gypsy Salami) that El Ducko posted above. I just tweaked the google translation, changed the cure to NA standards and proportions for 1kg of meat. For us calling it a salami is a bit of a misnomer. From what is described in the recipe, the ingredients, the beef and the narrow gauge casings point to what we know as pepperoni. The sausage is dry cured or cold smoked, and to avoid failure a starter culture such as Bactoferm LHP should be used.

● 750g beef,
● 250g side pork/belly
● 18g salt
● 2g cure #1
● 8g ground pepper (white and black),
● 4g sugar,
● 3g ground paprika,
● 1 garlic clove,
● 34/36mm hog casings

Trim off fat and sinew in the beef. (makes this Class 1 meat) Grind the beef and pork finely with a 4mm plate. Add spices, sugar and finely chopped garlic. Then mix everything very well. Stuff into thin pork casings, tying off individual sausages of 50cm (20 inches).

Roll the saugage on the cutting board. Hang finished sausage in a cool place to mature or cold smoke for about 6 days. Gypsy Salami tastes great in sandwiches, or heated.

Below is a picture of the Gypsy Salami produced in Poland by the firm Haga:

Image
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Post by Gulyás » Sat Aug 30, 2014 19:23

In Hungary the Gypsy Sausage was more like kiska. (kiszka?)

http://www.kolbaszfesztival.eu/20/ciganka
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Post by Gulyás » Sat Aug 30, 2014 19:28

Hey neighbor, we are going to kill a pig, but we need a little help......

--------What do you need, some dishes/knife?

No, we need a pig....... :mrgreen:
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Post by Darwin » Sat Aug 30, 2014 20:55

Redzed, Thanks for all of the above, it is greatly appreciated. :wink:

I have not been able to find out anything that would be useful to this query. As it seems to be a non standard formulation I will let it go. I did not have the Gypsy and wedding sausages to taste/compare at the same time so I am not sure how much they differ from this producer. It may have been the same sausage and the lady was confused... I dunno.

The Kiełbasa weselna will do just fine for my needs as it seems to be the most smoked of the bunch. I am sure I will kick the pepper level up a bit on the second batch. The colour of the Gypsy sausage was the same to me as the Weselna, so I would think they process is the same.

http://www.piast.com/products/wedding-kielbasa
Image

Any way... today is all about college football. Back to the games. :mrgreen:
Ya'll have a great day and thanks again.
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Post by Darwin » Sat Aug 30, 2014 22:39

Gulyás wrote:In Hungary the Gypsy Sausage was more like kiska. (kiszka?)

http://www.kolbaszfesztival.eu/20/ciganka
Isn't that a blood sausage? I like to think I would try anything once, but I am still a bit squeamish about a few things. To this day I have not tried the boudin noir. :shock:
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Post by Gulyás » Sat Aug 30, 2014 23:38

Darwin,

In the "old-time", it was very important to use up everything/every part of the pig, lard was the most important, because that's what they used for cooking all year.
So it's called many different names.
So boudin is hurka in Hungarian, and it's known as kiszka, also kishka, and so on........but basically 2 kinds. The white one without blood, or the one with blood. But there are as many variates as stars in the sky. Everybody made it for their own taste, just like sausages.
Some links to see......one picture worth a thousand wolds........ :mrgreen:

http://www.kulinarisvilag.hu/hun/recept ... isznotoros

http://veol.hu/eletmod/ciganyka-es-kenomajas-1597422

https://www.google.com/search?q=hurka&c ... 80&bih=867

https://www.google.com/search?q=kiszka& ... 80&bih=867

In my opinion they were much better than eating the bark off the tree trunk when I was a kid, after WWII.
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Post by Darwin » Sun Aug 31, 2014 00:22

Gulyás wrote:Darwin,
In the "old-time", it was very important to use up everything/every part of the pig, lard was the most important, because that's what they used for cooking all year.
...
In my opinion they were much better than eating the bark off the tree trunk when I was a kid, after WWII.
I understand completely. The more I learn the more similarities I see.
Thanks for the info and links. :wink:
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Post by redzed » Mon Sep 01, 2014 06:50

Gulyás, that is interesting that the Hungarians call their version of blood sausage "gypsy Sausage". And strangely enough, the Polish and Hungarian word for gypsy is very close, yet the two languages are unrelated. What all this means is that there is no clearly identifiable universal gypsy sausage. The only constant here is that the sausages are all very dark in colour! Another one that apparently has also been attributed to the gypsies is the Romanian Mititei, a skinles beef and pork sausage heavily seasoned with garlic, caraway and paprika and grilled over wood coals.

Any gypsies out there who could help us out?
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Post by snagman » Mon Sep 01, 2014 06:58

redzed wrote:What all this means is
.............That the Poles nicked the recipe from us mate :shock:
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