South African Russian Sausage
Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:45
Hi All
Hope someone can save me
For a very long time, I've been trying to master a Classic Sausage known here in South Africa as a Russian but I've been met with failure upon failure for far too long. The region I live in doesn't sell very good quality russian sausage however another region in South Africa which is 6hrs away from me sells the best variety of this pre-coooked sausage. Sometimes the 6hr drive seems worthy but I haven't braved the roads yet to go all the way just for Sausage so if someone is travelling by that way, then they know what to get me.
Off course googling around doesn't give you much info because it's only known as Russian here in South Africa but Russian Sausages are something totally different as my poor research proves.
Never the less, a little more digging and I found out that the South African famous Russian Sausage is actually the cousin of a widely known sausage called Polish Kielbasa. I began to narrow down my search further and found several different methods and recipes to make polish kielbasa which actually is an emulsified sausage thats pre-cooked, cooled and then cooked again later when needed.
Not to bore you with too much more detail than what I've already put down, I took a stab at it with the combination of recipes and techniques I found online.
1. Minced Silverside Steak with Beef Short Ribs for the fat. It was a 70/30 mix.
2. Mixed my spices (Salt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Black Pepper, Milk Powder (Binder), and a pinch of other spices.
3. Everything was mixed by hand till the mix became sticky like others have suggested.
4. So Far, I'm working really hard to keep things cold.
5. I now add all of the mixture into a food processor together with crushed ice and process for a few minutes till mixture becomes pasty.(I read about this from Kenji @ SeriousEats). At this point I should definitely mention that the mixture began climbing up the mixer bowl and got lodged into the cavaties of the machine. I definitely overfilled the bowl. Also the mix wasn't all that pasty - it was definitely homogeneous and more like a rough paste than smooth.
6. Thereafter, the mix was left in the fridge overnight then the next morning I filled it into Cellulose Casings and baked in my oven till internal temp hit 71c.
7. I immediately removed from oven then placed in cold water to cool down.
Now comes the problems with the final product.
1. The texture wasn't anything close to what I was looking for. It bordered slightly mushy and grainy whereas the texture I'm looking for is firm and snappy to the bite with plenty of juiciness.
2. When I removed it from the cellulose casing, I found a whole lot of water seeping out from the area between the casing and the sausage.
3. I pan fried some and found grease seeping out of it.
Right now, i'm concentrating on texture mostly so my question is how do you make a Polish Kielbasa that has a firm texture and snappy bite that's still juicy. I don't have any commercial equipment except a small home sized mincer, food processor and a KA Mixer.
Thanks
Hope someone can save me
For a very long time, I've been trying to master a Classic Sausage known here in South Africa as a Russian but I've been met with failure upon failure for far too long. The region I live in doesn't sell very good quality russian sausage however another region in South Africa which is 6hrs away from me sells the best variety of this pre-coooked sausage. Sometimes the 6hr drive seems worthy but I haven't braved the roads yet to go all the way just for Sausage so if someone is travelling by that way, then they know what to get me.
Off course googling around doesn't give you much info because it's only known as Russian here in South Africa but Russian Sausages are something totally different as my poor research proves.
Never the less, a little more digging and I found out that the South African famous Russian Sausage is actually the cousin of a widely known sausage called Polish Kielbasa. I began to narrow down my search further and found several different methods and recipes to make polish kielbasa which actually is an emulsified sausage thats pre-cooked, cooled and then cooked again later when needed.
Not to bore you with too much more detail than what I've already put down, I took a stab at it with the combination of recipes and techniques I found online.
1. Minced Silverside Steak with Beef Short Ribs for the fat. It was a 70/30 mix.
2. Mixed my spices (Salt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Black Pepper, Milk Powder (Binder), and a pinch of other spices.
3. Everything was mixed by hand till the mix became sticky like others have suggested.
4. So Far, I'm working really hard to keep things cold.
5. I now add all of the mixture into a food processor together with crushed ice and process for a few minutes till mixture becomes pasty.(I read about this from Kenji @ SeriousEats). At this point I should definitely mention that the mixture began climbing up the mixer bowl and got lodged into the cavaties of the machine. I definitely overfilled the bowl. Also the mix wasn't all that pasty - it was definitely homogeneous and more like a rough paste than smooth.
6. Thereafter, the mix was left in the fridge overnight then the next morning I filled it into Cellulose Casings and baked in my oven till internal temp hit 71c.
7. I immediately removed from oven then placed in cold water to cool down.
Now comes the problems with the final product.
1. The texture wasn't anything close to what I was looking for. It bordered slightly mushy and grainy whereas the texture I'm looking for is firm and snappy to the bite with plenty of juiciness.
2. When I removed it from the cellulose casing, I found a whole lot of water seeping out from the area between the casing and the sausage.
3. I pan fried some and found grease seeping out of it.
Right now, i'm concentrating on texture mostly so my question is how do you make a Polish Kielbasa that has a firm texture and snappy bite that's still juicy. I don't have any commercial equipment except a small home sized mincer, food processor and a KA Mixer.
Thanks