How Do You Say Spicy Beef in Greek

Photograph by Holly A. Heyser

Every yr or so Holly and I host a Greek-themed, springtime hootenany we phone call our Large Fatty Greek Parties. We roast goats and lambs, eat octopus, sometimes grill sardines. But the mainstay of the party food is always this more than or less traditional Greek loukaniko sausage.

Loukaniko is an ancient sausage, dating dorsum to Classical times. Present it is a roughly footing Greek state sausage that, like any land sausage, has lots of variation depending on the region and the cook.

The only constants I could discover afterward researching these links is that they must include pork, garlic and citrus peel. Fennel is common, equally are cinnamon and leeks. You'll often see either white or red wine in the mix, as well. The dominant flavors are usually the orangish zest, garlic and coriander. Yous definitely taste the Mediterranean in this link.

Many versions of loukaniko are mixtures of both pork and lamb. I don't often have lamb in the firm, just I do take venison every bit a stand-in, so my mixture is about two-thirds wild boar with i-third venison trimmings. You can alter that ratio as much equally you want.

Loukaniko is best cooked on a grill over an open up burn down. But you lot tin use information technology in stews or cook it in a frying pan, also.

SOME SAUSAGE-MAKING NOTES:

• Make certain everything you bargain with — meat, liquids, equipment — is very cold, every bit in close to freezing. This actually matters, not then much for sanitation, although that'southward of import, merely for the final texture of your sausage. Warm ingredients won't bind well.
• If you don't have a sausage grinder and a sausage stuffer, I really don't recommend you endeavour this recipe. Only if you must, you tin pulse the meat in small batches in a food processor and stuff it through a wide funnel.
• You lot will demand hog casings for this sausage, although I suppose if you kept kosher and wanted to skip the pork shoulder and use sheep casings, that'd work fine. Soak 5 to half-dozen lengths of hog casing (about 1o to 15 feet) in warm water for at least 30 minutes earlier you begin stuffing.

• You will need a rack to hang these links on while they are drying. A mitt-wash drying rack works well.
• Yous may demand string to necktie off the links, if you demand to hang them in a way that doesn't allow your twisted links to stay twisted. Have this handy, along with scissors.
• You volition also demand a needle to prick your sausages once they are hanging — this is to release any trapped air. Y'all will see air pockets on some of your sausages. Prick these with your needle. Sterilize it in the burner of your stovetop.
• Try not to eat them the same day. All sausages gustatory modality better the twenty-four hours after they have "cured" in the fridge overnight. These sausages will in fact cure a bit because of the Instacure, but even without it the link with firm up and hold its shape meliorate after it rests.

Greek Loukaniko Sausage

Many loukaniko recipes call for smoking the links, or at least drying them for a couple days. If you exercise this, add together a pinch of Instacure No. i, a nitrite that helps the flavor and protects the sausage from bacterial issues while it smokes at low temperatures: Typically I smoke several pounds of these links for several hours to an internal temperature of about 155ºF before finishing them with a kiss from the grill.

Prep Fourth dimension two hrs

Cook Fourth dimension 3 hrs

Full Time 5 hrs

Course: Cured Meat

Cuisine: Greek

Servings: xx links

Calories: 340 kcal

• ▢ ane 1/2 pounds lamb or venison trimmings
• ▢ two 1/2 pounds pork or wild boar
• ▢ 1 pound pork fat
• ▢ 32 grams kosher salt, about iii tablespoons
• ▢ four grams Instacure No. 1, about 1 rounded teaspoon (optional)
• ▢ 25 grams carbohydrate, virtually 2 rounded tablespoons
• ▢ v tablespoons minced fresh garlic
• ▢ i tablespoon basis coriander seed
• ▢ ane tablespoon croaky blackness pepper
• ▢ 2 tablespoons fennel seeds
• ▢ 1 tablespoon crushed dried oregano
• ▢ 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• ▢ 3 tablespoons grated fresh orange zest
• ▢ one/ii cup white or red vino
• ▢ Hog casings

• Chop your pork and lamb into crude, one-inch chunks. Mix in the salt, curing salt (if using) and sugar and grind through a coarse die on your grinder. Put this in the refrigerator overnight if possible or for at to the lowest degree an hour. The step helps the sausage bind to itself when you stuff it.

• Set bated one/2 of the coriander, black pepper and fennel seeds in a small bowl. Soak your hog casings in warm water. Put the vino in the refrigerator. Brand sure all your grinding gear is cold.

• Mix the remaining spices with the meat and fat and grind the meat a second time into a bowl. You can grind coarse again or go fine. Your selection. I do one-half-and-half. Set the basin for the meat into another bowl full of water ice if your room is warmer than 70ºF. Once information technology's ground, put the meat in the freezer and clean up.

• Go out your stand mixer and find the heavy paddle to it (not the dough hook). If you lot don't have ane, put the meat mixture in a large bin and so y'all can mix it past hand. Add the orange zest, reserved spices and the wine and mix the sausage well for two minutes, or until it forms a pasty, cohesive paste. If you are doing this with your hands, they should ache from the cold.

• Get out your sausage stuffer, which if you've been smart has been living in your fridge or freezer for the past few hours. Fit information technology with the appropriate tube and stuff the sausage. Exercise it all at in one case earlier you twist information technology into links.

• To twist into links, starting time at one end and compress the meat into the casing, then tie off the casing. Measure out a good-sized link, then pinch with your fingers. Do the aforementioned another good-sized link down the curlicue. Once you take them both pinched, twist several times to tighten the link well. Repeat on downwardly the line of the whorl, and so tie off the final link later compressing it, too. One time you've finished, hang the links so your twisting does non come undone, or tie off each link with string. Utilize the needle to prick any air pockets, and compress the meat in the casing to fill those pockets; be careful or yous tin rupture the casing if you do this as well roughly.

• Hang your sausages to dry for virtually 2 hours in a normal room, merely 1 hr if the room is warmer than 75ºF. Ideally, you hang the links overnight at about 40ºF.

Calories: 340 kcal | Carbohydrates: 3 m | Protein: xx g | Fat: 27 one thousand | Saturated Fat: 10 yard | Cholesterol: 78 mg | Sodium: 674 mg | Potassium: 341 mg | Cobweb: 1 thou | Carbohydrate: 1 g | Vitamin A: 12 IU | Vitamin C: two mg | Calcium: 28 mg | Iron: 2 mg

Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the cyberspace'southward largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and melt. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

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Source: https://honest-food.net/loukaniko-traditional-greek-sausage/

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