I took the cured tenderloins out of their bags today (after 9 days) and stuffed them (wait…) into beef middle casings I’d soaked overnight.  It worked pretty well, except when I’d bought the tenderloin I’d paid more attention to shape (not having a narrow end that dried out too soon) than to size.  The result was that one of them wouldn’t fit all the way into the casing, and another wouldn’t go in at all.

As a result we have an experiment: 4 nearly identical tenderloins, two in casings, one in a casing that’s open at one end, and one just bare naked.  We had a comment in the beginning from brandon that said

“dont even bother stuffing the lonzino into a casing…….just cure it then hang it”

So I did, poking a hole in one end and tying a string through it.

Time will tell…

Before I put away the photos and documents littering the floor of my office, I thought I’d scan this one of my Great-Grandfather Henry Hohorst’s store at 80 Monticello Avenue in Jersey City:

He’s the second from the right, in the bowler hat.  Look closely, you can see the sausages hanging next to the hams along the ceiling to the right.

I’ve been using the terms Lomo and Lonzino interchangably, but I’m realizing that’s wrong.  You may remember that, flush with the success of the first pork tenderloin I cured, I went out and bought four more, rolled them in spices (using the same base recipe from the Cured Meats blog, with cinnamon, clove, fennel and allspice) and put them in the fridge to cure.

It was only after talking to Chris this weekend that it occurred to me that maybe I should have used some other spices to try something new.

Everyone who tried the first one had the same reaction: “Ummm”,  “UMMMM!” and then… “it tastes like Christmas”.  And who wants Christmas every day?

So I went on line and looked around for recipes, and found some for a French version with only garlic, salt and pepper, and a Spanish one that is called Lomo de Embucado (with pimenton, naturally).  The latter, of course, is the one I eat in Spain, but there it just sits in a pile with no labels on it.  I served some to my in-laws (who live on the Costa Brava) and they said “Oh, Lomo”.  “Lomo”, of course, just means “loin”, and usually refers to beef.  “Lomo de Cerdo” is pork loin.  “Embuchado”, according to Google, means either “sausage” or “electoral fraud”; I’m assuming the first is closer for our purposes, but probably not an exact match.

So today I bought two more tenderloins (on sale at the A&P) and am planning to do a Spanish and French version.

I also harvested the rest of the Sopressata today, and tasted the smallest of the new Chorizo, which was done.  It’s spicier than the last batch - if only I could remember which brand of spices I used for both!

I pulled the Lomo (pork tenderloin) out of the cabinet this morning.  It was probably ready yesterday, but I didn’t have a spare moment (between filing taxes, lunch in the city with Michelle & Liz, the matinee of Hair with Kate and drinks with Marcus, Bruce, Michelle and Tom after) to deal with it.

My expectations were low because of how unevenly it was drying - it’s tapered at one end, and that end was hard as a rock last weekend, while the fatter end was still soft.

To my surprise, it’s fantastic!  The meat is like silk, with a rich deep red color and some strong spice flavors, like the juniper.  I’m planning on picking up three or four more later today at the store and starting another batch.  What a spectacular alternative to dried sausage!  Just need to find more uniform tenderloins (and they have to be small, to fit in my casings).

Sopressata is doing fine, but still a little soft.  Coming up on three weeks.  Some of them may be done, but I tied them in strings of three sausages, and they’re not all ready to come out.  The humidity seems to be holding at 70-75 percent without much help from the humidifier.  What a difference it made when the weather warmed up.  Chorizo looks nice as well, although I worry that I might have pulled it out of the fermenting room too soon, or not have had the temperature high enough, as they seem a little softer than I remember the others.  Hopefully just my fretful imagination.

I was up early this morning and, with the meat JJ and Oliver cut up yesterday, made another batch of Chorizo.  I think it will be my best batch yet.  Everything went smoothly, and I didn’t forget any ingredients.

I ended up with 3.2kg of meat, and used a spreadsheet I’m building to recalculate the other ingredients.  I added some fat as well, but ground everything together through the small die.  They look great, and I was done before JJ was up for breakfast (which isn’t saying much).

For breakfast we made buttermilk pancakes with the buttermilk from making the butter last night and the last of the Bratwurst we’d made in January and frozen.  I’m ready for the big car ride.

I know this is a sausage blog, but I’m going to talk about butter anyway.

I’ve been making bread upon occasion for some time, based on Mark Bittman’s story in the New York Times about No-Knead Bread (Click Here to read the stories and the recipe if you don’t already know about them).  Last week Mark ran a story on his blog about making butter (Here), claiming it was incredibly easy.

Turns out it is.  I took a quart of heavy cream and left it out overnight.  Then I chilled it (which may or may not have been necessary) and whipped it in my mixer with the whisk attached.  After it got through the whipped cream stage, it started to clump, then BANG!, it broke and the buttermilk appeared.

I kneaded in 1 tsp of table salt, which seems to be just the right amount, put it in ramekins and covered each with parchment paper before putting them in the fridge.

I happened to be making bread for dinner tonight (or, I guess, I chose today to make butter because I was making bread).  I don’t know if it was the bread or the butter, but the two together were out of this world.  I was ready to forego dinner and just eat bread.

With so much other food around I thought we might have one of the loaves of bread leftover.

Not a chance.

The plan for today was a big batch of Chorizo, but last night both Louise and JJ came home from college.  JJ brought one of his roomates, Oliver with him, and Louise’s friend Mark came over to join us for dinner.

After dinner we got to talking about making sausages, and Mark, who is South African but who lives in Montreal, started talking about Boerewors (literally “Farmer’s Sausage” in Afrikans).  So, we decided that we’d make Chorizo AND Boerewors.

We had a ball, made a huge mess and vastly complicated my life, given that we had 14 people coming for dinner.  I never got around to the Chorizo - that’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning… before I drive JJ and Oliver up to Burlington and back.

Mark had to leave just as we were cooking up a portion of our efforts, but here’s JJ and Oliver digging in:

Enjoying Boerewors

For the record, here’s the recipe we used, an amalgamum of several I found:

• 2 lbs Beef Chuck
• 2 lbs Pork Shoulder Butt
• 1 lbs Pork Fatback
• 1 Clove Garlic, minced
• 1 Tbs Worcester Sauce
• 2 Tbs Kosher Salt (Diamond Crystal)
• 1 Tsp Ground Pepper
• 2 Tbs Coriander Seeds, scorched and crushed
• 1/2 Tsp Ground Nutmeg
• 1/2 Tsp Thyme
• 1/2 Tsp Ground Allspice
• 1/4 Tsp Ground Cloves
• 1/2 Cup Red Wine Vinegar

Harvested the second batch of Chorizo today, and if anything it’s better than the first.  Not sure about the hand-cut fat though - I don’t really like it much better than I did the first time I tried it.

Good thing it turned out - the first batch is long gone.

The Second Batch of Spanish Chorizo

Both the Sopressata and the Lomo are looking good.  Wish I could say the same about the Fuet.  Traumatized by a bad childhood, it may never reach it’s true potential.  It’s mushy, I think a sign it didn’t ferment properly.

My Great Grandfather, Jurgen Heinrich “Henry” Hohorst arrived in New York from Rittehude, Germany when he was 13.  He settled in Jersey City and first had a vegetable stand, then a butcher shop.  He also had the first milk home delivery service in Jersey City, and one of my Aunts or Uncles has some H. Hohorst milk bottles.

Recently I opened up a package of old documents and pictures and found this one of the store on Communipaw Avenue in Jersey City.  That’s him on the left.