Cooking all over the World: IDEAS IN FOOD

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

IDEAS IN FOOD - Other Uses for Sausage

Here are the latest updates for jorgehumbertocoelho.cooking@blogger.com

"IDEAS IN FOOD" - 1 new article

Other Uses for Sausage

In our recent whole lamb workshop we made a delicious lamb-olive sausage. But just making sausage was not enough. We blended some of the sausage with 1% activa RM and then used it as both a filling and a casing utilizing all of the parts from a rack of lamb. When we peeled the exterior cap from the rack of lamb we cleaned it of large pieces of fat and then bonded these flap pieces of fat to the sausage creating a large sandwich. The activa bonded the parcel together which we then cooked sous vide at 57°C for 4 hours. After the crusted sausage was cooked we cooled it down and portioned it into individual rectangles whice we were then able to saute and crisp the exterior while keeping the tender sausage interior. Utilizing the flaps from the rack was something we had not done since we used to make "pancetta" with this cut years ago when we were on the Vineyard. This piece of the lamb also shows potential as both a puffed crackling and noodle. These are paths we will continue to explore this fall.

With the actual lamb meat we cleaned up both sides of the rack and bonded the two racks together into one larger piece and then bonded the sausage around the outside. When the rack was one, we cooked it for 2 hours at 54°C and then proceeded to cool it down. The rack was then seared in a saute pan, being turned often, to brown the sausage crust and re-thermalize the lamb. If we had thought ahead we would have had some liquid nitrogen on hand and a deep fryer to uniformly brown the exterior while keeping the center medium rare. Now we have post-it notes reminding me to have both on hand at all times. The seared lamb was rested on a bed of fresh sage with the fat from the pan poured over the top allowing the aroma of just heated sage to permeate the meat and the room. We seasoned the rested lamb with some flakes of Maldon salt and a hefty pour of grassy olive oil.

Years Past: