Be on the lookout when traveling...

[Dark Cloud]

Two weeks ago the wife and I were on an overnighter out of town and stumbled upon an "old world polish deli". It was awesome! We bought kielbasi, kieshka(blood sausage), perogis three ways - tater n cheese, mushroom, and w cabbage, hunter stew, halupki, tripe soup, pickled mushrooms...

Then today we had to go to a doctors(alls ok) about 2 hours from here and we founds a butcher shop that has been in business since 1936 that specialize in german stuff.

We ended up with smoked and fresh bratwurst, bockwurst, liverwurst, ring bologna, tater salad, 3 kinds of sauerkrout, chicken-bacon-ranch bratwurst, bacon, just ground horseradish, and cabbage rolls. They had just about every german and european meat going. Cant wait to go back.

We made potato pancakes to go with everything...

No solid recipe but we have these typically with kielbasi...

grate 4 or 5 taters on an old style box shredder, use the holes that are about pencil sized.

To this add 2 eggs, some milk, some flour, and salt n pepper. Stir it all up and spoon and flatten onto a med/high griddle with some oil on it. Your looking for a pancake consistancy w/ the shredded potato in it...

Most of us like these with sour cream. The wife like ketchup.

[reinhard1]

i love potato pancakes. thanks for your recipie [mine's about the same]. we have a market downtown. the owners are polish/ukranian. they have a popular deli also with fresh and smoked sausage. my goal was to make kielbasa and ukranian sausage like they do. i think i finaly got there yesterday. best stuff i ever made. i'ts going to deer camp this year for a quick lunch. thanks for the post and the tasty picture. good luck.

[pushbutton]

My Mrs. always puts applesauce on them........condiment confusion is not a deal breaker though....got to take the bad with the good Always love stopping in off the beaten path places when traveling; can be some hidden gems out there!

[KEN W]

Reinhart.....Can you part with your kielbasa recipe?

[reinhard1]

Ken, i have made a lot of fresh sausage over the years with my own recepies and people seemed to like them. over 35 years plus of fresh sausage. however as i stated earlier i have never made a smoked sausage here at my home. i have operated a large comercial smoker where you just push buttons and it sets the temp, the smoke, the internal temp, and then the cold wash afterwards. since i have not bought my vertical smoker yet [somehow still waiting for this one to go on sale] i did this 25 pound batch in my oven.

i buy my seasonings for summer, salamy, and thuringer from this butcher supply place only 3 miles from home. so earlier in the year i bought their kielbasa reciepe and not the cure and just made it fresh [venison/pork] and my "testers" [neighbors/family] loved it.

so i wanted to make a batch for deer camp and i wanted it to turn out as close as i could to getting it right as possible. so as far as meat i had:

11 pounds of venison

10 pounds of pork butt

4 pound of ground beef

pre mixed seasoning [for 25 lb. batch]

1 pack of cure [foran n/n cure]pink stuff [1 ounce]

1 4 ounce jar of minced garlic with the juices

5 cups of dry powdered milk

6 cups of cold water [in this water i also mix the cure in till disolved]

grind the meat through a course plate. then put all the remaining ingrediants in the meat mix. i mix everything by hand well. then i grind everything through a medium plate. i then cover the mix with waxed paper and store it in the downstairs fridge overnight.

the next day i get out my verticle stuffer and soak my hog casings that were salted. i then rinse my casings through internaly using the kitchen sink faucet. then put the casings back in water until needed. i then stuff the links in approximatly 6 or 7 inch links. i do use a sharp needle to poke a couple of holes in each link so they dont burst while cooking.

i use a couple of jerky wire mesh trays in the center of the oven on the rack. on the bottom rack i put foil to catch any drippings. since i made 25 pounds i had to cook them [i guess you can call it baking] in three different batches.

i put the links [laying on the wire mesh] leaving them linked together but not touching each other. oven was set at 220 deg and took aproximatly 2 hrs until the internal temp reached 160. i put two meat thermometers in a couple of links lengthwise [right down the middle]. also checked the internal temp with a instant read thermometer as well.

when done i put the links imediatly in cold water for about 10 minutes to prevent wrinkling and shrinkage. the internal temp was 89 deg when i took them out. i then hung the links to dry [outside on some rope i set up]. then put in the next batch of links and repeated everything.

i let them dry outside maby 15 minutes or so and then brought them inside to wrap 6 links per pack in freezer paper, and labeled and dated them.

since i used seasoning from this supplier near me PM me for their address and phone number. i dont know if they ship or not. if not PM me and i will send you some plus the cure. i like my reciepies, but if i find something on a particular sausage that is better i will use it. all i can say is the way i made it was excelent. next time when i do this i will grind the meat as described above through the course plate, mix all the seasonings like above, but do one thing different just to try it out.

after grinding the meat once through the course plate and mixing all the ingrediants like above i will grind half the mix through the coarse plate again and the other half through the medium plate as i done above. then stuff and cook. just want to see the difference in texture. i should add in the 6 cups of water not only do i mix the cure a i also put the garlic in there as well. good luck.

[KEN W]

Now that's my kind of Kielbasa.....lots of garlic.But I prefer it smoked.Not as likely to taste the venison if it is smoked.Let me know if you prefer it coarse or fine ground.

I also add the garlic to the water.Along with the powdered milk.

I don't go any higher than 175 degrees to keep the fat from rendering out.

[reinhard1]

i hear you on the smoke, but like i said until i get my verticle smoker the oven will do. i have the barrel type grill/smoker with the fire box. i was going to put the sausage there and try it, but i was concerned with the one chimney on one end would give me uneven heat since the chimney draws most of the hot air on one end or am i wrong on that. maby i will do half a batch in the barrel smoker and give it a shot. i can maintain 220 deg from the firebox so that 175 should not be a problem. good luck.