Make Your Own Summer Sausage!

I've made summer sausage many times, but this time turned out to be the very best summer sausage I've eaten! I made adjustments to both the recipe and the process. I hope you'll try my recipe, make adjustments to suit your own tastes, and get into the habit of making your own meat treats! This is another delicious gift that is always appreciated. Package it up with crackers and cheese, and mmm-MMM! A purely delightful snack to give or receive!

I started out with 4 lbs. of ground venison mixed with 1 lb. of ground beef suet. This was a fine grind. You can substitute ground beef or do a mix of venison and beef, ground together.

Gather your seasonings: onion powder, garlic powder, cracked black pepper, mustard seeds, dried mustard, liquid smoke, Morton Tender Quick and water. You'll also need a fibrous sausage wrap for best results.

INGREDIENTS:

 4 lb. ground venison

1 lb. ground beef suet

1/2 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

5 tsp. cracked black pepper

2 tsp. whole mustard seed

1 tsp. dried ground mustard

4 tsp. liquid smoke

5 T. Morton Tender Quick

3 cups water

First, make a slurry of all the seasonings mixed into the water. Then pour it into the meat.

Using a wooden spoon, mix it well so that the seasonings are well incorporated into the ground meat. 

Chris used 1 lb. capacity fibrous casings with his grinder/sausage stuffer, packed the casings tight with the sausage mixture and then secured the packages with hog rings.

 

Be especially careful to pack the meat in tight. Use a pin to release any air pockets. Then allow the sausage rolls to cure overnight in the refrigerator.           

The next day, position the sausage so that the rolls are not touching each other on an oven rack over a pan or in roasting pan with a rack so that you catch the drippings. Or, lay down a sheet of foil to avoid a mess in your oven.

Set the oven temperature to 170 degrees F and just leave the door open as you gently bring the sausages up to heat. Then, after an hour, close the oven door. Maintain this temperature for about 5 hours. Check the internal temperature of a roll of sausage. You want it to reach 152 degrees. At this point, not quite there, I boosted the oven to 200 degrees for two more hours. When you get the 152 degree reading, remove the sausage rolls from the oven and spray with cold water. Bring the internal temperature of the sausage down to 120 degrees. Refrigerate or package for freezing. The summer sausage, when cooled, will be ready to eat.

Making Venison Jerky

A friend of ours, Shaun, sent some beautiful venison steaks to me with the message:
Do something with it! 

I guess he didn't have time. For us, it was too much for one meal and late at night. The beautiful pieces of meat, about 1/4" thick, had been frozen but were thawed when he sent it. I decided to turn it into jerky. First I needed to gather supplies. Then I needed a seasoning blend.

Supplies: a baking pan, a cookie rack or some other suitable drying rack, a meat tenderizer, a wooden board. Now, when I say meat tenderizer, I mean a tool that looks like a hammer that has a rough face, not a blend of chemicals.

Seasonings that I've made in the past were teriyaki, garlic, and hot and spicy. I make my own blend with a Krups spice grinder, but there are perfectly good blends on the market. For this jerky, I made it mildly spicy, although just being near the blend while I was grinding it could take your breath away. I started coughing! The seasonings I chose were: red pepper flakes, paprika (for another layer of depth and smokiness), salt, and black pepper. Experiment with amounts to suit your taste. Very simple.  (None of those other terms you'll see on Uncle Buck's such as hydrolized soy protein, dextrose, caramel color, potassium sorbate, sodium erthorbate, or sodium nitrate.) I want a product that's good for you, not one that will last my lifetime!

This tenderizer makes seasoning and pounding easy.

Lay the seasoned, pounded pieces on the rack.

Begin by laying out your meat on the cutting board and sprinkling each piece liberally with your seasoning blend. Use the tenderizer to pound the pieces to almost half the thickness. Turn the pieces over, sprinkle with seasoning, and pound. When you're finished, your pieces should be about 1/8" thick or so.

Place on an oven-proof rack on a baking sheet. Put into a 170 to 200 degree F oven for about 4 hours. Turn. Watch them in about an hour and check for dryness. The pieces, still warm, should have a little flex to them. They don't need to be perfectly brittle. As they cool, they'll lose more moisture. Cool completely before wrapping for storage.

The rack allows plenty of air movement so that the jerky won't stew in its broth.

Shelf life depends on the amount of salt you use. Jerky doesn't last long at our house. I put some on the table and then, WHOOSH! It's gone! There are other modern ways to make jerky: You can soak the pieces in a brine. You can use a food dehydrator. I've done those and those methods work fine. The method I've described is easy to do and the result is just as delicious!

Venison Stew, also works for beef and pork, for the crock pot

Step One:  Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan. Add seasonings to flour or cornmeal. Dredge the meat and then brown in the oil.
1 pound of meat, cut into 1" cubes
2 T. butter (or 1 if using beef or pork)
2 T. olive oil (or 1 if using beef or pork)
1/2 tsp. salt
pinch of pepper
dried thyme
flour or cornstarch for dredging

Step 2:  Place meat in the bottom of a crock pot. Add the following and turn hear to high. When hot, turn the heat to low and allow to simmer for 6 to 8 hours.
2 stalks of celery, cut into 3/4 " chunks
3 potatoes, cut into 1" cubes
3 carrots, cut into 3/4 " chunks
1/2 tsp. salt
pepper
3 cups water
You can also add chopped or pearl onions (they look so cute!) or minced garlic. Suit your tastebuds. I do it different ways depending on the people around the table.

Step 3: After all that simmering, add the following. Stir and heat through.
1 cup peas
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tsp. savory
1/2 tsp. ground thyme
1/2 tsp. of tarragon
additional salt and pepper to taste

Step 4: Add a thickening agent.
EITHER
Use 1 T. butter in a saute pan and lightly brown 1 T of flour in it, then add 1/2 cup of water and stir until smooth before stirring into the crock pot
OR
Dissolve 1 tsp. cornstarch into 1/2 cup water and stir into the crock pot.

Turn heat back on high for 10 minutes before serving.
Serving suggestion:  Fresh homebaked bread, fried mushrooms, a glass of cranberry juice. Earthy, full of flavor, and comfy!