Schlachtfest – Intro to German Sausages

Time spent in Germany would not be complete without making some sausage.  At first glance, the process and the handling can be quite overwhelming; but as I have learned throughout the weekend, the process does not have to vary too much, and the balance of ingredients is of utmost importance.

Hamburgers

We started out simple on Friday evening with a mix of beef neck and some pig jowls.  The idea behind this combination is that the “American way” to make burgers is with beef, but we needed the extra fat content of the pig to make the patties stick together.  The goal in this mixture was approximately 10 percent animal fat (by weight) – this was done purely by sight.  Also used was a patty press, which seems to be a totally unnecessary kitchen tool.

Gehacktes

Saturday morning brought on a new set of sausages.  Gehacktes, or hackfleisch, is a pretty straight forward, with a goal of approximately 10 percent animal fat.  For this sausage, we used the fatty loin of the pig as well as some neck.  Combined with the meat, a helping of garlic, onions, much salt, and pepper round out the flavor.

Leberwurst (Liverwurst)

While the processing of gehacktes takes a couple hours, leberwurst requires a couple hours of the boiling of the meat prior to processing.  This “softening” of the meat allows for a finer grind as well as a smoother final product.  Neck and back were the primary cuts of meat used.  As one can surmise, the key ingredient in leberwurst is a pig liver.  The goal is to use approximately 25 percent liver by weight to the total bill.  I am told the range can be from 15 to 30 percent.  Fat is also important, being at least 10 percent of the total bill.  The liver can be boiled or raw; our sausage had it cooked (not boiled) for only a couple minutes in order to draw out the blood.  The liverwurst also contains one large onion per kilogram of meat.  A handful of garlic, a lot of salt and a good amount of pepper finished off the base liverwurst.  We then divided this base into four in order to create some variety of flavors: dill, cream, roasted garlic, and cured pork.

Canning

The gehacktes and leberwurst were canned instead of filled into casing.  I do find it interesting that pig casing (and goat casing) is hard to come by – the demand is high and butchers take most of the supply.  Jars are equally acceptable, but I am told that when boiled (the final step of canning), the jars have a tendency to fall over, break, and not heat through evenly.  So, cans it is.

Any blood that is still in the meat will rise to the top of the can during the boiling process; this will be a bit disturbing when one goes to consume the product, so it is best to eliminate as much as possible during processing (i.e., cook the liver a bit before incorporating).  Also, the cans are boiled for about two hours either on the stove top in a large stock pot or in a shallow pan in the oven.  This canned gehacktes is not raw.

Schlachtfest

Saturday night was hopping in Tabarz, where a local guesthouse (i.e., restaurant) was hosting a Schlachtfest where the cook wows the guests with his dexterity of serving pig parts.  It was impressive; I have not had the opportunity to try some of these pieces before.  Many of the odd ones were fatty (Backe = back, Schulter = shoulder, Bauch = stomach, Kopf = head/jowls) and some were tough (Leber = liver, Nier = kidney).  The knuckles (Eisbein) are generally delicious.  And the Blutwurst/Rotwurst (sausage with a generous amount of pig blood) and Sulze (sausage with meat suspended in rendered fat) are also always a hit.  This was where all-you-can-eat meets you-are-what-you-eat.

Ich war satt.