Homemade Sausage Making

Was up at three this morning to fire up the Pro 100 after brining a half dozen 5.5 lb chickens since yesterday. The birds were shot-up and soaked overnight in CW's famous 7-UP solution, then tossed into the sink to drain for an hour.



I got them all stocking'd up and into the 110° pre-heated smoker at 4am to dry for an hour, just jacked the temp up to 125° and put on a pan of moist applewood. Now I can relax for four hours before raising the temp to 140°, putting on another pan of sawdust, and closing the dampers.

On the way home from Safeway yesterday I stopped at the Asian market to check the price of live Dungeness crab. $5.99lb wasn't anything I was interested in until I saw these large lobsters for the same price. Two four pounders and a little two pound guy along with a artichoke fritatta made the three of us pretty darned happy at the dinner table last night.



I fire'd up five gallons of water in my ten gallon pot on the propane stove in the garage, tossed in a can of 7-UP, and boiled 'em up for 13 minutes, absolutely perfect. It would be great to eat like that every night, but I guess it would be great to drive a Maseratti too. We'll have about a dozen guests over cheering on our mighty Niners this Sunday, I'd better get working on some sausage! RAY

With the leavings of the bugs you did make a bisque of course?

ssorllih wrote:With the leavings of the bugs you did make a bisque of course?

Can't say as I did Ross. We were stuffed after eating the tails and meat from the claws dipped in some drawn lemon-butter. Anything that was left didn't look like anything I wanted to eat, crustacean guts and shells. About the only soups I like to make are split pea and chicken or turkey vegatable, and I only make that during this time of year. I'm probably missing out on something good, dammit. I opened the paper this morning to find whole chickens on sale for 78≠lb a day after I paid 99≠lb for the half dozen going in my smoker right now. I hate that. RAY

Well Ray, you are just going to have to buy some more bugs! What a happy problem to have.

I love to crack open the bodies and eat the tomalley. It's pretty darn rich. Nobody in my family will touch it but myself. When we visit my wife's folks on the Eastern Shore of MD, I get to eat blue crabs, and they have a lot of what the locals call mustard, which is pretty much the same thing I guess. Can't eat too much of it in one sitting, but if you like it, you love it (while others at the table are saying "Ewwwww!").

From Wikipedia:
Tomalley (from the Carib word tumale, meaning a sauce of lobster liver)[1] or lobster paste is the soft, green substance found in the body cavity of lobsters, that fulfills the functions of both the liver and the pancreas. Tomalley corresponds to the hepatopancreas in other arthropods. It is considered a delicacy, and may be eaten alone but is often added to sauces for flavour and as a thickening agent. The term lobster paste or lobster pâté can also be used to indicate a mixture of tomalley and lobster roe. Lobster bisque, lobster stock, and lobster consommé are made using lobster bodies (heads), often including the lobster liver.

Cheers,
Jeff

I'm thinking "tomalley" might be similar to "crab butter", a part of the dungeness that gets eaten by some, but never by me. About the only thing I miss from selling my boat 13 months ago is all the crab we used to take, tho I don't at all miss sitting at a table for hour after hour picking the meat from them. RAY

Hi Ray - yeah, must be the "crab butter" equivalent. Most people won't touch it.

Crab picking should always be a party, if you ask me.

Cheers,
Jeff