I first came across German bread spice in the Paderborn Rye bread recipe given in the excellent book “The Rye Baker” by Stanley Ginsberg. It is a wildly aromatic blend of spices (and much more interesting than using just caraway). When I smelled it after a spin in the spice gr, I knew it would work in a snack stick. I decided to add some Butterkäse cheese from Germany via Aldi and reduced the fat to compensate.
This fermented snack stick uses both a barbecue rub recipe and a commercial sauce. The sauce, while low in pH, is not sufficient to lower the pH to a safe range without fermentation. The sauce in the recipe, Sweet Baby Ray’s Original Barbecue Sauce, was chosen for its wide availability. If desired, it can be replaced with a similar sauce.
This is another example of incorporating fruit into a snack stick. Jeffrey Weiss in his excellent book “Charcuteria: The Soul of Spain” gives a recipe for fuet. Fuet in Catalan means “whip” and I thought it would look more like a whip made into a long snack stick. I also thought that the addition of currants might add an element of sweetness to the salami.
The currants were soaked in brandy to kill off any surface yeast on the fruit.
Snack sticks can be flavored with commercially available sauces. Sauces are often high in salt and acid (which act as preservatives), so this must be considered.
This is the first snack stick I’ve made with beef; I used ground beef from the store with some added pork back fat.
Incorporating cheese into full sized salami can be difficult but is much easier in snack sticks. Cheese and salami in one snack is a great combo. I would recommend using the cheese in place of some of the fat (which it mimics).
Snack sticks can be made with dried fruit added. In larger salami the distinct flavor of the fruit merges into the overall taste of the meat. In snack sticks, due to the short drying time, the fruit adds a distinct and delightful note. Yeast, which can be present on the surface of dried fruit, is dealt with by soaking the fruit in high proof alcohol.
Snack sticks offer wonderful opportunities to experiment with new flavors.
This one uses five-spice powder, which is used extensively in Chinese cooking. Here it is used to flavor fermented snack sticks.
It is an original recipe.
Continue reading Snack Sticks – Five SpiceSnack sticks, along with jerky, are an increasingly popular option for people looking for a fast, portable, high protein snack food. Most snack sticks are a cooked product (heated to 68-70 C). Some are smoked and / or dried as part of the manufacture. Fermented snack sticks, on the other hand, are an interesting subset of salami products.
When I started making my latest batch of ASDA clone chorizo it was my intention to photograph everything and create a sort of mini-tutorial. Needless to say when I got involved with making them I forgot to take most of the photos!
I started off with a big chunk of pork collar, also known as shoulder spare rib (US-Boston Butt), and cut it into strips. If you have a small mincer/grinder, you will have to cut it smaller. I prefer strips to chunks, as the screw in the mincer pulls them through with very little need to use the pusher.
The meat with plenty of fat attached was cooled right down and then minced through an 8mm mincer plate.
Continue reading Chorizo
