Chicken Bog Sausage Burger

1500 g Chicken meat and fat from 10 chicken thighs
600 g Cooked rice (1 c cooked in 2 c chicken stock)
27 g Kosher salt
4.2 g Finely ground white pepper
4.2 g Powdered bay leaf
7 g Chopped fresh parsley
8 g Chopped fresh chives

Spread the cubed chicken meat on a tray and partially freeze.  Mix the chicken with half of the cooked rice, the salt and spices.  Grind through a coarse plate if using a sausage grinder or process in small batches if using a food processor.  Mix sausage meat with the remaining rice and herbs until uniform.  Shape into 2.5 oz. (70 g) patties or into 5 oz. (140 g) burger size patties or stuff into sheep casings.  Yield:    4.5 #, or 29 sausage patties at 2.5 oz.

Information about Carolina Gold Rice and other heirloom grains can be found on the Anson Mills website (along with a recipe for chicken bog).

Serving size 5 oz.
Calories 144
Fat 9.4 g
Cholesterol 87 mg
Sodium 858 mg
Protein 20.8 g

A picture of the finished burger can be seen here: https://www.localfoodheroes.com/a-new-era/

Other chicken recipes:

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Over the years the thread has grown as Paul has added further recipes to it. I encourage you to read it as it shows quality products made using best practices.

It’s not until now that I’ve got around to making any myself – it’s something quick and fairly easy in salami terms that I’ll be making regularly.

The ones on the left are fuet from the recipe by Jeffrey Weiss in his book Charcuteria – The soul of Spain and the others are an adaption of Paul’s cheese and Worcestershire sauce recipe using local Red Leicester cheese and Henderson’s relish – a sauce from Sheffield similar (and superior) to Worcestershire sauce. As I’m about equidistant between Sheffield and Worcester I could claim either as being moderately local!

The cheese ones show what happens if you don’t mix them enough – they’re lacking in bind and have a looser texture. The Fuet are far nicer in the mouth. Both would benefit from a little less fat and to be ground slightly finer – I used a #8 (5/16″) plate in my mincer/grinder – a #6 (¼”) or even a #5 (3/16″) would be better. Other than that, I’m very pleased with them.

We ground the meat using a #8 hole mincer/grinder plate and added the other ingredients including the culture which had been dissolved in a little pure additive-free water. We’ll use a #6 hole mincer/grinder plate next time.

We stuffed it into 24-26mm sheeps’ casings.

We tied them into lengths – quite long ones in this case as is traditional wih fuet.

The sausagemeat left in the stuffer tube was kept wrapped in cling-film (food wrap). It was put with the salamis to ferment at 24°C to allow the culture to work and reduce the pH. I have a box set up to do this in; it has a lightbulb to heat it; I was too lazy to ask one of the lads to get it from the loft so I used my bain-marie with an external thermostat to control it – a mistake that I won’t repeat. Due to the mass of water the temperature overshoots and undershoots the desired temperature by a large margin.

After 26 hours I tested the pH of the sausage mixes using the leftover sausagemeat saved earlier. The pH had reduced to 4.6 – quite a way below my target. My worry was that they would taste sour but this has not proved the case.

The culture used will ferment slowly at temperatures of 23°C – 24°C but much more quickly at higher temperatures. My thermostat was set to 24°C but due to the overshoot spent much of the time at 28°C-29°C where it ferments very quickly.

The salami were then placed into my drying fridge.

I was surprised how quickly these dried. My chamber was at 10°C with the relative humidity set to 80% and yet they still lost 40% of their weight in 15 days.

I was going to post recipes and a calculator but I don’t want to poach Jeffrey Weiss’s recipe – his books great, well worth buying and is under £10 for the Kindle edition.

Read more about the (modern) salami making production process.

As sausagemeat can be made without any fancy equipment they’re a great project for making at home. I would normally mince the pork myself to make these but to illustrate my point I’m using bought pork mince for these. You could get this from your butcher, or as in this case, the local supermarket. If it’s from your butcher ask for 80/20 visible lean. From the supermarket, buy the 20% fat pork mince, not the 5% fat one.

I assembled what I needed for the sausagemeat, most of the spices in the spice dabba won’t be used on this occasion but they do add a bit of colour to the photo!

The ingredients for each kilogram of pork mince are:

280gm Water
180gm Rusk
22gm Cornflour
18gm Salt
4gm Ground white pepper
2gm Ground black pepper
1.5gm Ground nutmeg
1.5gm Ground ginger
1.5gm Ground coriander
0.5gm Ground mace
3gm Rubbed sage

To make things easier, there is a calculator at the end of this post.

Digital scales, that are accurate to one-tenth of a gram, suitable for measuring the spices, can be bought on eBay for around £10.

I bought 500gm of meat so I used half these amounts. Once I’d measured the spices and salt, I mixed them together and sprinkled them on top of the meat in a large bowl. I put the rusk on top of the spices.

I then poured over the water and left it for a couple of minutes to soak into the risk.

Now comes the important part, it needs mixing until the mince etc becomes sausagemeat. It’s a reaction between the meat and the salt that does this. It really needs mixing well. I used my hands to squish and squeeze it, squishing it between my fingers until it becomes sticky. This would be easier had I have pre-salted the meat. Even so, it only takes 3 or 4 minutes. I’ll mix this more after the rusk has fully hydrated but it’s not far off in this picture. You may even notice that its smell changes – it becomes… …well, it becomes sausagey!

I make no apologies for the high amount of rusk and water in this mix; I like that for sausage rolls; I prefer the texture. I don’t want the sausagemeat to be a soft paste but I also don’t want it to be too firm.

I mixed it again before using it to make sausage rolls. They’re in the next post.

Click Here for Recipe

See also:
Preparing the dry-cured corned beef and curing the meat
The dry-cured corned beef after curing

I decided to follow my friend Paul’s instructions for cooking the corned beef. He said to braise it slowly in chicken stock; I hadn’t any defrosted and so used water with the meat sat on a sliced onion.

I tasted the liquid after about 30 minutes of cooking at 140°C to see if it was salty. I would have changed the water had it have been but in this case, it wasn’t. The meat took about 4½ hours to be tender when probed. Its internal temperature was way up to 100°C at this stage.

I left it in the liquid for a good half-hour to rest; it was covered during this time.

It was very nice. It’s not a strongly spiced as I thought it may be nor is it as salty as I feared it may be, both good things. We ate it with the Irish potato and cabbage dish called colcannon and some boiled carrots. If it’s as good cold as it is hot, it will be a regular.

The recipe is:

To every 1kg of brisket or silverside of beef use:

22gm salt
15gm Soft brown sugar
2.4gm Cure #1
0.18gm Saltpetre (Optional)
1.2gm Black pepper
1gm Coriander seeds
1gm Mustard seeds
6 Juniper berries
2 Bay leaves
2 Allspice berries
1 Clove

Cure #2 can replace Cure #1 and Saltpetre – use the same amount as you would have used of Cure #1.

To make Paul’s original recipe use 4 juniper berries (instead of 6) and 4 Allspice berries (Instead of 2) per kilogram of meat. All the other ingredients remain the same.

Crush the spices in a pestle and mortar or similar. Mix the cure ingredients together well and then rub them into the meat. Vacuum pack under light pressure or seal in a food grade bag for 20 days.

Rinse and then cook by braising it slowly as above.

To make things easier here’s a cure calculator:

Here’s a great cheese-related activity to do with a group of school kids that won’t break the bank. Paneer, an Indian vegetarian cheese – or the cheese your granny made out of sour milk!

That said, I’ve only ever made it from non-homogenised milk, which works out a tad expensive ‘cos those large cheap plastic containers of milk in the supermarkets are invariably homogenised.

Ah well, nothing ventured, nothing gained: the investment of a whole £1 coin got me 2 litres of ALDI’s best full-fat milk.

To make the cheese is simplicity itself: put the milk into a pan and bring it to the boil stirring regularly so that the milk doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan. Just before it boils (or at least when it’s over 80°C) add a couple of lemons worth of lemon juice or about the same amount of white vinegar. Give it a quick stir then leave it for a couple of minutes or so. The milk should split into white curds and a watery light-green/yellow/clear whey. If it hasn’t, boil it back up and add some more lemon or vinegar. Pour the whole lot into a cloth-lined colander and run it under cold water to cool it, then leave it to drain:

…you can save the whey to use in scones or soda bread if you want.

That’s basically it – you can go on to wrap the cheese up and press it (I did, under a stone mortar). You can add salt, herbs, spices etc to it or you can even use it for sweet puddings or have it dribbled with honey. If you press it for a couple or three hours, you can cube it or mould it into balls. Then, unlike virtually all other cheeses, it will fry without melting; it’s great in the Indian dish of peas and cheese – Mattar Paneer (Panir).

In 2009, I wrote:

I’ve posted before about making faggots but they were the type you buy in gravy from the shops. This recipe is for the more traditional faggot that you get from a good butcher’s shop. I know most people reheat them and serve them with gravy; I like them sliced up in thick slices and fried.

The recipe is an adaption of one posted by ‘Somerset Lad’ on the River Cottage Forum. In the original, the meat is cooked in liquid before being ground and mixed. Around here, it is normal to mince/grind the meat and shape the faggots before cooking. I also prefer a higher ratio of pork meat to liver than in his recipe.

Ingredients

Meat
Pig’s Fry 60.00% (liver, heart, lungs, etc.)
Fatty Pork (Belly) 40.00%

Other ingredients as a percentage of the total meat weight:

Fresh Breadcrumbs 16.66%
Dried Sage 0.24%
Parsley 0.16%
Onion 10.00%
White Pepper 0.28%
Black Pepper 0.15%
Salt 1.60%

Method

Mince the meats then mix in the dry ingredients.
Leave it to stand for about an hour – it will firm up.
Shape into the size faggots you want; wet hands make this easier, put them into a dish and fill it to about a third of the way up the faggots with stock or water. Cook in a 190°C oven (170°C fan) for about 40 minutes. Cover with foil if the tops are getting too brown

If using caul, soak it in tepid water for about an hour, then wrap a piece around each faggot before cooking.

Faggots freeze well.

Try some of our other offal/variety meat recipes:

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Let’s Make Bacon!

Cure suppliers

Details of cures and suppliers can be found on this page.

Cleaning/Hygiene

Pay attention to hygiene; keep everything clean and safe. Ensure work surfaces and cutting boards are clean. You may wish to use plastic gloves when handling curing salts.

Choice, Size and Source of Meat

Your meat can be from the supermarket, local butcher, or direct from the farm-shop or farm. You can cure as much or as little as you want. Remember though, the better the meat: the better the bacon. For this reason, many people choose rare-breed or free-range meat. However, for your first project, a joint from the supermarket is fine. If something goes wrong it won’t have cost you the earth!

You’ll need:

For Streaky Bacon – a boned joint of belly pork
For Back Bacon – a boned joint of loin of pork

In the supermarket, both of these are likely to be rolled and tied with string. Remove any string and unroll the meat. It should be noted that the rashers from these joints are smaller than those of commercial bacon as smaller pigs are used.

The Dry Cure

For this guide, we will pretend we are dry curing a piece of meat weighing 1930gm (1.93kg/4.24lb).

For each 1kg of meat we need:

22gm Salt
8gm Sugar
2.4gm Cure #1
0.4gm Sodium ascorbate (optional)

The sugar can be one of your choosing white, brown, Demerara or even honey or maple syrup. The darker the sugar: the stronger the flavour. A mixture of white and Demerara, or light brown sugar, makes tasty mild bacon.

Weigh your piece of meat and calculate the amount of cure you need…

If you have accurate scales:

For our 1930gm (1.93kg) example, that’s:
Salt 22gm x 1.93kg = 42.5gm
Sugar 8gm x 1.93kg = 15.4gm
Cure #1 – 2.4gm x 1.93kg = 4.6gm
Sodium ascorbate 0.4gm x 1.93kg = 0.77gm

You can add any herbs and spices you fancy. A sprinkle of black pepper and thyme keeps things simple.

If you don’t have accurate scales:

Make up a batch of cure:
Salt 220gm
Sugar 80gm
Cure #1 – 24gm
Sodium ascorbate 4gm (optional)

Now, ensuring it’s well mixed (you could grind it in a clean coffee grinder, if you have one, to make sure) use 33gm per kg meat. So in this case that would be 33gm x 1.93kg = 63.69gm (64gm to make it easier to weigh).

You can add any herbs and spices you fancy. A sprinkle of black pepper and thyme keeps things simple.

For easy calculation for all weights of meat use one of my online calculators:

For My Favourite Bacon – the moderately salted bacon that’s featured above.
Or, alternatively, this very Mild Bacon
Or, make up your own cure – this calculator will help you to do it safely: Bacon Cure Calculator

These and others can also be accessed via my Cured Meat Calculators page

Applying the Cure Mix to the Meat

The amount of cure mix may seem a lot less than you expected. Don’t add more, that’s how it’s meant to be.

Sprinkle about 80% – 90% of the cure mix onto the flesh side of the meat and rub well in, getting into all the folds and crevices. Don’t forget the ends. The remainder is sprinkled onto the skin/fat side and rubbed in well.

Now put the meat, along with any cure that fell off whilst you were rubbing it in, into a food grade bag, or wrap it well in cling film. In fact it’s easier to put the meat into the bag and then rub the cure into it! Put it into the fridge; on a tray’s best, just in case it leaks. Every day or two turn it over and give it a bit of a rub; you can do this ‘through’ the bag without opening it. Don’t worry if liquid comes out of the meat. It often, but not always, does. Just leave it all in the bag.

How Long Do I Leave It For?

The standard advice is to cure the meat for 1 day for each ½ inch (13mm) of thickness, plus two days. So for a piece of supermarket belly like ours, about 1½ (39mm) inches deep, that’s going to be 3 days + 2 days = 5 days total.
Don’t lose sleep about the curing times. Unlike older curing methods, this type of cure is not time-critical, it won’t be too salty if you leave it longer than the calculated time so it’s always best to err on the side of caution. If in doubt leave it a little longer.
You may notice, because you’re bound to take a peek, that it doesn’t appear to have changed colour. That’s normal. The outside colour is deceiving. If you’ve followed the instructions it’ll be lovely red bacon when you cut into it.

Wash and Dry

At the end of the curing time, rinse the bacon in cold water, then dry it with a clean cloth or paper towel. It then needs to dry out a bit before use. It’s best hung in the fridge, but this can sometimes be difficult. If you can’t hang it, put it where the air can get around it; maybe on the fridge shelf with something underneath to catch any drips. Leave it for at least a couple of days to dry; I tend to leave it longer as I prefer it well dried. When your impatience gets the better of you, slice it, cook it, and enjoy!

Storing Your Bacon

This is not ‘old-style traditional bacon’ that can be hung in the rafters all winter. Keep it in the fridge for up to a few weeks, or for longer storage freeze it whole, or in slices, for 1 to 2 months. If you Vac-Pac it, you can keep it longer but it must be kept under 5°C or frozen.

I recently posted a bacon tutorial that I wrote originally for a sausage-making forum. The recipe used was an amalgamation of a few already posted by myself and others and as such, was a compromise. Whilst it makes very nice bacon, it is a little sweet for me. The recipe I use most regularly differs in that it’s saltier and has less sugar. The method and other instructions are exactly the same as in the bacon and dry curing tutorial.

For 1kg of meat use:

22gm Salt
8gm Sugar
2.4gm Cure #1
0.4gm Sodium ascorbate (optional)

You can add any herbs and spices you fancy. I generally add a minimum of a sprinkle of black pepper and thyme.

To calculate your cure easily you can use our:

My Favourite Bacon Calculator