Pépère and Louie stuffing boudin

Making Boudin

I decided I just had to have some fresh real boudin yesterday, so I made the pilgrimage to Fiesta Grocery (the only place in Austin I have been able to find pork liver so far) and HEB (for pork trimmings and pork shoulder roast). I used my boudin recipe (see my July 9 '07 post) as best I could- I ran one cup short of rice but it doesn't matter, just means a meatier sausage- and it was great fun, if rather an all-day sucker.

I got to use my new (very old) Enterprise sausage stuffer for the first time and once I had all the parts in the right places, that baby put out six pounds of boudin in about ten minutes, unlike the little stuffer attachment I had been using with my big pro mixer. My grandson Louie helped, learning some actual (as opposed to some phony-ass hypocrite politician's) family values along the way...

I also made up a batch of Toulouse sausage and some venison sausage. Our wonderful new next-door neighbors, Denis and Page, brought us some really superb Axis deer meat that they had hunted recently. He also informed me that he had killed a feral hog and was having it dressed and butchered, which gave me chills of anticipation just thinking about the things I could do with some of that wild pork meat. If there is in fact a merciful God, I think he just proved it to me again.

I cut and seasoned the sausage meats and put them in the fridge to cure overnight, so that the salts and seasonings could actually enter into the intersticial tissues of the meat and fat before I grind them today.

I have Kimmie's grandfather's sausage grinder, a very old one that he used to make sausage out of everything from armadillo to deer to possum. He'd make wine from wild Texas Mustang grapes and from the Italian grapes he had planted too. We'd have gotten along just fine. I like to try to imagine the farm housewife who owned that Enterprise, and all the fruit and sausage and lard (it is also a basket press) and wine she used it to put up. It gives me a deep-down pleasure to use old things, especially if they belonged to an ancestor. I have my grandmother Alene's cast-iron skillet and Revere saucepans and my Grandfather Cecil's 30-30 saddle carbine and a rose bush taken from my other grandfather, Tobe's, garden. Tobe was a cowboy who grew up herding Texas Longhorns on his father's ranch, then became a gasoline plant super, but who grew roses with his thick cowboy hands. I like that. Grandmama Alene was French and the best fried-chicken cook in Stephens County and she too was known to make her own breakfast pan-sausage, redolent of sage, because she knew hers was better than that old store-bought stuff any day...

Breckinridge, Main Street, 1920, Stephens County, Texas

So today I will grind the meat in old Mijo's hand-cranked machine and then press the sausage mixture through the old Enterprise black beauty into the pork gut and freeze it, ready to be made into Cassoulet and Choucroute Garni. The venison/pork mixture will be spicier, with plenty of cayenne, garlic, and coriander seed, sage, thyme, and of course lots of salt. I will then smoke it at around 200 degrees for many hours in my big backyard smoker with the firebox off to the side so the flames never see the meat at all, just the hot smoky air as it passes over it on the way up the chimney at the other end. That sausage will be mahogany-colored, smoky, and assertive, like Texans have learned to make from our German and Czech immigrants.

Toulouse sausage is a fresh, coarsely ground pork link with nothing in it but salt, pepper, and a hint of nutmeg, which makes it interesting. We have had sausages much like it all across southern Europe, from Venice to Aix to the Basque coast on the Atlantic ocean as it washes the beaches of Spain. Many of them have nothing in them but salt and pepper, period. Some of them have Quatre Epices, especially the "white" ones like Bratwurst or Boudin Blanc. It took some getting used to years ago, when I thought all sausage was garlicky, smoked, and very much like a Kielbasa-type. However, now I would be horrified to find one of those smoked babies in my Cassoulet or my Fagioli con la salsiccia. Gumbo, now that's another story...

Here's a great sausage dish I learned in the little Jura village of Morteau, famous for its Sausage of Jesus, which is traditional in the French Reveille Christmas celebration:

Smoked Pork Sausages Morteau

At the Boulangerie Jeannot in the French village of Morteau, Jean sells his version of the renowned Le Jesus de Morteau sausage. This is a lightly smoked coarsely ground pork sausage with no garlic. One of the wonderful things about talking to a real butcher is that Jean will also advise you on the ideal way to cook the products he sells.



A golden, smoked Le Jesus de Morteau and a foot stuffed with the same sausage meat.

Homestyle Saucisse au Vin Blanc:

1 lb lightly smoked pork sausage, preferably without garlic seasoning. A fresh pork sausage will also work.
1 T. butter
1 lb. Small new potatoes
1 med yellow onion, chopped fine
2 cloves garlic chopped
1 bottle light white wine- Alsatian or other inexpensive dry Reisling
1 T. Tomato paste
Handful of fresh Thyme or 1/4 t. dried
1 bay leaf
fresh minced parsley

Jean

In an earthenware casserole, heat the butter over medium heat and brown the sausage. Add the onion and cook five more minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover, leaving the covering slightly ajar to permit steam to escape. Cook at a slow simmer for 40 minutes, or until potatoes are cooked. Serves 4.

Las Manitas Caldo de Tortilla (Tortilla Soup)

This dish is adapted from the recipe used in the kitchen of Las Manitas Avenue Cafe in Austin. There are as many variants on this soup as there are cooks, of course, but the basics are always a chicken broth and a tomato base. There are places where you could take shortcuts, but since the dish is so simple, I think it is important that you take all of the steps properly, or your soup will lack the delicacy and finesse that it needs to have in order to be something above the ordinary. The secret to this recipe is that it uses a simple, homemade broth and that the vegetables are first roasted. This combination results in a distinctive, classically Mexican flavor that could not be achieved any other way. Many thanks to the wonderful owners, Cynthia and Lidia Pérez, for permission to learn this dish in their kitchens and print this recipe.

For the Soup:

1 Gallon Homemade Chicken Broth (see recipe)
10 Fresh or stale corn tortillas, not fried, torn into halves
5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 yellow onion, peeled
6 ripe red tomatoes
1 T. corn oil, lard, or olive oil, or a combination of them
4 sprigs cilantro
Kosher or Sea Salt and freshly ground pepper

For the garnish:

Corn Tortillas sliced into 1/4” strips and fried in lard
Ripe avocado, diced
Queso Fresco, grated

Roast the tomatoes and onions and garlic together either in a dry iron skillet or under a broiler, turning until they blacken and the tomato skins slip off easily. Peel the tomatoes and garlic and discard skins. In a mixing bowl, combine tomatoes, onions, garlic, and tortilla halves. With a hand mixer, or in the bowl of a food processor, mix well, adding enough chicken broth to acheive a smooth puree. Heat the oil in a heavy cooking pot over high heat and when it is hot, press the puree through a chinois or a strainer into the oil. Bring to a boil and cook for around 10 minutes, adding salt and pepper to taste, until the flavors marry. Serve in bowls sprinkled with tortilla strips, cheese, and avocado. Some cooks sprinkle toasted dried pasilla chilis over the soup, or add a spoonful of hot salsa. Makes 8-plus servings.

Caldo de Tortilla

Mexican-style Chicken Broth

A good chicken broth is an essential element in many Mexican dishes. Today we will be using it several different ways, so it forms a basis, a starting point, and is both subtle and important as a flavoring agent in these recipes. I feel that canned or packaged “broth” is not an acceptable substitute for homemade stock, especially in these recipes, because those products tend to be full of msg, salt, false and even bizarre ingredients that do more harm than good to the final result. Part of the charm of this style of cooking is the finesse and delicacy of the dish, an end which can only be achieved by taking this simple step of creating a good broth.

I also make constant use of French-style classic stocks in my cooking, but this one has fewer ingredients and a more straightforward flavor. A classic French stock would add celery, carrot, parsley, thyme, and bay, and the meat would be roasted first to brown it. This Mexican-style broth uses fewer ingredients and leaves more room on the palette to color the final dish. When you taste this broth, it will seem very delicate, almost a non-flavor, but it marries with the other ingredients to create a glorious end result.

1-chicken, or chicken parts such as necks, backs, etc., about 2 pounds. The carcass from a roasted chicken can be added for additional flavor.
3-yellow onions, peeled and roughly chopped
3-cloves garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1-tsp. Kosher Salt
1-gallon of fresh cold water. If your water tastes bad, use filtered or bottled water. Whatever its flavors are, they will be exaggerated by cooking.

Rinse the chicken meat and bones if fresh. Add all ingredients to the cold water in a heavy stock pot and bring to a low simmer, partially covered. Keep an eye on the broth and skim the foam that rises to the top, as this will cloud the broth unless removed. After 1 hour, remove the chicken and bone the meat out, reserving for another use. Return the carcass and bones to the pot and simmer very, very slowly for 2 hours. Cool, strain, and reserve. This may be very successfully frozen in plastic bags, measured out in 1 or 2 cup amounts.

Petite Salé

Petite Salé

On our first visits to France we kept noticing these shrink-wrapped trays of what looked like ham, dark lentils, sausage, and herbs in every little grocery we went into. Then Tante Babette introduced us to homemade Petite Salé, which is what those packages were- pre-mixed dinners much like the ones you can buy now at Central Market for Tortilla Soup, etc. Naturally I wanted to delve deeper into this lovely mystery and found out that what Babette's mother did back in Toulouse was brine-cure her own pork for this classic Southwestern dish and then use this "lightly salted" pork in the lentils-and-sausage mixture which takes its name from the pork used to flavor it.

This pork can be made from the "picnic ham" (my favorite, the front leg of pork), the shoulder or "boston butt", or the loin. If you make it from the loin, it can be sliced thin and cooked for breakfast like "Canadian Bacon", or sliced thick for dinner meals. If you make it from the picnic, it has the most flavor and you will need to pull the cooked meat away from the bones of the front leg of the animal. The shoulder is also a good flavorful choice and will need to be boned out and cut into single-serving size chunks. The loin has the least fat and albumin and therefore least flavor, but makes a more elegant serving. This brined pork can be used to flavor lentils, beans, spaghetti carbonara, risotto, paella, couscous, fritatta, beef or poultry stews, or anyplace you would use bacon or pancetta.

Brining is a very old curing process wherein heavily salted water, by process of osmosis, replaces the water in the interstices of the flesh. You can brine poultry, pork, or fat (bacon, fatback are either brined or dry salt-cured) and cause it to be more flavorful, more tender when cooked, and slightly less prone to spoilage. When it is done to poultry it is also called "Koshering" and the best Thanksgiving turkey I ever roasted had been brined. (Note: poultry brining is different from this process.) Brining pork causes changes in the flavor and texture which make it very different from fresh pork or dried smoked pork.

For the Brined Pork (Petite Salé):

About 3 pounds of meat (not counting bone) from a picnic ham, shoulder roast, or loin
2 1/2 gallons cold water
1 cup Kosher salt (iodized salt is bitter)
3/4 c. sugar
2 bay leaves, crushed
peppercorns
1 clove "nail"
6 allspice berries
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T. dried thyme leaves
large nonreactive stockpot, or canning pot

combine all ingredients, cover, and let rest at least 5 days in the refrigerator, longer if possible, up to a week. Roast until the internal temperature reaches about 130 degrees in a 350 degree oven, or grill over a very low charcoal fire until done, or if it is a loin, slice and sautee for meals or breakfast. Use or freeze after it is cooked and deboned and cut into serving chunks, about 2 to 4 ounce pieces.

For the lentil dish known as Petite Salé:

1 cup lentils, green Puy type preferred
4 chunks brined pork
4 small pork sausages, unsmoked
1 yellow onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 rib celery, diced
1 t. dried thyme leaves
1 or 2 bay leaves
1 fistful of parsley, chopped
1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
salt, pepper
4 cups broth or water

Simmer the cleaned lentils with all of the other ingredients except the sausages for about 1/2 to 3/4 hour, or until soft and done. Check for seasoning. Meanwhile, grill the sausages in a little oil over medium heat for about 20 minutes, until browned on both sides. Do not prick. Serve them whole with the lentils, or slice diagonally into 1" or 2" pieces. Make sure each bowl has one piece of pork and one sausage. Serve with crusty bread and a simple red wine from the Beaujolais. Serves 4.