looking for suggestions

[pdanders]

great forum have learned a lot from surfing it.
I am looking for suggestions. I have a 4 lb bag of pork loin pieces in the frezzer
and a 8 lb bag of pork sirloin chunks also frozen.
At present time enough sausage for quite a while. Anyone have suggestions
for a use for the chunks.
Paul

[BriCan]

Steak and Bacon burgers except instead of using beef use the pork. I did 300 of these for a Scout function yesterday and they inhaled the lot.

There was only 125 people there

[pdanders]

BriCan,
Thanks for the response. I have used some of the sirloin for burgers
and they were great. I would like to use some of the pieces in something cured and dried but find most recipes use whole muscle instead of chunks.
May have to keep the rest until i need more sausage or more burgers.
Paul

[NCPaul]

Pork pie. Some of our British members will be along to help you out; Wheels has a good one on his blog.

[BriCan]

Pork pie. Some of our British members will be along to help you out; Wheels has a good one on his blog.

Might want to add some belly trim (I do) to it as the pork sirloin chunks will be a tad too lean IMUO

[Oddwookiee]

You can cure and smoke almost any sized piece, btu whole muscles are much more forgiving. The smaller the pieces get, the smaller the margin for error is. If you are careful and comfortable with your technique, any size piece is just a matter of more attention to detail.

[pdanders]

Thanks to all for the replys. Will move ahead and try some things.
Will let you know what happens

[larry]

I may get some flak for this, but I tried making Ruhlman and Polcyn's "coppa" recipe from Charcuterie, which uses chunks instead of whole muscle. I'm the first to jump on them and say IT'S NOT COPPA! but in truth, it wasn't a bad product. If you are not familiar with the recipe, it is basically the ingredients for whole muscle coppa, but instead calls for large chunks of pork hand stuffed into a casing. I don't know if such a thing occurs in Italian culture somewhere, but as I said, it worked, and it tasted good, but it wasn't coppa. The differences in technique would be that the initial salting/seasoning doesn't need to be as long due to the smaller size of the meat pieces. Also, lots of pricking and squeezing is needed to eliminate air pockets between the pieces. But if you want something cured that is not sausage, this might be worth a try. Otherwise, I'd make mortadella, which of course is cooked, and which you could be eating tomorrow. Yum.

[pdanders]

Larry, Thanks for the response. I have looked at that recipe also and
will most likely try using a few pieces of the pork loin that way. I spoke with
a fellow in minneapolis that cures his own meats and he mentioned that he
made one out of small chunks (not ground) and when he packed them in
the casing he sprinkled a small amount of gelatin on the meat. Said it glued
everything together?? Without smoking or cooking I am not sure how that
would work.

Thanks again to all that responded.

[larry]

Gelatin might work, but I would be worried about the texture. When I did it, I did a lot of pricking and squeezing to get air out, and ended up without air pockets. If you want to add something, there is actually a "meat glue" which I believe is made up of a meat protien component which, when put on the surfaces of two pieces of meat, bonds them together. The dark side of its use is in making fake filet mignon steaks, but it would be far less offensive in the context of a curing experiment. I don't know where it can be found.

By the way, I made mine in a fairly small casing, I think 2.5 inches in diameter, and the chunks were around an inch to an inch and a half on each side.

Good luck.

[wheels]

...and when he packed them in the casing he sprinkled a small amount of gelatin on the meat. Said it glued everything together?? Without smoking or cooking I am not sure how that would work.

Len Poli uses gelatin as meat glue in some of his recipes, like this one:

http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Tur ... Smoked.pdf

HTH

Phil