1553 Bratwurst

[vagreys]

This is a take on the Sabina von Welserin bratwurst in the Medieval German recipes topic.

1553 Bratwurst
1000.0 g Pork shoulder(80/20)
70.0 ml Water
11.0 g Kosher Salt
2.8 g freshly ground black pepper
2.0 g dried marjoram
1.9 g ground or rubbed sage

1. Soak 32-35 hog casings, as needed.
2. Dissolve salt in water and refrigerate until needed.
2. Trim and separate lean pork shoulder from fat. Add or subtract fat, as necessary, to achieve a 20% fat content.
3. Par-freeze meat and fat, then cube, and grind through primary grind plate (1/2").
4. Sprinkle dry seasonings over the coarsely ground meat, and pour the salted water over. Gently mix the seasonings into the meat with your hands just until the water is absorbed.
5. Par-freeze the coarse-ground mixture, and grind through 1/4" plate. To par-freeze, I form it into logs on the trays, narrow enough that it will fit down the grinder chute, about six long logs lengthwise on a half sheet, and then into the freezer. The logs are easy to feed into the grinder and the quality of the grind is superior.
6. Stuff into 32-35 hog casing and link, as desired.

Fry in butter, broil, or grill over charcoal.

[quietwatersfarm]

Thanks. This is going to be happening here next week!

[vagreys]

Cool. My friends seem to like this one. I like my linked sausages to be leaner than my bulk sausages, unless the style calls for more fat. I add water because I'm dealing with market meat that may be 3 or more days after slaughter before I get it. If the meat were fresher, I'd probably not add any liquid. Still at about an ounce per pound, or a little less, it isn't really that much liquid compared to some. What the liquid does accomplish is rapid transport of the salt and seasoning throughout the meat. I'd appreciate any feedback.

[quietwatersfarm]

Hi Tom,
What do you regard as bulk sausages? over here nearly everything is links
These are fantastic btw. I must admit to doing a batch with a tiny bit of dried milk too (sorry I know its not very medieval!) but I wanted to keep them moist and wondered if it would help.

Great recipe though, already in the little black book

[romanas]

Btw, this recipe is very different from the original one from "Medieval German recipes" topic.

Original recipe has high content of beef.

BTW, does anybody have an idea what "3 seidlen" of water means?

Translation says to pour 1 quart of water to 10 pounds of meat. But even if we calculate based on extremely heavy Habsburg pound (560 grams), it will mean to pour almost one liter of water to 5,6 kilograms of meat. And this water-to-meat ratio (178 ml to 1 kg of meats) looks far too high...

Any ideas?

25. Weltt jr gútt prattwirst machen
So nempt 4 pfúnd schweinis vnnd 4 pfúnd rinderis, das last klainhacken, nempt darnach 2 pfúnd speck darúnder vnnd hackts anainander vnnd vngeferlich 3 seidlen wasser giest daran, thiet aúch saltz, pfeffer daran, wie jrs geren est, oder wan jr geren kreúter darin megt haben/ múgt jr nemen ain wenig ain salua vnnd ain wenig maseron, so habt jr gút brattwirst/.

25. If you would make good bratwurst
Take four pounds of pork and four pounds of beef and chop it finely. After that mix with it two pounds of bacon and chop it together and pour approximately one quart of water on it. Also add salt and pepper thereto, however you like to eat it, or if you would like to have some good herbs, you could take some sage and some marjoram, then you have good bratwurst.

[Dibbs]

... BTW, does anybody have an idea what "3 seidlen" of water means?

Seidlen would be the plural of seidl. When I worked in Vienna a seidl was a measure for a small beer (usually 0.3l). A large beer was a kruegel (usually 0.5l) and a very small beer a pfiff (0.2l?).


That would make a US quart a bit on the high side, but not all that much.

[romanas]

Seidlen would be the plural of seidl. When I worked in Vienna a seidl was a measure for a small beer (usually 0.3l). A large beer was a kruegel (usually 0.5l) and a very small beer a pfiff (0.2l?).

That would make a US quart a bit on the high side, but not all that much.

Thanks a lot for your answer! Now it's clear that there is no mistake in traslation.

Actually, I'm making sausages according to this recipe right now (beef/pork), but still afraid to add that much water. Probably will reduce it in a half...

[NCPaul]

Welcome to the forum. The water does seem to be high but I think the sausage could hold that much if you have a good bind and add it cold and slow at the end. It will be interesting to hear your experience.

[wheels]

As with all recipes, I'd make it according to the original instructions (or Vagreys translation thereof) before changing anything. That way, you've got a base to work from.

Welcome to the forum: please let us know how you get on.

Phil

[vagreys]

Btw, this recipe is very different from the original one from "Medieval German recipes" topic.

Original recipe has high content of beef.

Yes, it is unavoidably different. I am allergic to beef. However, I felt like it was fairly obvious that I wasn't following the 40/40/20 ratio in the original. I will point out that this was a household cookery manuscript, not a trade receipt book, and the meat used depended on availability, so with or without bacon, all beef, all pork, pork and venison...lots of possible variations, at the time. Also, we don't know how much salt or pepper, or what 'some' means in reference to "some sage" and "some marjoram"; but, it is clear from the way the recipe is written that "to taste" is implied.

I do offer an 80/20 pork and bacon version, and a 40/40/20 pork, bison and bacon version that is safe for me to handle, but the bacon adds about $1/lb to the cost to produce, and bison is running about $11/lb, where I live, so I only do those on special order. Unfortunately, when we are working with medieval recipes, there is a lot of approximation because we simply don't know what the execution and seasoning might actually have been, in many cases. In sausages, I adapt for my beef allergy, adjust water and salt and seasonings to taste, just as any medieval cook would have done. I'll suggest you do the same.

BTW, does anybody have an idea what "3 seidlen" of water means?

See some of Ronald E. Zupko's books on medieval weights and measures in Western Europe, France, Italy, and England, to get an idea of how such measures were determined in a given township in a given year. As this is a housebook, the seidl would have been whatever Sabina Welserin's cook was using as that measure. It may have been entirely separate from any civil or commercial standard, referring to a well-used cup in the cook's kitchen. This is rather similar to the use of the term "wine glass" or "tea cup" in later recipes, before a standard volume was established for those references - the volume varied from household to household, and civilly, from town to town.

Translation says to pour 1 quart of water to 10 pounds of meat. But even if we calculate based on extremely heavy Habsburg pound (560 grams), it will mean to pour almost one liter of water to 5,6 kilograms of meat. And this water-to-meat ratio (178 ml to 1 kg of meats) looks far too high...

Any ideas?

That is a lot of water, you're right, though not as much per pound as some modern recipes specify. It makes the mixture quite wet, but it is also much easier to stuff with a sausage horn (that is, actual cut steer horn sections in graduated diameters for stuffing casing). The wetter mixture slides down the casing and packs better, with less trapped air. Also, we don't know what kind of salt meat they may have been using as 'bacon' and the extra water may have been necessary, in part, to moderate and hydrate that salt-cured meat. Since I'm using pork, and cold-smoked, dry-cured bacon when I make the pork/bacon version, and stuffing with a vertical stuffer, I adjust the water to the normal levels I prefer in cases where the meat needs added liquid, which is about an ounce per pound.

Hope this gives you some insights on my approach. Welcome to the forum.

[vagreys]

Hi Tom,
What do you regard as bulk sausages? over here nearly everything is links

This is a term I grew up with the mid-South. It means sausage meat that isn't stuffed in casing, usually sold in 1- or 2-lb chubs, or stuffed in 2-1/2" or 3" muslin bags for cold smoking. It is typically sliced and formed into patties for frying or broiling with breakfast. A typical patty would start out around 2.5-3" in diameter, and about 3/8" thick (although my grandfather got me hooked on sausage burgers with a slice of raw, sweet onion).

Glad you like them. Try it with the 40/40/20% blend of pork/beef/bacon in the original, or the 80/20 pork/bacon blend I do for myself, sometimes. I suspect that the bacon being referred to was fatty, since the ratio makes sense vs lean meats. I could be wrong. 20% gives a distinctive bacon flavor to the sausage, without masking the seasonings.

[romanas]

wheels, NCPaul,

Thanks for welcoming.

vagreys,

Thanks for detailed answer. I'm a little bit familiar with medieval cooking (not German though) and your approach looks very reasonable.

BTW, do you have an idea how medieval people achieved good bind in their sausages? Although ice was available and was stored even during summer time, it was quite rare, expensive and I doubt that people really used it to cool down meat mixture. It would be interesting to know your opinion.

And thanks for welcoming too.

[NCPaul]

I read something about meat "pre-rigor" but can't find it now. That's my guess.

[NCPaul]

Pre-Rigor Fresh Pork Sausage

"Pre-Rigor sausage" or "whole hog" pork sausage are names for fresh pork sausage made from pork carcasses immediately (within one hour) after slaughter. Hot boning allows the processor to salt the meat before the muscle has gone into rigor mortis. This keeps the muscle pH from falling as low as it would normally, thus improving the water-holding capacity and keeping the color darker. Both of the properties are advantageous in sausage production.

While it is not necessary to use the entire carcass, the advantages of using the meat very quickly are quite important. As muscle goes into rigor, chemical changes occur which lead to lesser moisture and color retention in meat products that are subsequently manufactured. By using muscle immediately after slaughter (in the pre-rigor form), the changes are minimized and an excellant fresh pork sausage is the result.

One concern for the process however is the fact that pre-rigor meat is not chilled. High temperatures are likely to lead to spoilage problems. A critical part of the pre-rigor process is to quickly chill after the muscle has been ground and while it is being mixed with the spices. This achieves spoilage control while retaining the advantages of pre-rigor meat.


References
Joe Cordray, Ph.D.
Extension Meat Specialists
Iowa State University
Department of Animal Science


The Meat We Eat 2001 - 14th Edition
Interstate Publishers, Inc.
Romans JR, Jones KW, Costello WJ,
Carlson CW, Siegler PT.
Danville, IL 61834

[vagreys]

...BTW, do you have an idea how medieval people achieved good bind in their sausages? Although ice was available and was stored even during summer time, it was quite rare, expensive and I doubt that people really used it to cool down meat mixture. It would be interesting to know your opinion...

Very little is written about sausage making in medieval cookery manuscripts, or even in housebooks like Markham's or the Menagier. The cookery manuscripts rarely have any discussion beyond ingredients, other than regarding cooking and possibly presentation. My own speculation has been that most of the sausage making occurred during cooler weather - the traditional late fall slaughtering after the first frost - rather than relying on ice stores in warmer weather. Recipes for fresh sausage don't indicate a particular emphasis on the texture or bind, at least that I've seen, and suggest immediate use, so it may be that the bind was not that important a concern (e.g., shoving walnut-sized balls of forcemeat into casing, skewering and roasting wouldn't require much binding, or forming hedgehogs or other farces). Cured sausages would have time for the proteins in solution to set and bind, even at warmer than refrigerator temperatures. Since bind relies on myofibrillar proteins in solution, I expect it was the salt, the extensive chopping, and working seasonings and other ingredients into the forcemeat that drew myosin and actin into solution to establish binding. We also see egg added in some receipts, which would affect texture upon cooking.