I love those.
They are great in Japanese curry rice
or with a light grill with a pan and some selective slicing
Never thought about making them from scratch. They seemed like such an overly industrially processed product that I think it would be overly time consuming or difficult to make them with the resources I had at hand.
Based on the ingredients list they’ve got some ingredients in common with cheap hotdogs, whey powder and “bacon flavoring” that sort of thing. And they use a collagen casing.
But it’s just sausage otherwise. That smoother texture just comes from the grind setting and how much they’re mixed. Emulsified sausages (and these aren’t full on emulsified sausages) are only a bigger pain in the ass than regular sausages if you’re after that perfectly smooth thing you get with certain commercial products. It’s not really necessary with shit like a hot dog, so you’re only burying yourself in that if you’re doing something like making mortadella.
It’s basically an added step of processing the meat through something like a food processor with ice or very cold water to keep it from breaking. Or grinding the meat multiple times.
It’s pretty messy, and not worth it.
Otherwise you just grind on fine, and mix a little longer and it gets you 90% there.
Tends to come out smoother than these Japanese sausages (arabiki means coarse apparently).
That said it does take me 3 days to spit out a batch of sausage. The point of getting into it is you can genuinely make much, much better sausage than you can buy. Or you can make sausages you can’t find locally.
I’m about an hour and half from the nearest store that carries these. And I know I could make an even better version. So trying to figure it out.
Don’t have the right sized casing though, or an appropriate smoker anymore…
It’s not yakitori unless it’s grilled over binchotan on a hibachi. Otherwise, it’s just sparkling grilled chicken…
J/k - it looks delicious!
It was a ‘Spare the Air’ day here.
So I used the gas.
I have the correct equipment but am trying to perfect gas as an alternative.
Pounded some pork cutlets flat and made schnitzel for dinner. Plated alongside some mashed potatoes and a spinach-mushroom-onion sauté it worked very well.
man, do I luvs me some oi muchim! the spicier, the better! I have made this using our homegrown cucamelons, a very interesting cultivar much like a lemon cuke.
Yes, I followed the (1/2) recipe and I feel it needs to be spicier. Will try again.
Very easy to make and experiment with.
Cheers!
What fun! Thank you.
I’ve been bad at taking pics, but we made this a couple days ago with some sweet beets from the farmers’ market:
Really yummy. Highly recommend!
Busy week of teaching cooking classes to kids, and a very welcome guest over the weekend. At home the fridge filled with leftovers. Slowly, slowly we are ,asking our way through them. Braised chicken wings in honey and milk (suppose to be thighs, but I realized too late what was thawed over noodles. Stuffed pizza in proper Chicago style. Baked lake trout with coconut-ginger rice. Several cold salads to eat with a big bowl of greens (egg, tuna, and orange sesame chicken). Apricot and cherry clafoutis with whipped cream. Skillet lasagna made by layering mushroom raviolis with bottled sauce and a mix of cheeses. There were others, but I ate them for breakfasts and they are now forgotten. Next week we may even get the shelves down to two layers!
Another reason to cook and eat at home: UnHappy Meal @ McDonalds.
Unhappy Happy Meal customer tears apart a McDonald's, fights police | Boing Boing
I don’t know whether it’s an international thing, but dropping a can of sweetened condensed milk into a pot of boiling water and simmering for hours to make a kind of dulce de leche was thing here in the 80’s.
I have a vaguely kitchen-competent uncle who did same, but forgot and let the water boil until dry. A small explosion later and the kitchen was covered in super-hot caramel, but at least no-one was there. The best part - it was his second kitchen tin explosion. The first was a boil-in-the-tin pudding that left a dent in the ceiling.
We had some neighbors from Argentina that had a similar caramel blast happen. I’ve made dulce de leche in the #6 cans in one of those big steam kettles-drop them in last thing at night, pull them out in the morning. With the kettle lid locked down evaporation was minimized.
It can be done with an immersion circulator.
Fun thing is you can do it with other stuff too, by putting it in a mason jar. Pastry chef friend of mine used to make caramelized white chocolate.
