For a pun-loving gal like me, the opportunities presented with this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge—emulsified sausage—were too good to resist:
- It was the best of times, it was the wurst of times.
- For better and for wurst.
- Wurst case scenario.
- Hope for the best, expect the wurst.
- Taking a turn for the wurst (thanks to Coquettish Cook for that one!)
And, whilst I cracked myself up by using one of the aforementioned puns to answer each of Jay’s “How’s it goin’ in there?”s, I managed to do a pretty rotten job on completing said challenge*.
(*I’ve been playing along at home with all the Charcutepalooza challenges so far, and enjoying great success! Curing: check. Brining: check. Smoking, grinding, stuffing: check, check, and check. I apparently let my smooth sailing over the past six months get me a little overly-chuffed, ’cause emulsifying kicked my ass.)
The brief this month was, depending on one’s experience or bravery in the face of a beef bung, to make bratwurst, weisswurst, hot dogs, or mortadella. I chose weisswurst because I had never eaten it before and I liked saying it. WEISS-wurst! weiss-WURST! WEISS-WURST!
Yeah: much more fun to say than to execute. Weisswurst is made with veal and should, according to Bavarian custom, be really white and eaten freshly poached with pretzels, mustard, and beer before noontime. The Bavarians take their weisswurst and the attending eating ritual very seriously. (Do you doubt? Check this out.) I’ve never been on the wrong side of a Bavarian, but I fear my botched weisswurst may put me in jeopardy with a whole mess of ’em.
The grinding and stuffing parts went pretty well. I had some beautiful veal shoulder from the great folks at Persimmon Provisions and a gorgeous hunk of fatback from Pat’s Pastured. Grind, re-grind, emulsify, stuff*, breathe.
(*Can we talk for a minute on how useless the Kitchen-Aid stuffing attachment is? Sheesh!)
This doesn’t look so bad:
Freshly stuffed weisswurst
Whew. Hard part’s over, right? I did it! Yay for me!
Oh, vanity, thy name is weisswurst. You see, I had the temerity to look away for only the briefest of moments while these babies were poaching and I over-poached. I am an over-poacher. These guys went from firm and meaty to misshapen and crumbly in the blinkiest blink of an eye (I’m sorry: if that sentence doesn’t require a “that’s what she said” then I don’t know who I am anymore). I almost cried.
We ate them anyway. And I figured since I had already transgressed Bavarian tradition by over-poaching, I may as well gild the lily of defeat. I sauteed them in some rendered guanciale fat. Gasp! We ate them in the evening. Horror! With wine instead of beer. Clutch the pearls!
Weisswurst and pretzels: a moderate disappointment
It was either eat them in shame (shame with a side of mustard, that is) or turn them into cat food. Very expensive cat food.
To the weisswurst of the world, I dedicate this song, by the ramshackledly charming Old 97s, about how frustration can drive one to drink.