Bon appetit's Italy issue

So I picked up the latest issue of Bon Appetit and I said, oh great! Italian food! So I start paging through it and I read "how to drink like an Italian", which was interesting. I'll have to pick up some Campari. Then there was an article on a bacon burger (Italian?), and another on boiled peanuts and hummus and Japanese pubs, then one on hollandaise sauce; then one on Houston -- at which point I'm asking myself where is this Italian food?? Then one on salmon, and then finally a little reminisence on an Italian mother-in-law; then one on cinco de mayo; then a huge ad on botox; another ad on Turkey; then a cucumber, mint and basil soda recipe; a big ad on Frei Brothers California wine; an ad on tuna; an article on new jersey asparagus -- I'm beginning to dispair!

Finally on page 102 there's "30 reasons we love Italy" followed by Italian dolce (reworked by American chefs of course) and the rest of the articles on Italy. Fortunately there are few ads here so maybe it really was worth the wait! At least they make it easy to tear out all the ads!

Sausage Recipes

This is as good a place as any to jot down sausage ingredients. Here are also some tips:
1. Keep the meat cold.
2. Cut the meat in long thin strips to grind it.

Emeril Lagasse's Homemade Mild Italian Sausage
Ingredients
3 pounds well-marbled pork butt, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons toasted fennel seeds
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon freshly cracked black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon ground anise
2 tablespoons freshly chopped Italian parsley leaves
3 tablespoons dry red wine
Pork casings, optional

Le gourmet TV Hot Sicilian Style Italian Sausage Recipe
Ingredients:
5 feet medium hog casing
4 1/2 lbs lean pork butt
1/2 lbs pork fat
2 tbsp coarse salt
1 tbsp whole fennel seed (sometimes we grind it, sometimes we don't...)
1 tbsp fresh ground black pepper
Crushed red pepper to taste - 2 teaspoons is a good starting point for your first time making this


Homemade Wisconsin-Style Bratwurst
•4 pounds pork shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes and stored in the freezer for 30 minutes
•1 pound Pork back fat, chopped and stored in the freezer for 30 minutes
•3 tablespoons kosher salt
•1 tablespoon sugar
•1 1/2 teaspoons grated nutmeg
•1/2 teaspoon coriander
•1/4 teaspoon celery seed
•2 teaspoons ground black pepper
•1/8 teaspoon ground marjoram
•1 1/2 teaspoons dried ginger

Sausages

So Saturday I finally made home-made sausages. I had bought 13.5 pounds of pork shoulder at Costco and I picked up sausage casings at McGinnis's so I was ready. For a long time I had had the equipment: my KitchenAid mixer, the food grinder attachment and the sausage stuffing accessory. I'm not sure what I was waiting for. Maybe inspiration from a simple recipe, which I found in Rosetta Constantino's My Calabria.
It was very simple with sweet paprika, hot paprika, salt, fennel seeds and ground pork. Constantino's mother says that if your hands aren't red after mixing the sausage meat, you don't have enough paprika.


Our first attempt at stuffing wasn't so great, we were using a little funnel for stuffing them and they resulted in rather wimpy sausages. So we compacted the sausage meat so they looked decent and then changed the funnel to the wider one so that more stuffing would be extruded. It was always difficult to find the opening for the casing since they were really thin. But if you fill the 3 foot casing with water, it's easier to gather it up around the funnel mouth.





These are the hog casings soaking in cold water. They came in 3 foot lengths, tied together. You gather the hog casing up around the funnel mouth, turn the mixer on high speed, and start pushing the sausage meat through the grinder.

You need two people to fill the sausages. One to push the meat through the grinder and the other to gradually pull out the casing. After the first string of sausages, we were almost experts!

And yes, we were very proud!

Belly of Paris

I downloaded the kindle application to my new macbook air so that I could download a copy of Emile Zola's The Belly of Paris to read on the flight to Paris. The version I bought is translated by Mark Kurlansky of Cod fame and he provides a nice little introduction. I haven't started reading it yet but will let you know more when I do.

Storm from the East by Milton Viorst

This is the audiobook that George W. Bush should have listened to! It gives the history of the Middle East from the beginning of the 20th century and covers the colonial era of Great Britain and France. After listening to these six CDs I understand why the Arabs dislike the West so much, including the United States. We haven't supported their secular nationalism, which has gotten them nowhere. So it is no wonder that they have embraced a religious nationalism. If more Americans knew the history of the Middle East, they would be more understanding of the Arab rage.

El Juego del Angel by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We listened to this 16 disc audiobook in Spanish and after 16 discs, my listening ability has definitely improved, although the book itself can be very confusing at times. David Martin is a writer who sells his soul to the "Patron", Andrea Corelli, who is supposed to get a monumental religious history in return. Love, intrigue, the supernatural and mystery are involved so that one must keep listening to the very end. The narrator, Francisco Rivela, was very good - and that is often what makes or breaks an audio book.

Four Beers

Last night my son picked up 6 beers from the local 6-pack store so we are back to food as a subject for the blog. The first one, "White Lightning" from the Full Pint Brewing Company here in North Versailles, was a nice light heffeweisen with a good coriander flavor. This was the first time I had heard of the Full Pint Brewing Company which, Will says, was started by the brewmasters from the old John Harvard's Brew pub in Wilkins. On their website, which is currently just a blog, you can see them moving the equipment from John Harvard's to their new warehouse. If we got the Tribune-Review, perhaps I would know about it: Full Pint Brewery makes splash in Pittsburgh beer scene. I'm going to have to see if the Trib has a headlines by email.

Then there was Stone Levitation Ale, which was nice and hoppy with a beautiful bottle, and Flying Dog's Dogtoberfest (from Frederick, Maryland - we'll have to stop by sometime on our way to DC). Will says the when we are in San Diego we'll have to visit the Stone Brewery, which really impressed him.

The best beer last night was He'Brew's Bittersweet Lenny's R.I.P.A. - A double india pale ale with rye malt, which was rich, hoppy, malty, sweet and strong at 10%. It really filled your mouth: "a whole meal" as Will put it. Fortunately we were splitting the beers into 3 so that it was only an appetizer!