Our Sausages
Our sausages are made from ground muscle meat trim and ground fat; no organ meats or other parts of the pig. It’s the seasoning that makes each sausage type different. We currently make a Chorizo and a Salchichon sausage.
There are almost as many sausage recipes as there are sausage makers. Chorizo, for example, is made hundreds of ways, some of which are distinctively different. We make a Spanish style Chorizo with lots of smoked paprika (pimenton from Spain) and garlic. Other ingredients include a black and red pepper blend, demerara (raw sugar), oregano, and rosemary. In a Spanish tradition, we finish off the ingredient list with a little olive oil and red wine. This sausage may be eaten by itself but, mainly because of its complex flavor, has many uses in other dishes. This article from the Chowhound website, 15 Ridiculously Good Chorizo Recipes, is guaranteed to make your mouth water.
Our Salchichon sausage is a very simple recipe designed to allow the flavor of the Iberico pork to express itself without being masked by spices. Its seasoning comes mainly from sea salt and a black and red pepper blend. We add a little demerara to dampen the saltiness of the sausage mix. Again, we top off the ingredients with olive oil and red wine. It is great as a meat dish with a meal or as a tapa or hors d’oeuvre.
We add salt to all of our sausages at the recommend levels for curing. We use sea salt and the minimum recommended level of curing salt. The curing salt contains small amounts of sodium nitrite (found naturally in celery) to protect against botulism in under-cooked meats. (We feel this is a critical food safety issue. If you disagree, then send us an email requesting sausage without curing salt and we will try to accommodate you when we make our next batch of sausage.)
All of our sausages are partially cooked to 145 degrees F. in a smoker, but only the Salchichon gets smoked with hickory wood chips. (The pimento in the Chorizo is already smoked, and the spices in the Chorizo don’t blend well with the flavor of hickory smoke.) The controlled heating of the sausage mix helps distribute the flavors through the fat and improves storage life and safety.
Our sausages are designed to be stored refrigerated or frozen and cooked like fresh sausage. We currently do not make a dry-cured product which can be maintained at room temperature.
Ground Pork. We save some of the ground trim normally used in sausage making and package it as ground pork. It’s a very versatile meat. You can use it for meat balls, spaghetti sauce, a real HAMburger, lasagna, or almost any other dish that calls for ground meat. You can also use it, along with some of the ground fat, to make your own sausages.
About one-fourth of the Glendower Farms whole hog bundle is sausage and ground pork.