Norwegian Food Culture - Assignments After Practical Session 3

 

Norwegian Food Culture - Assignments After Practical Session 3


Hello! Welcome back to my blog! My name is Youngjun Kwon, the student in the class Norwegian Food Culture!

Today, I'll introduce my own 'sausage' which has been made by my own way, mostly focused on the preserving progress.


Meat has been worked as one of the most important protein supplier to Scandinavian. but since they couldn't use any fridge or freezer like nowadays, they had to find a proper way to preserve meat as fresh as they can, so as a result of it they turned out some methods called curing, salting, and smoking(In some cases, ash). Medisterpølse-generally called Medister sausage in English-was the most generally produced traditional Scandinavian sausage ever since far far history. Every sausages past were made for preservation, which proves how time consuming this work was, and how desperate European people trying to survive the winter safely.


As a Korean, the whole process was a bit unfamiliar for me because mostly we produce and consume sausages with processed one, not having a traditional way. so I was trying to use this opportunity as reviewing what I've learned from this practical session, attaching some method of drying fish in Korea. 

This blog actually helped me a lot when it comes to setting the plan how to prepare for the best condition and environment for sausage to get dry out easily and prevent from getting spoiled.

Drying croaker, Crowdpic, 2022

I also searched for some information of what could be the most similar food that I can make in Korea as well, and I found that drying some species of fish really resembles with drying sausages in terms of using salt and wind.

Also, special thanks to my mother. She helped me a lot advising something I need to deal with against unintentional factor like bad climate or getting mold on the sausage.




FIrst. Cooking Sausage


Kitchen Table, Youngjun Kwon


-Ingredients-

800g of pork

150g of lard(pork fat from the rib)

20g of salt

1/2 tsp of pepper

1 tsp of allspise

1/2 tsp of ginger

about 50 centimeters of sausage casing


The recipe is mostly the combination of Cured sausage and Medister sausage that you can find in the paper we used during the class.

Learning Point 1 :
I sometimes wondered about what is the key roles of lard(pork fat) in sausage, and turns out lard works to keep savor and water during the cooking progress, and hold all the meats together still.

Number one rule in the kitchen: Always take care of using sharp tools and fire, and keep everything clean after finish cooking.




Preparing ingredients, Youngjun Kwon


Before cutting meats, I had to remove all the salts attached all over the sausage casing. So I washed every single surface thoroughly including the inside with flowing water and kept it cool in cold water.

Afterwards, I was able to slice the meats as a reasonable size to be fit in the meat grinder. As the recipe says, I needed a bit more salt so that it can taste salty.

But one thing I was a bit curious was that the fat was too slimy and slippery. To be honest, I couldn't purchase the real lard because of the price issue, instead I purchased this fat which is produced from the pork rib, but I think it won't be a real matter as long as it's basically fat.




Grinding meat and adding salt and spices, Youngjun Kwon


Grind the meat and lard with grinder. Make sure that all ingredients should be evenly mixed together. 

Also remember that you should use gradually smaller holes for grinder outcome. This will help the taste of sausage juicy and soft.




Combining sausage case with meat grinder, Youngjun Kwon


Now that you prepared all stuffs to fill the sausage, try to use a long snout thing to fill it. if you don't have a proper machine to fill it automatically, you can replace it with piping bag.





Filling sausage casing, Youngjun Kwon


Remember you minimalizing the air input. Otherwise it'll let sausage gets spoiled faster. To prevent it, Note that you should start filling meat in it from the edge, and if necessary, use needle to poke on the surface of the sausage to let out the air.




Sausage completed, Youngjun Kwon


Use string to make a knot tight. Once you finished filling the casing, You are ready to hang the sausage on the outside.






Second, Hanging Sausage (25th Oct ~ )

Sausage and Coarse salt, Youngjun Kwon



What I have to prepare?

Coarse salt

Sausage

Extra string

Periodical weather checkup

Smell and color checkup

Ventilation check


This is the highlight of those whole progress. Because we all can make our own sausage at any time if prepared, but drying the food outside is time consuming process, so you'll may be reluctant to experience it. From this process, we have to remember that we can learn the wisdom from the history.

According to the prominent information blog, ideal temperature for drying sausage is around 10~20°C, and the humidity is 70~80%.(Starter Cultures, n.d.) So I needed to check if there's possible hanging spot nearby my dormitory before cooking. Thankfully I found an open veranda with strong rubber string that I can use for hanging sausage with silk string. Furthermore there was even prevented from direct sunlight.




Rubbing sausage with coarse salt, Youngjun Kwon


First, rub the sausage with salt. This will delay the spoilage by letting out the water inside of the sausage. 

Plus, I did this work two more times at three days intervals because the weather was raining so hard these days. 

Learning Point 2 :
Salt steals water from the most organic matter. This is called 'Osmotic pressure', which means the nature itself tries to keep the saltiness even between two matters.




Sausage being hung up in veranda, Youngjun Kwon


First ~ Third days (25th Oct ~ 27th Oct)

It was a big shame that I chose the most terrible weather. It was so heavy rain 24/7, So There's nothing I can do but rub the sausage with salt periodically. Considering how much salt we use for drying fish in Korea, I thought just sometimes would be okay, but I gradually started to concern about if it gets too salty once finished drying. So the only thing I could was just praying for nice weather and no freezing temperature.



Air pocket, Youngjun Kwon


i also found a bit of mistake that there was still some air pocket left in the sausage. I was able to remove the big pocket with small knife, but I needed to keep an eye on how this will harm my sausage as the time goes by.






Checking status, Youngjun Kwon


Fourth ~ Sixth days (28th Oct ~ 30th Oct)

The raining stopped and the sky was clear. but the temperature was extremely cold that it dropped almost minus degree. I could even see ice particles on the grass. So I was worried if sausage would be frozen. But at least there was no mold or bad smell on it which is so relieving.

The sausage itself turned darker and darker. and the surface was already fully dried. Maybe the salt therapy was totally worked! I double checked the future weather forecast and they said there won't be any rain until weekend, so I thought I don't need to rub sausage with salt anymore.

If only I had scale, then I could compare the weight. Because it's really helpful to judge how much water was out.



Sausage, Youngjun Kwon


Seventh days ~ Ninth days (31th Oct ~ 2nd Nov)

There was short rain, but basically the weather was clear. The temperature was going up to 10°C. And most of all, it was windy than any other days. So I was looking forward for faster dry. Smell and colors were still okay, and the weight was going lighter and lighter.

By the way, the sausage started to let out sticky and salty water itself. I have no idea why sausage suddenly do this, but I assume that this is just another process of removing water from the deepest part. I should note of that now and keep an eye on it.





Third. Conclusion

This is not a final version of the process. It will take more than 10 days consider how rainy the weather will be. 

Drying(Curing) meat was totally different compared to pickling in terms of the ingredients and time consumption. But one thing that shares common knowledge was that both methods uses Osmotic pressure to remove water in the product.

This is really important learning point that how ancestors invented the perfect preservation method thinking that there was no electronic devices such as freezer or dryer. There must have been numerous trial and error trying to find those. Some people were able to find that underground has cooler temperature than surface so they used underground pot as a natural fridge, or some people might figured out smoking can kill the harmful bacteria and even parasites. And some of these findings contributed to the scientific technology. For example, Korean people invented their own pottery for curing specific paste such as pepper paste, soybean paste, and soy sauce because of superior air permeability the pottery has. And this was inherited as Kimchi fridge nowadays.

That's why I chose the most traditional method for making preserved meat instead of food dryer. And I don't regret of this choice at all. 

I hope the sausage would dry completely before the submission date on the middle of November.






That's the all I have for this post, and next time, I'll see you soon!






Reference List

Starter Cultures. (n.d.) Making dry cures sausage at home step by step. Starter Cultures. https://startercultures.eu/making-dry-cured-sausages-at-home-step-by-step/

Sungyoon Kim. (2012, 28th November). 한국서 김장 담글 때, 유럽선 돼지 잡는다, The Chosun Ilbo. https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/11/28/2012112802785.html

명동삼촌. (2020, 5th October). 바다 해풍에 생선말리기 바람의 소리. 명동삼촌 세상 살아가는 지혜. https://m.blog.naver.com/opag0322/222106733685


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