I have been drawn to charcuterie in local deli that has pistachios in them. So it's time to try it for myself. I searched around for a recipe and this one was adapted from an Australian duo located down under. As I create this posting, the sausage is still in my curing chamber but I will post later to let everyone know my opinion of the final product. UPDATE: I have now sampled the results and it is excellent. I love flavor of the nuts and slight orange. I will definitely be making this recipe again.
Ingredients:
5 lbs pork shoulder or but 75/25 split meat/fat
30 g sea salt
7 g curing salt #2
18 g course ground black pepper
18 g fennel seeds, toasted and cracked. (I used my toaster oven for 1 minute 15 seconds)
4 garlic cloves crushed thru garlic press
Zest of 1 orange, washed and pat dried
170 g of raw pistachios, roughly chopped
1/4 cup of Anise liqueur
1/4 cup of Triple Sec liqueur
Mold 600 for spraying the links when in your drying chamber
Beef Middles as needed for stuffing soaked in water for 20 minutes. I needed about 6 feet.
Steps:
1. Make sure your pork is well chilled and grind it thru your coarse grinding plate. Put it back into the fridge to re-chill it.
2. Add all herbs, nuts, curing salt and spices except for the garlic and corn syrup in a small container and mix them thoroughly.
3. Add the garlic and the liqueurs to the ground pork and mix it with your hands until evenly mixed.
4. Stuff your sausage into the beef middles
5. Weigh each sausage and mark down the its initial weight.
6. Hang the sausage in your drying/curing chamber. Spray the sausages with the Mold 600 culture at this point (use the package instructions to dilute and cultivate it)
7. Dry at 58 degrees and 70% humidity until each sausage loses at least 35% of its weight.
