Saturday potato sausage.

[oddegan]

I make all my own lunchmeat mostly using pork loins. When I run them through the slicer I always end up with a couple of heels. I also end up with trimmings from my bacon. After a while they add up. Time to make potato sausage.
1 pound meat (heels and trimmings, cooked or not)
1 pound of shredded potato's
For each pound add
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp pepper

Grind the meat with the spices. Mix thoroughly with the potatos. Stuff. Sometimes I smoke them sometimes I steam them. Take them to 150 IT. Not totally cooked just firmed up nice for packing and freezing. Fry them up to finish. Gets them a little crispy. A couple of friends eggs and you've got a first class breakfast.
I was going to smoke these but ended up steaming these. Sorry no stuffing pics. Things happened. Here's 15 pounds ready for packing and the freezer.

 

[indaswamp]

Looks good. I've never had potato sausage...do you add cure to it?

 

[SmokinAl]

Never had potato sausage either, but yours sure looks good!
Al

 

[oddegan]

do you add cure to it?

No. The meat is already cured and I don't think the potato needs more than salt. This is just how I like turn a bunch of odds and ends into something. My Danish Great Grandmother taught us not to waste anything. I'll have to post my Grandfather's recipe for finker sometime. Offal good stuff.

 

[daveomak]

oddegan, morning.... FWIW......
Take them to 150 IT. Not totally cooked just firmed up nice for packing and freezing ....

It's HIGHLY recommended you fully cook meats once you apply the heat to it....
During the temp rise, pathogens start multiplying.... If they aren't killed, during the cool down, they continue to multiply until the meat gets to around 40 F.... Then when you reheat the meat, the pathogens start to multiply AGAIN...
It's not a good practice... Think about finishing the cook... If you would like to have the meat cooked to a more rare finish, we have a solution.... It's called pasteurization...
To pasteurize the meat so it is safe to eat, below is a time, temperature chart.... I use the quite frequently... One thing I do is extend the time, at a given temp, by an hour or so... The temp is low enough you won't have fat out or drying... That's a safety margin in the event your thermometer is inaccurate, which can be deadly.. calibrate it...

One additional thing.... Botulism is known to live in the soil, among other places.. Potatoes, carrots, basically any root crop "may" have botulism bacteria on or in it.... I highly recommend using cure#1 when making potato sausage... It's smoked and sealed in a low oxygen environment of a casing...
You would be doing your family a favor...

 

[indaswamp]

Dave, great post....that's why I asked about cure #1 because of potatoes and botulism.

oddegan - most of the cure #1 in the bacon has degraded from the smoking process unless it did not get above 130*....FWIW....

 

[oddegan]

Good to know. My process will now include finishing them. Thanks Dave!