Wine and Cheese

Honestly I have never spent much time on what goes well with the various types of cured and prepared meats or meals in general. Wine and cheese are enjoyable enough, but they are not my craft. I liked Bordalino with most things save for fish. I have done my fair share of smoking fish, it was never my primary mode of business or skill. The sound a full bottle of Bordalino makes hitting a stone floor is something I remember clearly about dying even. I have heard people clam to be cold, or numb, I even remember on man claiming to be seeing long dead family. If I experienced any of that I don't remember it, the first thing I do remember after is the hollow feeling, like a hole in the world pulling at every sense and feeling I had. We call it hunger, but that is just the only term we can relate to the emptiness that tries to consume us from the first moment we stir from our deaths. The next thing I remember was the exhilaration of feeding for the first time I have forgotten so many things big an small about my time here, but those two feelings haunt me to this very night.

What kind of wine goes with death?

The major preservative is really just that the meat is being dried. With moisture driven out rot has less of a chance to set in, and the smoke does two things, it creates a layer of antioxidants on the exposed surfaces, and more importantly it adds flavor. The flavor comes from the sugars that are broken down from the wood cells as they burn.  The thing of it is though at the time I did not even realize entirely that i had been ghouled. I knew that I always wanted to work in the best interest of my lord, even though I had never met him. There were the dinners every fortnight, that always came with an amazing wine, in hind-sight it is easy to see what was really going on. Still, that doesn't matter much at this point, that was the night I first met my lord and walked out of the world I had known. I had a family, I never knew what was told to them if anything was said at all. The wine cellar, was never well light in the first place, but that night the dark was impenetrable the candle I was using was barely enough to read the labels on the bottles let alone navigate my way. I never saw him, but his voice was a clear as a church bell. I remember thinking his accent was strange, but I didn't understand why till some time later when I understood how old he was. My hands followed his instructions to the bottle with out my brain even getting involved. I left the candle on the rack and moved into the darkness, I could feel his presence there filling up the shadow, but not passing even a hint into the dim candle light. The words he spoke to me I can not recall, but I remember feeling them in my bones more than hearing them, then I died.

It must be the onions

With the pig eviscerated and trimmed it is placed in the harness and exposed to the smoke for hours. Until the meat is tender and fully flavored. I remember learning this recipe by stealing it from that chef Venerio. I had been asked to come to the Lords house to bring some of my specialties, and to make a fresh sausage for the dinner party. From the moment I arrived Venerio treated me like one of his kitchen boys instead of the craftsman I was. He was well known for his whole pig dinner, which would not have been half as good with out my hogs anyway, so I was careful to at least partially act the part of some knavish bumpkin. Once he was thoroughly convinced of my idiocy I was able to ferret out a few of his tricks and secrets. I had intended to make Vernerio look the fool when I recreated his prized meal, only better with in a fortnight, but my lord had other plans. I had been made his ghoul a few summers previous, and while I never had direct dealings with him, I apparently had become a favorite vassal, much to Vernerio's upset, I wonder what ever happened to Venerio.

Excellent Flavor and heat

Smoked Portuguese Linguica

• 3 1/2 pounds pork shoulder preferable from a wild hog, or heritage breed. Regular farm raised animals of this age are fairly bland in flavor.
• 1 1/2 pounds pork fat
• 3 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 10 fresh garlic cloves, minced, The garlic from the south side of the house for this it does not grow as large, but the flavor is more potent.
• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
• 1 teaspoon hot cayenne
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, SMOKED! NOT BURNED! Gregory, if you're not going to use your nose maybe I should just cut it off.
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon crushed black pepper, crushed not ground, that is very important, and for the love of all things good, never ever pre-ground pepper. You never know what is in that
• 1/2 cup powdered milk
• 3/4 cup red wine, from Valpolicella
• Hog casings

1. Chill the meat and fat until they is almost frozen
2. Chop meat and fat into chunks the width of your thumb. Combine the salt, sugar, garlic, dry milk and the rest of the spices and mix it into the meat and fat with your hands. Let this rest in a refrigerator for about an hour. Resting is crucial, the rush of modern times takes away important factors. Time needs to be taken, and the meat must be mixed by hand for the best results.
3. Grind through using the coarse die. Set the bowl for the ground meat into another bowl of ice to keep it cold. Keeping the meat cold is important to
4. Add the wine to the meat mix, with your hands. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly. 
5. Stuff the sausage into the casings. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, the other direction. 
6. Hang the sausages in a cool place for one hour. 
7. Smoke the links for at least 3 hours, and as many as 12. Hickory, Oak or Apple are the preferred woods for this
8. Once the sausages have dried and smoked, put them cold storage until needed. Do no freeze the sausages, they are good for roughly 10 days.

Lucanian Sausage A traditional sausage from what is now southern Italy. 

1 pound belly pork, finely ground, Quality of meat here can not be sacrificed

2 tablespoons pine kernels lightly toasted

20 black peppercorns I know you can count Gregory so WHY ARE THERE ONLY 18 GODDAMN PEPPERCORNS!!!! SHOULD I SEW AN EXTRA FINGER ON YOUR HANDS!! THIS IS NOT A GAME!!

1 teaspoon chopped fresh or dried rue

2 teaspoons dried savory

1 heaped teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon course ground black pepper

30 bayberries These can be hard to find, mostly I find them in the port, in early autumn especially if the boats have come from the qrient.

2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley

3 tablespoons fish sauce home made sauce takes time but it is worth the effort. I prefer to use mackerel and tuna, and much less salt then the modern variety. The smell is off putting, that's what the barrels we use for the fermentation are out behind the wallow. The trick is fermenting for just an extra week it removes the most of the oder and leaves a nuttier flavor.

Mix ingredients thoroughly by hand and grind again before stuffing, twist into links every hand width and hang on a rack for smoking. For these sausages I use an oak wood fire, for 1 and 1/4 hours. Then grill over medium heat and serve.

The secret is in the smoke

~~NOTE THIS POST IS A WORK OF FICTION~~

Ingredients

2 1/2 quarts pork stock reduced over the course of a week using the bones from 3 month cured hams

2 lbs bone-in pork shoulder chops, the fresher the better still warm is best

5 cups chopped onions  ........ I SAID CHOPPED ONIONS!! NOT MINCED DAMN IT GREGORY WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE HANDS!

2 tablespoons dried and ground datil pepper 

2 1/2 teaspoons minced Aglio Bianco Polesano garlic

2 1/4 teaspoons salt

hog casings

1/4 lb freshly extracted pork liver 

7 cups freshly cooked rice pre-soaked in human blood

2 cups chopped green onions

1/2 cup minced fresh parsley

2 teaspoons powdered garlic

2 1/2 cups blood freshness counts, I tend to 50/50 human to pig, hey mix well and have complementary tastes

Combine 2 quarts of the pork stock with the pork steak, onions, 2 1/2 teaspoons pepper, minced garlic, and 1 tablespoon of the salt in a cast iron Dutch oven

Bring to a boil over high heat; continue boiling for 1 and a half hours, stirring occasionally and adding more stock or water near the end if needed to keep the meat covered with liquid.

Soak the casings in cool water about 5 minutes no more do this about one hour in advance of stuffing to remove the salt. If you spot any holes in the casing at this time, discard or cut the damaged bit off. Cover the rinsed and drained casings and refrigerate until ready to use.

Transfer cooked meat to a bowl to cool, leaving the pot with the boiling stock over high heat. Add the liver to the pot and cook for  3 minutes 45 sec turning meat once if it's not completely submerged in the stock. Remove pot from the heat, remove the liver .Strain the stock, separate the onions and garlic.

Cut the pork meat and liver into cubes two fingers thick. Grind the meat and fat in a meat grinder, using coarse grinding disc  In a large bowl or pan, combine the ground meat, rice, reserved onions and garlic, green onions, parsley, garlic powder, 1 cup of the reserved stock and the remaining ground pepper and 1 1/4 teaspoons salt; mix thoroughly with hands.

Stir in blood, mixing well, again with your hands, no spoon or spatula will ever tell you when the texture is just right my boy your grandfather taught me this, it is he said the most important part of a good blood sausage.

While the mixture is still hot, fill the casings and make links by twisting the sausage three turns every hand length and hang on rack. 

Smoke for 3 hours at 200 degrees, any smoke is good, though I have developed  specific blend of woods with a moss I have found here in the underground I find the smoke to permeate the meat more thoroughly. You can also quickly char grill for an extra bit of texture and flavor.