Recipes

Silesian Kielbasa

Kuba Winkowski

A step-by-step guide to making Silesian Kielbasa – a Polish hot-smoked sausage…

Silesian Kielbasa Recipe

Makes around 10 kielbasa - Takes 5 hours, plus several days brining, hanging and drying time

Ingredients

1kg pork belly
17g of fine salt
0.4g of saltpetre
10g of garlic powder
0.5g of ground mace
0.5g of ground caraway seeds
1.5g of freshly ground black pepper
100ml of iced water
sausage skins, soaked overnight in cold water

TONGUE

150g of beef tongue
50g of fine salt
500ml of hot water
500ml of chicken stock
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 celery stick, chopped
1 bouquet garni

Method

Start by cooking the tongue, as this needs to be brined overnight and cooked for 3 hours. Make a 10% brine by dissolving 50g of salt into 500ml of hot water and allow to cool. Place the tongue in the brine, ensuring it is fully submerged, and place in the fridge for 24 hours.
Drain the tongue and place in a pan with the chicken stock, carrots, onions, celery and bouquet garni. Simmer for 3 hours until soft, then when cool enough to handle cut into a fine dice. Set aside.
To make the sausage filling, attach a medium mincing disc to a meat mincer. Mince the pork belly, then take a quarter of the meat and run it through the mincer again, this time with a fine mincing disc attached.
Add the rest of the ingredients (apart from the sausage skins) and the tongue to the minced pork and mix well (you can do this by hand or with a stand mixer). It should be sticky and dough-like when it’s ready.
Place the filling into a sausage stuffer and loop the soaked sausage skin onto it. Begin piping the stuffing into the sausage skin, tying the end tightly sausage skins, soaked overnight in cold water.
Continue to stuff the sausage skin, ensuring there are no large gaps or air bubbles.
Curl the sausage around as it forms, until you’ve used all the filling.
Tie the other end of the sausage skin tightly and cut with a knife.
Use a pin or a salami pricker to poke tiny holes all over the sausage to allow and small pockets of air to escape.
Twist the sausage skin to create individual sausages – they can be as long or as short as you like.
Use a stick to hang the kielbasa, ensuring there is plenty of space between them and none are touching.
The kielbasa now need to be hung and left to dry out for 24 hours.
The next day, set up a hot-smoker and fill the chamber with smoke at around 40°C. Hang the sausages inside and cook for 2 hours.
Increase the heat to around 85°C and cook for a further 2 hours, until the internal temperature reads 72°C.
Remove the kielbasa from the hot-smoker and leave to cool to room temperature, then place in the fridge to set and chill.
They are now ready to eat as is, or can be used in a variety of dishes to add a punchy smoky flavour.

Credit: Recipe & all associated images With Copyright Owner Permission of Kuba Winkowski via Great British Chefs

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