William Penn Life, 2013 (48. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
2013-02-01 / 2. szám
with Főszakács Béla Offal food FARADJON BE A MAGYAR KONYHÁBA! February 2013 The Hungarian Kitchen mailbox was full of requests for recipes and reprints of columns I wrote a few years back. Chef Vilmos and I are always willing to oblige our readers by providing anything to help advance Magyar cooking techniques. Next month, we will continue with Hungarian Regional Cooking along with all the sidebars and recipes. This month I want to answer requests about a popular Magyar food, hurka. Also included are other products produced when butchering a cow, pig or lamb. While most of you will not do the butchering of the animal, you can certainly produce the recipes with the help of your local butcher shop or meat purveyor. In any case, enjoy all the recipes with your family and friends. Offal is the term used to describe the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal. Also known as "variety meats," they are edible parts of a slaughtered animal other than skeletal , muscle. Some examples of variety meats are the liver, kidneys, lungs, tongue and the sweetbread, ■ also known as the thymus. The process of producing meats by means of salting, smoking and curing is Charcuterie. This process of preparing meats also includes organs and byproducts of a butchered animal. Charcuterie itself dates back hundreds of years with basic curing and preserving recorded in early civilizaof man. In some cultures, offal products are a delicacy. Those who had the wealth and the means to own and butcher livestock ate the skeletal muscle meats and discarded all remaining parts of the animal. The poor—usually servants to the affluent who could not afford meat—got the remains as part payment for their services. Throughout history, man refined and developed techniques for processing food. In today's world, we reap the fruits of centuries-old recipes and methods, giving us tasty ways to enjoy all parts of a slaughtered animal. Before we start, there are certain items to have on hand when processing meats and organs: • large metal mixing bowls for holding ingredients during processing; • a meat grinder with grinding plates of various sizes (‘/i«", ‘/s"and ’/r"); • a chefs knife nine inches in length; • a boning knife for trimming meats to specific cuts; • a non-porous cutting board for sanitary cutting and processing; • a sausage stuffer that has a five-pound or 10-pound capacity; • an electric mixer with dough hook or paddle attachment for blending mixtures; • a kitchen scale with a capacity of 20 pounds; • a sausage prick for removing air pockets from stuffed casings; and • a digital thermometer for obtaining proper temperatures when stuffing and cooking. Seasonings are important ingredients when processing any foods in the kitchen. The most popular you should have on hand are allspice, bay leaf, caraway seeds, cardamom, celery seed, chili powder, Hungarian paprika (both hot and sweet), fennel seeds, garlic cloves, black peppercorns, sage, thyme, rosemary and pickling spice. Salt is another special ingredient that accents the flavor of food. Your salt stock should include kosher salt (which has large crystals) and sea salt (which has more flavor than regular iodized table salt). There are highly concentrated processing salts used in the curing process, such as pink salt, which is used on a ratio of one ounce to 50 pounds of meat and is only for the serious processor, not normal household usage. Casings are the last item you need to start making sausage, kolbász and hurka. The cleaned and sanitized intestines from a slaughtered lamb, cow or pig are natural casings. They can be obtained from your local butcher or in the meat department of your local supermarket. William Penn Life The Hungarian Kitchen is a trademark of William S. Vasvary.
