California Scrapple Food

SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• Trim the fat from around the top of the heart and remove the sinews. Cut the heart into 4 pieces and put it in a heavy stewing kettle with the meaty bones and liver. Add 3 quarts of water, cover and simmer gently for 3 hours until the meat falls from the bones.
• Strain the broth into a clean pot. Discard the bones and put the meat through a coarse grinder. Grind the heart and liver as fine as possible and combine the 2 meat mixtures.
• Bring the broth to a simmer. Combine the cornmeal and the seasonings and gradually add to the boiling broth, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium and add the meat mixture. Stir until everything is well mixed. Cook slowly for 30 minutes, stirring almost constantly so it does not stick to the bottom, as it will be quite thick.
• After 30 minutes it is ready to pour. Rinse 9 small breadpans with cold water or grease them and pour the scrapple to the top of the pans. Set the pans to cool and when cool refrigerate until the next day.
• When ready to eat, unmold the scrapple onto a cutting board and cut into 1/4-inch thick slices. Melt fat in a skillet and fry the slices until brown and crusty on both sides. Serve immediately with or without maple syrup.
• The loaves can be unmolded and frozen but will keep refrigerated for about 1 week.

SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• To a large stockpot, add the pork butt, hocks, onion, celery, peppercorns and bay leaves. Barely cover with water and simmer over low heat until the pork is tender and the meat falls off the bones, about 2 hours.
• Drain and reserve the stock. Pour the solid contents onto a baking sheet so that you can easily discard the celery, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and all of the bones. Make sure to pull the meat completely off the bones, being careful to remove all the small pieces of bone.
• Add the meat to a food processor with the blade attachment and pulse to coarsely chop. Don't over grind it.
• Measure 1 gallon of stock and return it to the pot along with the chopped meat and the salt, ground black pepper, cayenne, and sage. Bring to a simmer over low heat.
• Add the cornmeal and stir, stir, stir. Simmer until smooth and thick, about 15 minutes. Add a little stock or water, if needed, to ensure a smooth texture.
• Pour into 3 loaf pans and refrigerate until solid, preferably overnight.
• Unmold, slice and fry in clarified butter until golden brown. Serve with applesauce or maple syrup.

CALIFORNIA SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• Trim excess fat off pork and discard (unless you have dogs, and then it's a treat for them). Put meat in a 4-5 quart pan with six cups of water, sage, pepper, salt and nutmeg. Bring to a boil; cover and simmer until meat pulls easily into shreds (about two hours). Lift out meat and let cool.
• Finely chop meat and return to broth. Stir remaining two cups of water into cornmeal and buckwheat flour, then mix with meat. Bring mixture to a boil and stir until thick (about 30 minutes).
• Spoon into a 4" x 8" loaf pan; cover and chill overnight until firm.
• Turn loaf out of pan and cut into 1/2 inch thick slices. Arrange slices in 1/8-inch melted butter in a frying pan on medium high heat. Using a wide spatula, turn as needed until crusty and browned.

EASY SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• Pour 2 cups of water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.
• Cut sausage into pieces and add to boiling water mixing throughly (a potato masher works well). Once sausage is done take pan off heat and add red pepper flakes and sage.
• Add cornmeal and mix throughly and pour into loaf pan.
• Refrigerate until completely cooled.
• Slice and fry in frying pan with cooking spray.

OLD-FASHIONED SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• In a large saucepan combine pork, cornmeal, chicken broth, thyme and salt.
• Bring to a boil, stirring often.
• Reduce heat and simmer about 2 minutes or until mixture is very thick, stirring constantly.
• Line an 8x8x2-inch baking pan or a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan with waxed paper, letting paper extend 3-4 inches above top of pan.
• Spoon pork mixture into pan.
• Cover and chill in the refrigerator 4 hours or overnight.
• Unmold; cut scrapple into squares.
• Combine flour and pepper; dust squares with flour mixture.
• In large skillet brown scrapple on both sides in a small amount of hot oil.
• Serves 12.

PHILADELPHIA SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• In a large pot, barely cover pork with water (not too much water) and cook on high until pork turns a grey color and is tender.
• Strain all the water out real well and set pork aside.
• Bring 1/2 of the stock (discarding other 1/2 of stock) to a boil and slowly add cornmeal, stirring to avoid lumps.
• Return meat to the cornmeal mixture and mix thoroughly.
• Continue to stir over medium heat for additional 30 minutes.
• Add all of the seasonings and again mix thoroughly.
• Pour into either loaf pans or loaf baking dishes and immediately chill in refrigerator.
• To serve, slice in 1/2 inch thick slices and fry in a skillet, being careful not to burn the scrapple.
• You may or may not wish to serve with ketchup on top of the individual slices.
• Scrapple is an excellent addition at your breakfast with eggs and fried potatoes.

REAL SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• NOTE: the meat involved is Pork head, meat, feet, heart and tongue, or other pork trimmings, if desired, including liver.
• Place them in a water in a covered container until the soft tissue separates readily from the bone. Separate tissue from bone and grind with a fine grinder. Return the ground meat to the strained soup container and boil. Cereal is then added. A common cereal mixture is seven parts cornmeal and three parts of either buckwheat, white, or rye flour.
• Approximately 4 lbs of the ground meat combined with 3 lbs of soup (liquid) plus 1 lb of cereal is sometimes used. Gradually moisten the cereal with a cool liquid (water or the cooled soup) to prevent lumping. Add this premoistened cereal to the ground meat-soup mixture slowly then boil for 30 minutes.
• Prior to finishing boiling, add seasoning.
• A suggested seasoning combination for 8 lbs of finished scrapple would include 3 oz salt, 1/4 oz black pepper, 1/4 oz sweetened marjoram, 1/4 oz nutmeg, 1/4 oz sage or thyme, and 2-1/2 oz onions. Some prefer to add a pinch of mace and a pinch of red pepper also.
• After the seasoning is mixed thoroughly and the onions cooked, pour the scrapple into pans (not bowls) and refrigerate to 30 - 32F degrees immediately.
• Note this is usually made in large batches and saved throughout the year until the next butchering. It uses every part of the pig so nothing is wasted. It wasn't a throwaway society. This is also NOT a city recipe. They didn't butcher as they did in the country.
• number of pans is a guess.
• Note: IF you want the instructions for cleaning the meat [from head and so forth] zaar me. I am not going to post it because more people are going to look at this that are NOT going to do it yourself than people who are. Some just don't wanna hear it and that isn't a problem. My brother always turned green.