Homemade Texas Smoked Sausage Food

TEXAS SAUSAGE KOLACHES (KLOBASNEKS)

Steps:

• Heat milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it begins to bubble. Remove from heat immediately. Stir sugar, salt, and 1/4 cup butter into the milk and stir until sugar is dissolved. Set aside to cool to room temperature, about 10 minutes.
• Combine warm water and yeast in the large bowl of a stand mixer and stir until dissolved. Stir in cooled milk mixture, eggs, and 2 cups flour. Beat using the dough hook attachment until smooth. Add remaining flour, mixing as you go, just until dough is elastic and slightly stiff, but not dry.
• Turn dough out onto a floured board and knead until smooth and very elastic, 10 to 15 minutes. Coat dough lightly with butter or oil and place in a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let sit in a warm place to double in size, about 1 hour.
• Meanwhile, cut sausages in half and pat dry; this is important. Thinly slice Cheddar cheese block from the short end so that each slice of cheese is about the same length as the halved sausages.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly oil a baking sheet.
• Turn risen dough out onto a very lightly floured board. Roll into a log, cut into 5 equal pieces, and cut each piece into quarters to make 20 equal-sized pieces of dough. Use the palm of your hand to flatten and press 1 piece into a circle or oval. Place the circle on the board and add 1 piece of Cheddar cheese topped with 1 dry halved sausage. Roll dough around fillings and very tightly pinch all seams together to seal. Smooth seams down and place kolache on the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough and filling to make 20 kolaches.
• Bake in the preheated oven until golden, 12 to 15 minutes.

PIT SMOKED BEEF BRISKET AND HOT SMOKED SAUSAGE WITH TEXAS BARBECUE SAUCE

Steps:

• Mix all the ingredients together, saving 1/4 cup, and rub the brisket vigorously. Store brisket well sealed overnight in a shallow pan.;
• In a medium sauce pot, place bacon, onion garlic, and celery. Cook over medium heat until browned. Add 4 bottles of beer to the pot. It's going to be a long day; you will need the other beers for the cook. Bring the pot to a boil. Add rub, mustard, pepper, zest, juice, soy sauce and vinegar. Continue to slowly simmer, for 1 hour, as the meat smokes.
• Start a charcoal fire on one side of the grill. Add post oak pieces that have been well soaked (1 hour), or still green and uncured. Control the heat of the fire by closing the air vents to the grill. Place brisket, fat side up, on indirect heat (not over the fire) and close the top of the grill. Grill should be 300 degrees. Baste meat continuously with mop every 30 minutes. When turning meat always carefully use a spatula and never prick the meat. Tongs or forks may pierce the meat allowing juices to escape making the meat dry and tough. Brisket will be done in about 4 1/2 to 5 hours or when internal temperature reaches 165 degrees. Allow to rest 30 minutes before slicing.
• Remove any excess fat and slice brisket across grain 3/8 inches thick. Texans don't use barbecue sauce, but they haven't tried these. Serve hot smoked sausages split, brisket sliced, BBQ sauce, white bread and pickled peppers.
• Place sausages on smoking grill beside the brisket with indirect heat, not over the fire. Cook at 300 degrees for 1 1/4 hours.
• Chipolte BBQ Sauce: 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1/2 onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, smashed 1 cup chopped tomatoes 1 cup ketchup 1/2 cup coffee 3 tablespoons molasses 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard 3 tablespoons brown sugar 1 tablespoon Worcesterchire sauce 2 chipotle peppers In a medium saucepan, over medium heat, place oil, onion and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and simmer for about 8 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and puree in food processor. Serve right away or let cool and refrigerate.
• Pickled Peppers: 3 cups cider vinegar 3 cups pineapple juice 1 tablespoon cracked peppercorns 2 teaspoons thyme leaves 2 bay leaves 1 teaspoon salt 40 jalapenos 25 garlic cloves 1 red onion, peeled and chopped 2 carrots, peeled and shredded
• In a large saucepan over high heat, bring vinegar, juice, peppercorns, thyme, bay leaves and salt to a full boil. Add jalapeno, garlic, onion and carrots and bring to a boil again. Remove from heat. Transfer to a large container and seal.

TEXAS HOT LINKS

Steps:

• Cut the venison and pork into chunks that will fit into your grinder. Mix well with the salt and sugar. Let this sit in the fridge for as long as you can stand, up to overnight if you have time; it helps the sausage bind to itself better.
• Get out about 10 to 15 feet of hog casings and soak them in warm water.
• Mix the spices and garlic with the meat and fat and grind though a coarse die, about 10 mm. If you don't have that, grind with as coarse a die as you have. If your room is warmer than about 70°F, grind into a container that is set in ice, to keep things very cold.
• If the meat is still below 40°F, go ahead and grind again through a 6 mm die or similar. TIP: If you have some bread around, rip off a piece and make that the last thing in the grinder: It pushes out all of the rest of the meat so you don't waste any. If the meat is above 40°F, put it in the freezer for 30 minutes while you clean up everything.
• Add the beer (or water) to the sausage mixer and mix well with your (clean) hands, or a mixer with a paddle attachment set on low, for about 2 minutes. The sausage will adhere to itself and you will see whitish streaks in the bowl. Put the sausage in a sausage stuffer.
• Thread a casing onto the stuffer, leaving a few inches as a "tail" so you can tie it off later. Stuff the whole casing at once, again leaving a tail at the other end. Repeat until you've stuffed all the sausage.
• Make links by pinching them off and spinning them, first one way, then the other. This prevents them from unraveling when you hang the links to dry. You can also tie them off with twine. Here's a quick video on making the links. Tie off the ends of the casings.
• Carefully compress the links to reveal air pockets, and prick the links with a needle to remove them, gently compressing the meat.
• Hang your sausages to dry, for an hour at room temperature, or up to a day if you can do so in 40°F or below.
• Smoke your hot links at 200°F or thereabouts until they reach about 150°F internal temperature. Then, either eat them or plunge them into a bath of ice water to stop the cooking. Dry them off and store in the fridge for a week, or freeze.