Muenchner Weisswurst

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Meat grinder with fine plate
• •Sausage stuffer
• •Instant-read thermometer
• •Large wide pot

Instructions

1. 1

   Chill the meat

   Put the veal, pork back fat, grinder parts, and mixing bowl in the freezer for 25 to 30 minutes, until the meat is firm at the edges but not frozen solid. Cold fat cuts cleanly and binds into the sausage; warm fat smears, and then the filling eats grainy instead of fine.

2. 2

   Soak the casings

   Rinse the hog casings inside and out under cool water, then leave them in fresh water while you grind. Clean casings slide onto the stuffer without tearing, and the rinse clears the packed salt that would make the first bite harsh.

3. 3

   Grind it fine

   Grind the cold veal and back fat through a fine plate into the chilled bowl. Work quickly and put the bowl back over ice if the fat starts looking shiny, because shine means it is warming, and warming is where a Weisswurst begins to fail.

4. 4

   Mix the farce

   Add the salt, white pepper, mace, cardamom, lemon zest, squeezed onion, parsley, and crushed ice. Mix firmly with a paddle or cold hands until the farce turns sticky and holds to the side of the bowl, 2 to 3 minutes; the salt pulls protein from the meat, and that protein is the glue that keeps the sausage juicy instead of crumbly.

   If your kitchen is warm, set the bowl inside a larger bowl of ice. Weisswurst is not hard because it is fancy. It is hard because people let it get warm.
5. 5

   Stuff gently

   Load the casing onto the stuffer and fill it with the farce, guiding it loosely rather than tight. A little slack matters because the filling swells during poaching; overstuff it now and the casing splits later, then everyone looks at the pot as if the pot did it.

6. 6

   Twist the links

   Twist into 10 to 12cm sausages, alternating direction with each link so they hold their shape. Prick only obvious air pockets with a clean needle; holes everywhere leak juice, and juice belongs in the sausage, not in the water.

7. 7

   Poach at 70C

   Heat a wide pot of water to 75C, slide in the sausages, then hold the water around 70C for 25 to 30 minutes. Do not boil. A boil hammers the casing and tightens the protein too fast, so the sausage splits outside and turns rubbery inside. Runter mit der Temperatur.

8. 8

   Serve in water

   Serve the Weisswurst sitting in some of its hot poaching water, with sweet mustard and Brezn at the table. Lift out only what you are eating, because the water keeps the sausage gentle and warm without browning it. Eat it fresh, before noon if you are keeping Munich time. Schoen ist, was schmeckt.

Chef Tips

• •Use veal shoulder and real pork back fat, not lean mince. Weisswurst needs fat to carry the mild spice and lemon; too lean and it eats dry before the mustard even arrives.
• •No curing salt. The pale colour is the point, and curing salt would push it toward another sausage entirely.
• •Keep parsley chopped fine but not pureed. You want green flecks through the white filling, not a green paste.
• •If you do not have a stuffer, buy fresh Weisswurst from a good German butcher and follow the poaching method exactly. The cooking rule is the same: 70C water, no boil.
• •Leftover poaching water can moisten sliced potatoes for a salad if it tastes clean and mild. Weggeworfen wird nichts, but only if it is worth keeping.

Advance Preparation

• •Stuff the sausages up to 12 hours ahead and keep them covered in the refrigerator. They are uncured, so do not treat them like smoked sausage that can wait around for days.
• •Poach just before serving. Reheated Weisswurst tightens and loses the soft texture that makes the dish worth doing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 sausage with accompaniments (about 190g)