Gut, gut, super gut! Alles super gut!

http://globalfoodandmusicproject.blogspot.com/2009/10/gut-gut-super-gut-alles-super-gut.html

What better way to bring in October than a good ol' Oktoberfest meal! If anyone has ever been to an Oktoberfest celebration, you'll know that there are many yummy German dishes to be eaten. But really, what comes to your mind when you hear Oktoberfest? Unless you have an unusual fetish for fat middle-aged men playing a tuba wearing lederhosen, you're probably thinking BEER AND BRATWURST! Honestly I'm not a big fan of bratwurst, but I figured maybe I'll make them from scratch, pork casing and all, and see how they turn out. Doing some analysis and requirements gathering, I came across a Bavarian sausage recipe traditionally prepared for Oktoberfest called Münchner Weißwurst. This Munich-style White Sausage is made of veal, pork, and an interesting combination of spices and is often served with German-style cole slaw and pretzels. For sure I do not like cole slaw but I love me a buttery piece of knotted bread so I decided to also make some homemade pretzels to compliment my white wiener friends. For dessert I chose something called Hörnchen which is a strange derivation of a croissant that can be filled with sweet ooze such as jam. Of course I'm not cooking for Oktoberfest without Bavarian bier so I grabbed a bottle while gathering ingredients... sooooo let's see how things turned out!!!

INGREDIENTS (for six links)

• 300 g lean veal meat
• 150 g lean pork meat
• 200g bacon
• 18 g salt (It seems like a lot, but don't be scurrred)
• 2 g fresh ground black pepper
  
• 1/2 g dried lemon peel
• pinch of dried ginger
• pinch of ground cardamon
• pinch of ground mace
• 1 medium onion
• 20g chopped parsley
• yucky slimy pork casing (you'll need around a half a meter)

As you can tell, the origins of this recipe are not that of America by the use of the metric system. All I know is, I'm glad my measuring tools also use the metric system... otherwise I would have made some interesting wieners. Basically the directions are simple. Grind all the meat, add spices, and throw in the chopped onions and parsley. I happen to have a baby-sized food processor so this actually took several steps. After the sausage mixture is complete, the fun begins - taking the slimy, used-condom material called pork casing and stuff it with wiener meat!! As I am a virgin to stuffing sausage, I don't own a devise that will stuff the meat in the casing. I was able to find something online briefly explaining how to stuff by hand. I figured that so far I've made everything from scratch, so why not do this on my own!

I'm not going to point fingers or anything... but that website is complete BS!! There is seriously no way to stuff those gross intestines with meat by hand!! If using my already greasy hands to hold the casing wasn't bad enough, forcing meat into the casing little by little can be compared to red bloods cells trying to get through a clogged artery that's been exposed to a little too much Long John Silvers... Frustrated and defeated I gave up and stared at the mess I made... As I'm drinking my Bavarian Bier, I asked myself...

"What would MacGyver do??"

Granted I don't have a soft and fluffy mullet, but there's got to be something around my house that I could use to stuff that GD casing!! As I scan through the kitchen, there were some candidates...

funnel - nah... too narrow
bubble tea straw - better.. but still too narrow
St. Bernard - as I'm scanning the room for items my dog was scanning the kitchen for food

Then, like a ray of light, my miracle stuffing tool was waiting to assist me in my quest to finish an Oktoberfest meal. A 1-liter pet bottle that was previously filled with strawberry flavored sparkling water. I cut that thing in half before it had a chance for a final prayer, put the end of the casing around the opening, and stuffed stuffed STUFFED! By now I've finished around 63% of my bier so the actual stuffing process seemed amusing at the time and I started giggling to myself like Hansel when Gretel got candy stuck in her hair... Here is a picture of my beautiful contraption that saved the meal!! It did take a while to get the meat through but it was worth it!! And the results....

Look at these wieners! Don't you just want to shove one down your mouth?!??

After the casing incident, I placed the lucky links into a pot of 175 degree water and added some largely chopped onions for flavor. While this was cooking I made the pretzels and Hörnchen and before I knew it....

HAPPY OKTOBERFEST!!

Even though the water fully cooked the Weißwurst, I decided to pan fry the plump meat rods with some asparagus and onions. The end result? I LOVED LOVED LOVED the Weißwurst!! WAY better than anything you'll buy at the store! Not only was it less greasy, the flavor was out of this world and definitely worth the manual pork case stuffing!! This just goes to show that any German food with an Eszett AND Umlaut in the name equates to pure yumminess!
For those of you celebrating Oktoberfest, try something new this year and bring a little piece of Germany into your own kitchen! And with that, I leave you with one of the most provocative and emotion inducing music videos from Germany... enjoy!!



DPM