Liver Sausage

This past weekend was our annual hog butchering weekend in St. Thomas, Missouri.  Our cousins and Dennis and I go in together to buy a couple of hogs and we then butcher it for the meat we want.  We always get a good amount of pork chops, pork steaks, ribs, roast and plenty of sausage.

This has also been done in my family in previous generations.  I don't know if it came out of the depression or whenever, but there is something known as liver sausage.  I won't go into any detail about how and what it is made from; it would gross out 99.9% of the 2 people who read my blog.  But suffice it to say, those old timers never wasted a scrap of meat... and some of it usually would find it's way into liver sausage.

Grandma Reinkemeyer always had it for breakfast when I would visit.  It was ok then as a kid, but as an adult, you appreciate it more and I bet you that was some really good eating!  In recent years, I would have it made by Agnus, a woman my uncle in St. Thomas knew.  She's now getting up there in age.  Last year she was ill at the time and couldn't make any.  Dennis and I then made an attempt to make some.  However, we got lazy and busy doing other things and the meat went bad (at least it didn't look good), so no liver sausage was produced.  

This year, I'm assuming Agnus was feeling better than the year before.  However, she just wasn't up to the task of making any more.  I guess she's now retired.  So this time, I made a solo effort to get this delicious meat product made. This was Monday night. And I was going off of 2 different but similar recipes. One was from Agnus; the other I believe was from Aunt Helen.

Angus' recipe did not list any real specifics. It called for flour and oats, but no amounts were listed. It said to bake the sausage, but no times or temperature. Helen's recipe at least had some amounts; and said to bake for 2 hours, though no temperature was indicated. So it looked like some trial and error was required.

The process started off ok.  But by the time the baking took place, I began to wonder if something had gone awry. Both recipes called to skim off grease after baking. Now if a recipe calls for skimming grease, it must be some good eating. Oddly, there was no grease. Totally dry. I might have created fat free liver sausage!  Probably not.

The meat looked to be somewhat fatty. I believed I probably used too much oats and/or flour in the mix and it "soaked" up all the grease. On Tuesday, I fried up... or tried to fry up a piece of it.  It tasted right and was good though it was a bit dry and hard. Dennis and I freezer-vac'ed the meat and it now sits in the deep freezer. Who knows if I'll actually eat any or all of it.

At any rate, it was a good learning experience and I look forward to my next attempt. If anyone wants some, or is intrigued to learn more about this little known meat (also known as brownswager), just send me an e-mail.