Wart
Banned
Wife was cleaning out the pantry and came across a bag of polenta. It didn't look to buggy so Wife made polenta for dinner, I put the leftover in a small bread pan and , golly, made my first Cornmeal Mush.
Then a thread here on NCT reminded me of scrapple and I figured why not give it a shot.
So using what I had on hand I made a brick to see how well it worked, a prototype. Scrapple V1.0:
4 cups water (sort of*)
1 cup Polenta*
6 ounces link sausage
2 ts garlic granules
1 ts basel
(see NOTES*)
(click the pics to see larger versions)
I had a 12oz pack of Johnsonville Maple Syrup link breakfast sausages on hand so I took half a pack and pealed them:
squashed them together into a patty:
and slow cooked them into an ugly little burger in the bottom of the sauce pan:
Which I then put in a food processor and chopped real fine:
While I was playing at chopping the sausage I put 4 cups of water in the pan and brought it to a boil and added the polenta.
I have a picture, it's more boring than the rest.
The polenta is suppose to be boiled/ cooked for ~20 minutes with regular stirring. As polenta cooks it thickens to a point the escaping steam "plops" out of the corn meal. BEFORE the polenta reached the plop point I stirred in the garlic, meat and basel. I continued cooking until the mixture was thick.
I then poured into a smallish bread pan:
It's now Scrapple.
I let the scrapple cool for quite a while then covered with plastic and chilled in a 37 degree fridge overnight.
Next morning I cut the scrapple:
Fried it (another boring picture) and got this:
And now for the notes:
I used Polenta (coarser grind than cornmeal) because it was old and needed used. Next time I make scrapple it will probably be with cornmeal. Probably call the thread V2.0
6 ounces of meat is NOT ENOUGH!!! The only definite flavor to come through was the maple.
I looked at one recipe, it said to boil the meat. I thought , No. I didn't want to boil flavor out, wanted to make sure all the grease got in, figured boiling would introduce an unmeasurable amount of water. and I wanted to mince/ chop the meat to minimize structural problems.
I think hte meat could have been cooked a bit browner, it would have added a bit more flavor.
I cook by weight, before I started I set the scale to the pans tare. After removing the meat from the pan I set the pan on the scale and filled it till the scale read 32 ounces. I forgot to take note of how much pork fluid was in the pan, it wasn't much.
When I measured the polenta I tapped to settle the polenta in the cup, and the cup was slightly rounded. I believe the Polenta weighed 6.5 ounces.
When making polenta mush in accordance with the instructions measurements (1 C Polenta & 4 C Water) the mush seeped water. This time it didn't seep so much because, I believe, of being heavy on polenta and the meat.
The fried slices in the picture were cut in varying thicknesses between as thin as I could to ~ 1/4 inches thick. I like the thicker cuts better than the thin, I think.
Also, after two days in the fridge the scrapple cut better.
Flavor and texture:
This was no where near as heavy of flavor as the store bought scrapple. Of course I'm not using pig renderings as a fluid. This needs more meat, and definitely meat without the maple. Next batch I think I'll try 12 ounces plane pork.
The texture is light and pleasant.
0
Then a thread here on NCT reminded me of scrapple and I figured why not give it a shot.
So using what I had on hand I made a brick to see how well it worked, a prototype. Scrapple V1.0:
4 cups water (sort of*)
1 cup Polenta*
6 ounces link sausage
2 ts garlic granules
1 ts basel
(see NOTES*)
(click the pics to see larger versions)
I had a 12oz pack of Johnsonville Maple Syrup link breakfast sausages on hand so I took half a pack and pealed them:
squashed them together into a patty:
and slow cooked them into an ugly little burger in the bottom of the sauce pan:
Which I then put in a food processor and chopped real fine:
While I was playing at chopping the sausage I put 4 cups of water in the pan and brought it to a boil and added the polenta.
I have a picture, it's more boring than the rest.
The polenta is suppose to be boiled/ cooked for ~20 minutes with regular stirring. As polenta cooks it thickens to a point the escaping steam "plops" out of the corn meal. BEFORE the polenta reached the plop point I stirred in the garlic, meat and basel. I continued cooking until the mixture was thick.
I then poured into a smallish bread pan:
It's now Scrapple.
I let the scrapple cool for quite a while then covered with plastic and chilled in a 37 degree fridge overnight.
Next morning I cut the scrapple:
Fried it (another boring picture) and got this:
And now for the notes:
I used Polenta (coarser grind than cornmeal) because it was old and needed used. Next time I make scrapple it will probably be with cornmeal. Probably call the thread V2.0
6 ounces of meat is NOT ENOUGH!!! The only definite flavor to come through was the maple.
I looked at one recipe, it said to boil the meat. I thought , No. I didn't want to boil flavor out, wanted to make sure all the grease got in, figured boiling would introduce an unmeasurable amount of water. and I wanted to mince/ chop the meat to minimize structural problems.
I think hte meat could have been cooked a bit browner, it would have added a bit more flavor.
I cook by weight, before I started I set the scale to the pans tare. After removing the meat from the pan I set the pan on the scale and filled it till the scale read 32 ounces. I forgot to take note of how much pork fluid was in the pan, it wasn't much.
When I measured the polenta I tapped to settle the polenta in the cup, and the cup was slightly rounded. I believe the Polenta weighed 6.5 ounces.
When making polenta mush in accordance with the instructions measurements (1 C Polenta & 4 C Water) the mush seeped water. This time it didn't seep so much because, I believe, of being heavy on polenta and the meat.
The fried slices in the picture were cut in varying thicknesses between as thin as I could to ~ 1/4 inches thick. I like the thicker cuts better than the thin, I think.
Also, after two days in the fridge the scrapple cut better.
Flavor and texture:
This was no where near as heavy of flavor as the store bought scrapple. Of course I'm not using pig renderings as a fluid. This needs more meat, and definitely meat without the maple. Next batch I think I'll try 12 ounces plane pork.
The texture is light and pleasant.
0