Home Smokehouse, Portuguese linguica and Presunto ham

[TonyD]

We recently moved to a predominately Portuguese neighborhood in eastern MA. The neighbor behind our house had what we thought was a cinder block shed with a small chimney. In the middle of January, we saw smoke coming out of the chimney quite often. We thought she was possibly providing heat for the chickens she keeps.

Turns out the building is is a smokehouse! It's about 12'x10' with a small wood stove in one corner and bars hanging the length of the structure where meats are hung for smoking. Needless to say being a WSM owner, this was very exciting for me!

She says her and her family make bacon, Portuguese style linguica sausage and presunto ham. We sampled the bacon and linquica over the weekend. Both had very good flavor, but were quite salty. You could taste the wine and spices in the linguica. She grilled them up on a homemade, half of a 55 gallon drum grill. The grill grate looked like a wire rack from a refrigerator. I think the grill fuel was just small to medium sized branches that had fell in her yard! She really cooked the life out of both the sausage and bacon. I'll have to try to get some uncooked pieces from her to see what they are like.

I'd love to hear from anyone familiar with Portuguese meats or a home smokehouse

 

[TonyD]

If anyone has made linguica or presunto in the WSM and has a recipe, please share!

 

[Bob Correll]

Can't help you with your recipes Tony, but wanted to let you know that you brought up a childhood memory.
Growing up in a small southeast MO town, we had a wooden storage shed behind our house.
It had been a smokehouse in its earlier life.
I remember well that sweet smoke smell when I went into it to retrieve my bike, or maybe my hula hoop.

 

[Mike Cosgrove]

Cool story, wish I could help you with the recipes.

 

[Gary S]

Here is one link. (pardon the pun) I make sausage. Have not made this but this a good video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlj_7fXpKZA

http://www.portugalsmallholding.org/2011/02/homemade-presunto/ Here is another link.

Don`t know if you like fish but ask her about wood smoked sardines in Pimenta sauce. I`ve done them and they are awesome. The Pimenta sauce is very salty too. I just do the sardines in wood smoke.

 

[Dean Richardson]

If anyone has made linguica or presunto in the WSM and has a recipe, please share!

Here is a recipe that I got from a friend of mine who was a butcher. He in turn got it from some Portuguese friends whom he broke down beef for. I've made it a few times. Comes out very good, but I have not had a lot of linguica sausage in my life time so don't have a lot to compare it to. But you can definitely taste the wine!! I usually always embellish a bit more on the marjoram, pepper and garlic.

5 lbs. ground pork, course grind
2 Tbsp Salt
1 Tbsp Dextrose
1 tsp insta cure
2 Tbsp Paprika
1/2 Tbsp gr. Black Pepper
1/2 Tbsp Marjoram
6 large Garlic Cloves, crushed and minced
1/4 Cup Cider Vinegar, cold
3/4 Cup Red Wine, cold

Combine vinegar and wine. Add sausage seasoning to cold vinegar/wine mix and stir to blend. Add mixture to pork and mix throughly. Stuff casing.

(Performed in an electric smoker) Use alder or hickory wood chips to smoke. Smoke sausage at 160 degrees (do not go over 165 degrees - over 165 melts fat and sausage becomes crumbly). Bring internal sausage temp up to 125 degrees, remove wood and replace with water. Continue to steam until sausage reaches an internal temp of 152 degrees. When sausage hits target temp, remove and dump into ice bath to stop cooking and cool down.