Falukorv is Sweden’s family-dinner sausage: a fat, mild, pink ring of finely emulsified pork and beef bound with potato flour, lightly smoked and cooked, sold in a horseshoe and sliced thick. Swedes fry the slices, cube them into korv stroganoff, or slit the whole ring, fill it with mustard and cheese and bake it — ugnsstekt falukorv.
The diagnostic detail is the binder. Falukorv’s EU Traditional Speciality Guaranteed (registered 2001) says the starch must be potato flour, and the meat content must be at least 40 g per 100 g — so it is openly a meat-and-starch-and-water sausage, softer and wetter than a bologna, closer to a German Lyoner with potato starch. The specification also fixes a 45 mm casing, smoking, and a steam cook to 72 °C.
The ox-hide rope story — miners at the Falun copper mine cutting hides for hoisting ropes and turning the leftover beef into sausage — is a legend with no document behind it. The firmer history is quieter: a German-style scalded sausage, likely brought by German miners, made in quantity in Falun by 1834 and protected in Sweden since 1973.
I have not made this one yet. The formula is Marianski’s, checked against the TSG limits; it is untested.
Ingredients
MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight
- 885 g (1 lb 15 oz) lean pork shoulder — 39%
- 750 g (1 lb 10 oz) lean beef or veal — 33%
- 385 g (13.5 oz) pork back fat — 17%
- 250 g (9 oz) pork jowl or picnic trim with connective tissue — 11%
CURE AND SEASONING (% of meat weight)
- 45 g salt (2.0%)
- 5.7 g Cure #1 (0.25% = 2.5 g/kg = 156 ppm nitrite)
- 6.8 g sugar (0.3%)
- 5.7 g white pepper (0.25%)
- 2.3 g ground coriander (0.1%)
- 2.3 g nutmeg (0.1%)
- 1.1 g mace (0.05%)
- 125 g grated onion (5.5%)
- 125 g potato flour, not potato flakes (5.5%)
- 500 ml ice water or crushed ice (22%)
CASING
- 45 mm beef runners or 45 mm cellulose or fibrous casing, tied in rings
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: Salt. The potato flour is the TSG’s rule and the sausage’s texture — cornstarch or wheat flour makes a different, gummier thing.
- Cure arithmetic, shown: 5.7 g Cure #1 × 6.25% = 0.356 g nitrite ÷ 2.27 kg = 156 ppm on the meat block.
- TSG check, shown: the batter is 2,270 g meat + 125 g onion + 125 g potato flour + 500 g water + about 75 g seasoning ≈ 3,095 g. Meat is 2,270 ÷ 3,095 = 73%, well over the 40% minimum. Fat is roughly 330 g from the back fat plus about 280 g in the lean cuts, ≈ 610 g ÷ 3,095 ≈ 20%, under the 23% limit.
- Grind: lean pork, fat and onion through a 10 mm plate; beef and jowl through a 3 mm plate. Keep everything at 0–2 °C.
- Emulsify: in a food processor (in batches), run the beef and jowl with the salt, cure and half the ice until it is a sticky paste. Add the spices, sugar and the rest of the ice, then the potato flour, then the pork, fat and onion. Process until smooth and glossy. Never let the batter go above 12 °C / 54 °F — check with a thermometer. A warm emulsion breaks, and a broken falukorv weeps fat and water and slices crumbly.
- Stuff: into 45 mm casings, tie into rings of about 1 kg, and prick any air.
- Dry and smoke: hang at room temperature 60 minutes, then smoke at 55–60 °C / 130–140 °F for 60 minutes with a mild hardwood. Falukorv is lightly smoked — colour, not a smoky flavour.
- Cook: in water at 75–80 °C / 167–176 °F (never boiling) until 72 °C / 162 °F at the centre, about 60 minutes. That is the TSG’s core temperature.
- Chill fast: ice water for 15 minutes, then refrigerate below 8 °C. It slices best the next day.
- Decision point: fat caps at the ends or a greasy cut face means the emulsion broke (too warm, or too long in the processor). Serve fried in slices with potatoes and mustard, or slit and baked with mustard, cheese and tomato at 220 °C for 15–20 minutes. Its cousins are Old-Fashioned Bologna and Bockwurst; the other Swedish sausage in this set is Potatiskorv (Swedish Potato Sausage).
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Backbone: Marianski’s Falukorv — per 1,000 g: lean pork 350 g, beef or veal 300 g, back fat or fat trimmings 150 g, pork with connective tissue 100 g, potato flour 50 g, onion 50 g; salt 18 g, Cure #1 2 g, pepper 2 g, coriander 2 g, nutmeg 1 g, water 200 ml; emulsified; 55 mm rings; smoked 60 °C 60 min; cooked in 80 °C water 60 min. Checked against the EU TSG specification (registered 12 December 2001): meat at least 40 g per 100 g; beef, horse or pork; potato flour; fat no more than 23 g per 100 g; finely cut and emulsified; artificial casings of 45 mm, ring or tube; smoked; steam-cooked to 72 °C; chilled below 8 °C. Deviations: (1) 45 mm casing (TSG) instead of his 55 mm; (2) salt and cure stated on the meat block, not the whole batter; (3) mace and sugar added; coriander halved; (4) cooked to the TSG’s 72 °C core. I have not made it; it is untested.
Where falukorv came from. The popular story: the Falun copper mine used vast amounts of rope made from ox hides, and the leftover meat was salted and smoked into sausage. It is widely told in Sweden and not documented in any primary text. Marianski’s version — that it ‘is said to have come from the German miners’ — is more plausible, since German technicians were central to the mine for centuries and falukorv is a German scalded-sausage type, but it is also unproven. The TSG file dates the tradition to about 1600 and cites an 1834 newspaper describing substantial production and distribution across Sweden. The modern recipe is credited to the late 19th century, and the name was protected under Swedish rules in 1973.
The meat floor. Sources quote 40% or 45%. The registered TSG text says at least 40 g of meat per 100 g; a source for 45% was not found.
Variations. Ugnsstekt falukorv (slit, filled with mustard, cheese, tomato or apple, baked); korv stroganoff (strips in tomato-cream sauce, a 1960s school-dinner classic); fried slices with macaroni. Commercial falukorv is often skinned.
Sourcing and gear. Potato flour (potato starch) from a baking aisle or Scandinavian grocer. A food processor big enough for a kilo at a time, or a bowl chopper. An instant-read thermometer for the batter.
Still open. The full TSG specification’s spice list was not read; whether the 45% figure comes from the older Swedish rule is not established.
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