Food

Kiełbasa Myśliwska (Polish Hunter's Sausage)

Charcuterie · Polish · Pork · Sausage · Smoked Foods · Snack

Kiełbasa Myśliwska (Polish Hunter's Sausage)
Prep 1 hour, plus 48 hours dry-curing
Cook 3 hours smoking and baking, then 5–7 days drying
Serves About 3.4 lb / 1.55 kg finished — roughly 14 pairs
Level Medium

Poland’s hunter’s sausage: short, dark-brown, wrinkled pork sticks about 15 cm long, bent into crescents and sold in joined pairs, flavoured with juniper, pepper and fresh garlic, smoked, baked and then dried for about a week so they keep in a pocket. The EU specification describes them as made for exactly that — dry provisions for hunters and travellers. The diagnostic details are the shape (short, fat crescents in pairs, in casing over 32 mm, not thin sticks) and one unusual ingredient: a “tenderising mix” of vinegar, water and oil worked into the lean meat. It is cooked before it is dried, so it is not a raw fermented sausage like a Landjäger.

It is also not the collection’s “Hunter Sausage”, which is an American fresh grind of pork, bacon, beer and mustard seed. Kiełbasa myśliwska became an EU Traditional Speciality Guaranteed in April 2011, and this recipe follows that specification, scaled to 5 lb. I have not made it, and it is untested as written.

Ingredients

MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), TSG classes

  • 680 g (1 lb 8 oz) lean pork ham, under 15% fat (class I) — 30%
  • 1,135 g (2 lb 8 oz) pork shoulder, under 20% fat (class IIA) — 50%
  • 455 g (1 lb) fatty pork trim, up to 25% fat (class III) — 20%

CURE, SALT AND ICE (% of meat weight)

  • 40 g salt (1.75%)
  • 5.7 g Cure #1 (2.5 g/kg = 156 ppm) — with the salt, the TSG’s ~2% curing mix
  • 45 g (1.5 oz) crushed ice (2%)

TENDERISING MIX (3% of meat weight)

  • 45 ml 5% white vinegar (= the TSG’s 10% vinegar plus equal water)
  • 23 ml rapeseed (canola) or sunflower oil

SPICE (% of meat weight)

  • 3.4 g black pepper (0.15%)
  • 2.3 g juniper berries, ground just before use (0.10%)
  • 2.3 g fresh garlic, minced to a paste (0.10%)
  • 4.5 g sugar (0.2%)
  • 32–36 mm hog casing, about 3 m (10 ft)

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper

  1. In the collection: pork in three grades, juniper, fresh garlic, and the vinegar-and-oil tenderising mix. The collection’s American Hunter Sausage shares the name and nothing else; the Polish juniper garland is Kiełbasa Jałowcowa (Polish Juniper Sausage).
  2. Dry-cure 48 hours: cut each grade into pieces of about 5 cm, mix each separately with its share of the salt and Cure #1, pack tight and refrigerate for two days.
  3. Grind three ways: the lean ham through a 20 mm plate (or cut it by hand to 2 cm dice), the shoulder through 8 mm, and the fatty trim through 3 mm with the ice. Three sizes give the specification’s cut face: dark-red pieces of ham and paler pieces of shoulder in a fine binder.
  4. Tenderise the lean: mix the vinegar and oil into the ham and shoulder and blend thoroughly. The specification credits this mix with the sausage’s tenderness; the small dose of acid also helps it dry.
  5. Add the binder and spices: add the fine trim, pepper, juniper, garlic and sugar and mix until sticky. Grind the juniper right before it goes in — its aroma fades within hours of grinding.
  6. Stuff and twist: into the hog casing, firmly, and twist off links of about 15 cm, leaving them joined in pairs.
  7. Settle: 1–2 hours at room temperature to dry the surface.
  8. Smoke and bake: dry the surface at 50 °C / 122 °F with dampers open, then hot smoke at 55–65 °C / 131–149 °F for about two hours (the specification says about 135 minutes), then raise the heat until the centre reads 71 °C / 160 °F.
  9. Chill: refrigerate below 10 °C / 50 °F overnight. As they cool, bend each pair into a crescent over the smoke stick.
  10. Dry to the yield: hang at 14–18 °C / 57–64 °F and 70–80% humidity for 5–7 days, until the batch weighs no more than 68% of the raw meat — 1,545 g or less from this block. They should be firm and evenly wrinkled.
  11. Keep and serve: they keep for weeks in a cool, dry place, longer refrigerated. Eat them as they are, sliced, with bread and pickles on the trail.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Backbone: the Kiełbasa myśliwska TSG specification, republished in the EU Official Journal C 188 of 27 May 2016 (registered by Regulation (EU) No 382/2011 of 18 April 2011). Per 100 kg of meat: class I pork up to 15% fat 30 kg, class IIA up to 20% fat 50 kg, class III up to 25% fat 20 kg (up to half the class IIA or III may be beef); natural pepper 0.15 kg, juniper 0.10 kg, fresh garlic 0.10 kg, sugar 0.20 kg; curing mix of salt and nitrite about 2 kg; tenderising mix 3 litres (1 litre of 10% vinegar, 1 litre of water, 1 litre of rapeseed or sunflower oil); 2 kg ice; dry-cured about 48 hours; class I to about 20 mm, IIA about 8 mm, III about 3 mm with the ice; natural pig casing over 32 mm; sticks of about 15 cm; settled at no more than 30 °C for two hours; hot smoked about 135 minutes and baked to at least 70 °C; chilled below 10 °C; dried at 14–18 °C and 70–80% humidity for 5–7 days to a yield of no more than 68%. Finished limits: protein at least 17%, water at most 55%, fat at most 45%, salt at most 4.5%. Deviations, numbered: (1) The curing mix is translated as 1.75% salt plus 0.25% Cure #1 (156 ppm); the specification gives no nitrite figure for its mix, only the 125 mg/kg limit in the finished sausage. (2) The vinegar: 10% vinegar plus equal water is 5%, so ordinary 5% white vinegar at double volume replaces both. (3) Core temperature 71 °C / 160 °F. UNTESTED.

Where myśliwska came from. The specification ties it to the hunter’s bag of dry provisions described in Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz (1834), but dates the name itself only to the inter-war years, when small Polish processing plants multiplied (citing Gospodarka Mięsna, 1949). An order of the Minister for the Meat and Dairy Industry of 3 November 1953 put it on the official list of smoked products; a standard of 30 December 1954 and the meat industry’s 1964 internal regulation fixed the recipe. It was a commercial success after the war and remains one of Poland’s most popular smoked products. In 2016 Poland applied to complement the name to “Kiełbasa myśliwska staropolska” with reservation of the name.

The name. From myśliwy, “hunter”, and myślistwo, “hunting”. It was made for hunters to carry, not from game.

Variations. The specification allows up to half of the class IIA or III pork to be beef. Game versions with venison or wild boar are made at home in Poland but are not TSG. A juniper-free version is just a short dried smoked sausage.

Sourcing and gear. Juniper berries whole, from a spice merchant, ground in a spice mill on the day. Hog casing 32–36 mm. A scale for the batch yield. Beech or alder for the smoke.

Still open. The specification’s “tenderising” claim for the vinegar-oil mix is the producers’ own explanation; no study of its effect was read.

Read more on the site. Poland and the East · The Frontier