Potatiskorv is a mild fresh sausage of ground pork, beef and raw potato with onion, white pepper and allspice — a Christmas sausage in the Swedish province of Värmland and a year-round one in the Swedish-American Midwest. It is simmered, then sliced and fried or served warm with mustard, beets and the rest of the julbord.
The diagnostic detail is the potato, raw, at nearly half the weight of the meat. That makes it soft, tender and moist, with a gentle flavour, and it is why it has to be cooked or frozen quickly: raw potato goes grey and the starch keeps working. In Sweden it is called Värmlandskorv; most Swedes do not know the word potatiskorv. In Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan it is the other way round — potato sausage or potatis korv is the name, sold by Swedish-American butchers and families every December.
It exists because potatoes stretched the slaughter meat in a poor farming province, and the habit crossed the Atlantic with the roughly 1.2 million Swedes who emigrated between 1865 and 1915.
I have not made this one yet. The formula follows the Swedish raw-potato method with Marianski’s seasoning; it is untested.
Ingredients
MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight
- 1,020 g (2 lb 4 oz) pork shoulder — 45%
- 795 g (1 lb 12 oz) beef chuck — 35%
- 455 g (1 lb) pork back fat — 20%
POTATO AND SEASONING (% of meat weight)
- 1,020 g (2 lb 4 oz) peeled floury potatoes, raw (45%)
- 136 g onion (6%)
- 59 g salt (2.6% of the meat, about 1.7% of the whole batch)
- 11 g white pepper (0.5%)
- 4.5 g allspice (0.2%)
- 1.1 g nutmeg (0.05%) — optional
- 90 ml ice water (4%)
CASING
- 32–36 mm hog casings, about 4 m
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: Allspice, Salt. Salt is stated against the meat here because the potato adds weight without adding protein; on the whole batter it is a mild 1.7%.
- Have everything ready first: casings soaked, stuffer set up, pot of water ready. Once the potato is cut, the clock is running.
- Grind the meat: pork, beef and fat through a 10 mm plate (Marianski) or a 6 mm plate for a finer Midwest style. Keep it cold.
- Mix the meat: add salt, pepper, allspice and nutmeg and mix until sticky — the potato adds no bind, so the meat has to supply it.
- Potato last: peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks, and keep them under cold water. Grind them with the onion through the same plate straight into the meat, add the ice water, and mix only until even. Raw potato that sits in the air turns grey within minutes.
- Taste: poach a spoonful and taste. It should be mild, peppery and lightly sweet from the allspice.
- Stuff at once: into hog casings without air, twisted into 15 cm links or long rings. Stuff slightly loose; potato swells.
- Cook the same day — or freeze: simmer in water at 80 °C / 176 °F for 30–40 minutes, to 71 °C / 160 °F inside. Never boil. Cooked links keep 4–5 days cold; raw links should be frozen the day they are made and cooked from frozen.
- Serve: warm, or chilled and then sliced and fried in butter, with mustard and pickled beets.
- Decision point: grey, sour-smelling sausage means the potato sat too long before cooking; mushy texture means too much potato or a waxy variety. The boiled-potato route (see Notes) avoids the greying at a cost to texture. Its Swedish neighbour is Falukorv (Swedish Falun Sausage); for Scandinavian potato on the same table, Potato Lefse.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Two sources disagree on the potato. Wikipedia’s Potatiskorv entry (and Swedish practice) uses raw potatoes ground with pork, beef, onion and lard. Marianski’s Swedish Potato Sausage uses boiled potatoes — per kg, pork 350 g, beef 350 g, boiled potatoes 300 g; salt 18 g, white pepper 6 g, allspice 2 g, nutmeg 1 g, onion 30 g, water 60 ml; 10 mm plate; 36 mm hog casings — because peeled raw potato darkens. This recipe follows the raw tradition and uses Marianski’s seasoning levels. Deviations: (1) raw potato; (2) back fat added as a separate 20% of the block; (3) potato at 45% of the meat rather than 43%; (4) onion raised. I have not made it; it is untested.
Where potatiskorv came from. The sausage is from Värmland in west-central Sweden, where it is called Värmlandskorv and served hot at Christmas; Värmlandskorv is now sold all over Sweden at Christmas. The potato as a meat-stretcher came with Sweden’s 19th-century potato economy — the province was poor and a large source of emigrants. In the US the name potatiskorv (often potatis korv) stuck. Commercial makers include Lars’ Own; Soderquist’s in Ham Lake, Minnesota, was known for it until it closed, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that its recipe lives on with another maker.
The name. Potatis, potato; korv, sausage. Värmlandskorv names the province.
Variations. Boiled-potato version (Marianski); all-pork; with more beef; smoked versions in some Midwest shops (which need Cure #1); older Swedish households sometimes kept raw links in brine for a few days before Christmas — not recommended without refrigeration.
Sourcing and gear. Floury potatoes (russet, King Edward) bind better than waxy ones. A grinder that can take potato; clean it promptly, as starch sets like glue.
Safety note on raw potato. Raw potato carries soil bacteria, and a sausage of raw meat and raw potato is a moist, low-salt, low-acid mix. That is why the old practice was to cook it the day it was made, and why this recipe says to cook or freeze it the same day rather than hold it raw in the fridge.
Still open. A Värmland printed recipe with weights was not checked; the claim that the sausage began as a 19th-century hardship food comes from secondary sources.
Read more on the site. Binders & Extenders