Recipe(tried): Hungarian Hurka Sausage

HUNGARIAN HURKA SAUSAGE

My mother has been making Hurka for as long as I can remember. This is my Grandmother's recipe - she was born in Hungary and taught my mother to make this and some other sausage. This is by far the best hurka recipe I have ever had and my mother has been asked by the local Hungarian ladies to sell the sausage or the recipe. This recipe may be cut in half or doubled depending on your quantitative desire. Use NATURAL CASING with this sausage and be absolutely certain that you do NOT overstuff them. It is best to stuff the casings while the mixture is warm.

4 lbs pork liver
4 lbs pork tongue
4 lbs pork heart
2 to 4 cloves of garlic chopped
3 Tbsp salt
3/4 Tbsp pepper
2 lbs long grain rice
1/2 lb of shortening
Approx. 20 yards of natural casings (I usually buy a "hank", keep them in salted water and freeze - they keep forever)
white cotton string

Cook meats until tender in boiling water. (approx. 2 hours). Cool slightly, then clean tongues. Put all the meats through a meat grinder. Melt shortening over medium heat, add chopped onion and fry until brown. Cook rice separately for 15 minutes.

Mix ground meats, cooked rice, shortening/onion mixture, chopped garlic, salt and pepper. (I do all this in one half of my huge turkey roasting pan) Add enough water to make very moist (approx. 4 cups) and to ease handling. Mix well and push through grinder into casing. DO NOT PACK TIGHTLY IN CASING or casing will split.

When all meat mixture has been stuffed into casings, tie ends (I tie the casing and then further tie with cotton string as casing gets slippery and sometimes comes undone), and drop into boiling water for approximately 4 minutes to cook casing. Put into freezer bags and freeze.

Note: You will need approx. 1 yard of casing for every pound of meat. If you vacuum freeze the end product, it lasts longer. The whole process takes me about 5-7 hours.

To cook afterwards. Do from frozen. Add to a 9x13 pan, put a dollup of shortening in the pan. Cover with tin foil. Cook for 45-60 minutes at 350 degrees. (the first thirty minutes is to thaw). Check it, remove foil and put back in oven for about 5 minutes to "brown" the casing. Serve with dill pickles (they bring out the flavours!).