Polish Smoked Sausage is made of pork, salt, pepper, garlic and optional marjoram

Polish Smoked Sausage is made of pork, salt, pepper, garlic and optional marjoram. This is it - nothing else. Sodium nitrite (Cure #1) is added as the sausage is smoked. All other mysterious recipes are just inventions of creative minds. For centuries Polish Smoked Sausage was made entirely of pork. Then in 1964 the Polish Government introduced a second version of the sausage that was made of 80% pork and 20% beef. All other ingredients: salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, and marjoram remain the same in both recipes. The marjoram is optional but the garlic is a must.

This is the predecessor of the Polish Smoked Sausage as it came to be known all over the world. When it was originally made food preservation was of the utmost importance and that is why it was cold smoked. Today its hot smoked version is better known as it requires less time to make.

Our note: The word "kielbasa" does not describes a particular sausage. In Polish language this word means "sausage" and there are about 120 different "kielbasa" so which one are we talking about? You have to follow it with a proper name: Kiełbasa Krakowska, Kiełbasa Rzeszowska, Kiełbasa Krajana otherwise the word means only sausage.

1.	meat selection	Pork - 5 kg (11 lb). 80/20 meat - pork butt, ham, shoulder or other. About 2 kg (4.4 lbs) lean meat and 3 kg fatter pieces. Meat total : 5 kg (11 lb).	salt pepper garlic marjoram sugar Cure # 1	100 g 7.5 g 3 g 3 g 10 g 14 g	3.5oz 0.26oz 0.10oz 0.10oz 0.35oz ½ oz	5 Tbs. 3 tsp. 1clove 2 tsp 2 tsp. 2 tsp.
	ingredients
2.	curing	Cut meat into 2" dimeter pieces, and add 2 tsp Cure #2, 1 tsp of sugar and 4 Tbs of salt. Mix well together, pack tightly in a container leaving some space on top and cover. Place in refrigerator for 72 hrs.
3.	grinding	Grind all meat with ½" plate
4.	mixing	Add remaining 1 Tbs of salt and all other ingredients and mix thoroughly with ground meat. Continue mixing until the meat becomes glutinous.
5.	stuffing	Stuff mixture into 32 - 36 mm hog casings and form 30 - 35 cm links (12 - 13"). Prick any visible air pockets with a needle. Keep the total number of links an even number as it will be easier to divide them later into pairs.
6.	drying	Leave it hanging on smoke sticks in a cool place at 35º-42º F (2º-6ºC) for 1 - 2 days at 85-95 % relative humidity.
7.	smoking	Smoke with cold smoke 60º - 72º F (16 - 22º C) for 1 - 1.5 days until brownish - yellow color is achieved. Rotate smoke sticks during smoking.
8.	cooking	none
9.	cooling	see storing below
10.	storing	Store at 50º - 54º F (10 - 12º C) with a relative humidity of 75 - 80% until a weight loss of 23 % is achieved which may take approximately 2 weeks. Divide sausages into individual pairs.
	notes	Marjoram use is optional, amount of garlic may be tripled to 9 g (3 cloves).