Isterband

Hello sausage lovers,

I present to you today my recipe for Isterband (lard strips?), which is one of the few unique Swedish sausages that has little to no counterparts in other European food cultures.  It was also the first sausage I ever made.  

Isterband is a rebellious and bold sausage from southern Sweden that defies the typical rules of sausage production.  Smoky, sour, and crumbly, it stands as a stalwart example of traditional Swedish sausage production, and I am delighted to share my Isterband recipe with you all.

Many Swedish sausages owe their origin to German sausage making traditions.  Falukorv, Varmkorv/Wienerkorv/Prinskorv are of German origin.  They utilize German techniques and spices, and are appropriated into Swedish cuisine from Germanic sausage culture.  

There are few Swedish sausages that are uniquely Swedish. To name a few: Cognacsmedwurst, Isterband, Fläskkorv/Julkorv, Svensk Hästkorv, Isterband, Spickekorv, Renkorv, etc.

Isterband is unique in the sense that it defies the traditional rules of sausage making.  It is loose and crumbly rather than well-bound.  It is lacto-fermented and is very sour.  It contains a significant percentage of filler (cooked barley).  It is cold-smoked and not cooked until prepared.  

This is what makes Isterband a very unique and special sausage which exemplifies the food preservation techniques of old-world, agricultural Sweden.

It is worth mentioning that my sausage production skills have greatly improved over the past 4 years.  The addition of an upright sausage-stuffier, vacuum-sealer, and learning cold-smoking techniques have vastly advanced the quality of my homemade sausages.  

I would highly recommend these tools to anyone seriously interested in the quality production of home-made sausages and cured meats.  The minimum batch of sausage I will make these days is 2 lbs, which is almost 1 kg.  I do not recommend making a batch of sausage under 1 kg.  I have provided guidance on calculations for scaling the below recipe to any size.

I have also re-focused my production efforts from strict recipes, filler ingredients, and cheap meats, to high-quality ingredients and proper techniques. 

To scale this recipe, divide the metric weight of your raw ingredients by the metric sum of the weight on raw materials below.  In the case of the pictures below, I did a batch with 1700g meat and 700g barley porridge. 1700 + 700 = 2400.  2400/1356 = ~1.77, which is your scale factor to multiply each ingredient by.  Measure your spices in grams if you are going to scale up since my recipe uses so little spices I have no need to weigh them.

Isterband

906g pork/beef/organ meat (beef/pork heart, tongue, etc.)

23g Salt (2%)

2.3g cure #1 (.25%)

5g dextrose (.5%)

1 tsp black pepper

.5 tsp Allspice

.5 tsp Onion Powder

~450g (~30%) Barley Porridge (120g dry Pearl Barley + ~700 ml water, cooked until the barley is soft and the total weight of the porridge is about 500g) 

.2g F-LC Bacterial Culture dissolved in ~15-30 ml Distilled Water (optional)*

Hog casings as needed ~ 3 lbs = 12 Isterband (12 x 8")

*note on starter cultures: humans have been performing lacto-fermentations for thousands of years without commercial starter cultures.  Practically every food ingredient contains naturally-occurring lactobacillus bacteria, including the meat and barley used in this recipe.  I made this recipe successfully for many years without using commercial starter cultures.

Select pork and beef according to personal quality preferences.  I used to make to make Isterband using a pre-ground meat blend I called "Bork" (ground pork and beef combined) which was conveniently sold in a 2lb package at my local grocery store chain (Ralphs), intended for meatballs or meatloaf.  It was still perfectly suitable for making Isterband since it is such a forgiving sausage.  

Isterband was historically a rural farmer's sausage, so use whatever you desire, including organ meat.  I personally choose beef chuck and pork shoulder since you can't go wrong with these. No matter what, make sure that the chopped raw meats are frozen, as temperature is the single most important factor in succesful sausage crafting.  

Make sure to select and cut meats for sausage the night before grinding the ensure the meats are nice and frozen prior to grinding.

Frozen pork/beef blend.

Once the meats are in the freezer, it's time to cook the barley porridge; which is just pearl barley cooked like oatmeal.  Combine the raw dry barley and water and cook for ~1 hr, which should reduce the water content as well as cook the barley to the required softness.  The final weight of the barley porridge should be about 1 lb, or 33% the total weight of the meat used for Isterband.  Let the barley porridge cool to at least room temperature

Meats and barley porridge brick

Mix together the salt, cure, and seasonings.

Isterband seasonings

Activate the starter culture in ~15 ml (1 Tbsp) DISTILLED water, if using.  Distilled water is free of chlorine and other chemicals that can kill or otherwise adversely interfere with the bacteria.  The bacteria culture can be replaced with milk, which was a common practice in many old Swedish fermented sausage recipes.

Preparing F-LC culture

Soak the salted hog casings in water with ~1 tsp baking soda to lube them up.  This will greatly aid in the slipperiness of the casings and reduce friction/blowouts when stuffing.

Salted hog casings soaking in baking-soda water

The next day, defrost the frozen meats for ~1.5 hours, then chop it up into peaces suitable for the strength of your grinder.  Grind the meats and barley porridge medium-fine and add the spices

Partially-frozen meat mix and cooked barley porridge brick

Mix the ground mass with the spices, salt, cure, and starter culture with a mixing machine until combined.

Isterband waiting to be stuffed

Pack the Isterband mix tightly into the stuffing apparatus.  I highly recommend an upright standalone sausage stuffer if you are serious about quality sausage production.  The reason being is a standalone stuffer does not mix the meat while stuffing, preserving the meat/fat definition in the final product and reducing air pockets.

Upright Stuffer

Create links that are ~6-8 inches long in hog casings.  You can tie each link while stuffing which helps to avoid blowouts.  After the links are stuffed, place them in a gallon bag or other sealed container that traps in moisture.  Ferment the sausages at room-temperature (~70 degrees F) for at least 24 hours.  You will know when the sausages are well-fermented and ready for drying and subsequent smoking based on their color.

Fresh grey isterband before fermentation

After proper fermentation, the isterband will change from grey to red in color, and will smell slightly sour.  Rinse off the isterband after taking them out of the fermentation container. It is then ready for surface drying prior to smoking.

Isterband after fermenting

I hang my sausages at room temperature overnight prior to smoking.  At least 2 hours should suffice in a pinch.  Depending on your smoker, you could also use your smoker without smoke to dry the outside of your sausages in preparation for smoking.

Surface drying prior to smoking

Cold-smoke the isterband for up to 4 hours.  Isterband is a traditionally a cold-smoked sausage, but I have seen commercial hot-smoked variants.  In my experience less smoke is better as this sausage is further cooked in dishes with various accompaniments.  With regards to Swedish sausage-smoking, the usual woods are alder, beech, and juniper.  

Apple, cherry, oak, hickory, mesquite, and any other traditional American smoking woods are rare in Swedish smoking culture.  Enrisrökt means traditionally smoked with alder or beech, with the addition or fresh juniper twigs on top of the regular smoker wood which in Sweden is commonly alder.  Since I do not have access to any juniper trees, I just do 75% alder, 25% pine pellets.  Use whatever you like.

These days I do an unconventional smoking ritual that can be described as a 2-part hot-smoke, due in part to my reluctance to purchase an all-in-one smoker that suits all my needs.  I instead cold-smoke meats and then I cook them via baking or boiling after the fact.  I have a smoker that could be described as an oil drum with 2 racks in it.  I use a pellet maze in the bottom of the drum.

Cold-smoking isterband

After smoking the isterband I hang it at room temperature a few hours to overnight to let the smoke mellow out a bit.  

Isterband airing out after cold-smoking

Then, I put them in a bag in the fridge to cool down to refrigerator temperature.  Afterwords I will vacuum seal and freeze them for longer preservation.

The finished product

Vacuum-sealed isterband will keep frozen about a year

You can use isterband in a variety of dishes: pytt i panna (Swedish hash), by itself with fried or scrambled eggs, with toast or in a bun, etc.  The most famous isterband dish is isterband med dillstuvad potatis (dill-stewed potatoes).  

Below is Magnus Nilson's recipe for dillstuvad potatis from "The Nordic Cookbook".

Dillstuvad Potatis

Referenced Béchamel sauce

Stay tuned for more sausage recipes!

-Korv Mikael