Midwest Scrapple Recipes

SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• To a large stockpot, add the pork butt, hocks, onion, celery, peppercorns and bay leaves. Barely cover with water and simmer over low heat until the pork is tender and the meat falls off the bones, about 2 hours.
• Drain and reserve the stock. Pour the solid contents onto a baking sheet so that you can easily discard the celery, onions, peppercorns, bay leaves and all of the bones. Make sure to pull the meat completely off the bones, being careful to remove all the small pieces of bone.
• Add the meat to a food processor with the blade attachment and pulse to coarsely chop. Don't over grind it.
• Measure 1 gallon of stock and return it to the pot along with the chopped meat and the salt, ground black pepper, cayenne, and sage. Bring to a simmer over low heat.
• Add the cornmeal and stir, stir, stir. Simmer until smooth and thick, about 15 minutes. Add a little stock or water, if needed, to ensure a smooth texture.
• Pour into 3 loaf pans and refrigerate until solid, preferably overnight.
• Unmold, slice and fry in clarified butter until golden brown. Serve with applesauce or maple syrup.

SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain and rinse in colander under cold water, breaking sausage into pea sized pieces.
• Return to skillet along with the condensed milk, and heat over medium until just bubbling. Immediately stir in the cornmeal and pepper and reduce heat to simmer. Continue cooking, 5 minutes total; mush will be stiff.
• Pack into 8x4 loaf pan, cover and chill overnight. To serve, cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices and saute until golden in nonstick skillet.

SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• Bring ham broth, 1 1/2 cups water and 1/2 teaspoon salt to a boil in the top of a double boiler over direct heat. Once boiling, sprinkle cornmeal into liquid, stirring constantly till mixture is smooth and starts to boil. Meanwhile, bring water to a boil in the bottom of the double boiler. Place the pot with hot cornmeal on top of the bottom of the double boiler, cover and cook for 45 minutes.
• While the cornmeal mixture cooks, heat large nonstick skillet. Brown ground pork until cooked thoroughly. Remove from heat and let cool. Do not drain. Once the pork has reached room temperature, grind meat to a paste in a food processor.
• Place puréed meat in a bowl and add grated onion, 1 teaspoon of salt, the pepper and the sage, and mix well. Add hot cornmeal mixture and combine thoroughly so no lumps remain.
• Rinse 9-by-5-inch loaf pan in cold water and grease with bacon fat. Pack meat mixture in loaf pan and cover skin of meat with plastic wrap, pressing it against the surface. Meat mixture will be warm to touch. Let meat loaf come to room temperature, and then place in the refrigerator to chill overnight.
• Remove plastic wrap and unmold scrapple onto a cutting board. Cut into 1/2-inch slices. Dust lightly with cornmeal and fry on both sides in a small amount of bacon fat.

MIDWEST SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• Combine all ingredients except corn meal in a saucepan.
• Bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer gently for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.
• Gradually stir in cornmeal, stirring constantly and cook until thickened.
• Rinse a loaf pan (5in x 9in) with cold water; pour in scrapple and chill completely.
• Cut into slices about 1/2 inch thick.
• Dust with flour and fry in oil until lightly browned.
• (Browning these slices until crusty around the edges takes several minutes on each side.) Serve with syrup, applesauce, or butter and salt and pepper.

REAL SCRAPPLE

Steps:

• NOTE: the meat involved is Pork head, meat, feet, heart and tongue, or other pork trimmings, if desired, including liver.
• Place them in a water in a covered container until the soft tissue separates readily from the bone. Separate tissue from bone and grind with a fine grinder. Return the ground meat to the strained soup container and boil. Cereal is then added. A common cereal mixture is seven parts cornmeal and three parts of either buckwheat, white, or rye flour.
• Approximately 4 lbs of the ground meat combined with 3 lbs of soup (liquid) plus 1 lb of cereal is sometimes used. Gradually moisten the cereal with a cool liquid (water or the cooled soup) to prevent lumping. Add this premoistened cereal to the ground meat-soup mixture slowly then boil for 30 minutes.
• Prior to finishing boiling, add seasoning.
• A suggested seasoning combination for 8 lbs of finished scrapple would include 3 oz salt, 1/4 oz black pepper, 1/4 oz sweetened marjoram, 1/4 oz nutmeg, 1/4 oz sage or thyme, and 2-1/2 oz onions. Some prefer to add a pinch of mace and a pinch of red pepper also.
• After the seasoning is mixed thoroughly and the onions cooked, pour the scrapple into pans (not bowls) and refrigerate to 30 - 32F degrees immediately.
• Note this is usually made in large batches and saved throughout the year until the next butchering. It uses every part of the pig so nothing is wasted. It wasn't a throwaway society. This is also NOT a city recipe. They didn't butcher as they did in the country.
• number of pans is a guess.
• Note: IF you want the instructions for cleaning the meat [from head and so forth] zaar me. I am not going to post it because more people are going to look at this that are NOT going to do it yourself than people who are. Some just don't wanna hear it and that isn't a problem. My brother always turned green.