Dollar Store Scrapple

I never know what is going to turn up in the refrigerated section of Dollar Tree. This is the first time I found scrapple there.

Checking the label reveals that this scrapple was made at USDA Establishment No. 9520, aka Leidys, Inc of Souderton PA.  Take a look at some of the small-brand and store-brand scrapples in various supermarkets, and you will find USDA Est. No. 9520 on many of them.

The stuff cooks up pretty well - it doesn't get too runny or liquid as it fries - and it has a pleasantly peppery zing to it.  Good stuff.  But it's also an excellent example of how dollar store shopping isn't always the awesome deal that it might seem to be.

This five-ounce pack of scrapple cost a dollar, meaning that I'd need to pay $3.00 for 15 ounces (just shy of a pound) of it.  But scrapple made by Leidys can be found  in full one-pound packages in many supermarkets for about $2.50 or sometimes less. Everything at the dollar store might be a dollar, but not everything is going to be worth a dollar.

Making Scrapple, Step By Step

Sometimes it's easier to follow an unfamiliar recipe if you can see it done. Regardless of the scrapple recipe you choose to follow, the actual steps are pretty much the same.

Start with a few pounds of pork. I like a more traditional style scrapple, so for this batch I'll be using pork neck bones, pig's feet, pork heart, and pork liver. "Variety meats" like these are relatively inexpensive and a bit of "livery" flavor makes the scrapple taste better. If you prefer you can use other cuts - I often make scrapple with fresh hocks, for example - but try not to make them too lean. Like sausage, scrapple needs some fat to be at it's best.

Put the meats into a pressure cooker - bony bits at the bottom on the cooker's rack, and softer stuff (heart and liver) on top. Add 6 cups of water, seal the pressure cooker, and put it over medium heat.

When the jiggler on top starts dancing, start timing. For feet, neck bones, hocks, and tough muscles like the heart, I cook the meat under pressure for 45 minutes to 1 hour to make sure all the cartilage, skin, and tendons are rendered soft. If you're using a better cut of pork you can cut the cooking time appropriately. When the cooking time is over, turn off the heat under the pan and allow the pressure to fall naturally for an hour or so. Open the pressure cooker and discard the bones, but save any skin, fat, cartilage, tendons, etc. You might also find that the amount of liquid in the pan has been reduced by about half, leaving a rich pork broth. Strain the broth and add water sufficient to make 4 cups of liquid.

Place the cooked pork into a food processor with a cup or so of the broth and pulse it until it turns into a smooth puree. (If you don't have a food processor, you can use a meat grinder - fit it with the finest plate. You might have to run the meat through twice.)

Transfer the puree to a heavy stockpot or Dutch oven over medium heat and stir in the broth. It will be kind of soupy looking. As the mixture starts to bubble, stir in your seasonings.

As the mixture simmers, add your cornmeal slowly, one cup at a time, stirring with a whisk as you make the additions to prevent it from forming lumps. At this point, if the mixture is too stiff you might want to drizzle in some water to loosen it up.

With all the cornmeal stirred in, cook slowly over medium low heat as the scrapple thickens. As the cornmeal cooks, the mixture will get progressively harder to stir. Take small tastes every now and then to be sure your seasonings are right and adjust them accordingly. As you taste, feel the texture of the cornmeal in your mouth. At first, the scrapple will feel "grainy" because the cornmeal is still uncooked and hard. As the it cooks, though, the texture will become softer and smoother. If the scrapple seems to be getting too thick without getting smooth, add a small amount of water and continue to cook, tasting again after a couple of minutes.

When the texture is soft and smooth and the scrapple is too thick to stir anymore, turn off the heat and spoon it into loaf pans or rectangular plastic containers to cool and set firm. Pack the scrapple tightly into the molds and knock the bottoms against the countertop to drive out air pockets. One recipe of scrapple usually makes several pounds, which can be more than you'll be able to eat before it goes bad, so using containers is a great idea - you can just snap lids on them and put them in the freezer for later.

Chill the scrapple in the molds overnight. When they're cold, they're ready! Unmold one and cut it into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Fry the slices brown on both sides in lard, bacon fat, or butter and enjoy for breakfast as a side dish with eggs or all by itself. Some people like to put maple syrup on their scrapple (especially if not having it with eggs.) Or you can serve it accompanied by figs.

Scrapple Recipes

You can find plenty of recipes for scrapple out on the web, but this is a collection of recipes that I've personally tested.

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Michael Loo's Scrapple

3 cups Pork organ meat or Trimmings, Cooked and ground
3 cups Water
2 cups Cornmeal
1 tablespoon Crushed hot red pepper
1 tablespoon Sage
1 teaspoon Thyme
1 tablespoon Salt --more or less
2 teaspoons Pepper

Bring the water to a boil. Add pork and simmer 5 min. Add cornmeal and stir until smooth. Add rest of ingredients (you may want to halve everything but the sage - but I like a very spicy scrapple) and cook over low heat (I used the oven, actually) until very thick, stirring once in awhile so it doesn't scorch. Turn out into a greased casserole and chill. When it's cold, slice into 1/3 to 1/2" slices and fry in a little oil or fat over low heat until crispy on both sides, turning once. I used rendered suet to fry it once, and it was GREAT! but the next time I decided to be a good boy and fried it on a Pam-sprayed skillet, and it was okay.

Notes:

• This is the recipe I use most often when I make scrapple. For the meat, I usually put two fresh pork hocks and some neck bones into a pressure cooker with the water to render the meat soft enough to finely chop using a food processor. I remove the bones but chop everything else (skin, gristle, everything) and I don't try to separate out any of the fat. If I can find some pork liver, I'll use that as well to round out the flavor.
  
• As much as I love sage, I find it can give an unpleasant bitterness if too heavy a hand is used with it; a full tablespoon of sage in this recipe is almost too much. The first time you try it, cut the sage to 2 teaspoons and see how you like the final result.
  
• This recipe was originally posted to the Fidonet National Cooking Echo in 1995 by Michael Loo. Since then, it's been ganked by many recipe sites, almost all of which have removed his name from both the title and the text of the recipe.

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Modern Day Scrapple

2 pounds ground lean pork
1 pound beef liver
1 cup buckwheat flour
3 cups yellow corn meal
4 tablespoons salt
4 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sage
2 teaspoons ground mace
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground thyme
2 teaspoons whole sweet marjoram
3 quarts of water

In a large pot bring the water to a boil. Add beef liver and boil 10 minutes. Remove the liver and either run through a chopper or grab a knife and cut it in as small pieces as you can. Return chopped liver to the pot. Add the ground pork, a little at a time, and stir. Simmer for 20 minutes.

In a large bowl mix the buckwheat flour, corn meal, salt, and spices; add to meat and broth slowly, stirring constantly. Simmer gently for one hour, stirring frequently. Use lowest possible heat, as mixture scorches easily.

Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bounce the pans a couple of times so that the Scrapple settles, and let cool. Let the Scrapple set in the refrigerator overnight.

When you arise in the morning, remove the scrapple from the refrigerator and cut into to 3/8 inch slices.

To freeze, lay a sheet of waxed paper between slices, place in freezer bags.

To serve: Thaw slices and dust with flour. Fry in either bacon grease or lard until golden brown. Do not use a cooking spray. It will not taste right and ruin the scrapple.

Notes:

• The seasoning and general proportions for this recipe are pretty good, but simmering lean ground pork for 20 minutes isn't going to give you the finely-textured meat you'll need for a good, smooth texture to the scrapple. Instead, use fresh hocks, neck bones, or country-style ribs enough to make up two pounds of meat and cook them in the pressure cooker to render them from the bones. Then whirl the meat in a food processor or run it though a meat grinder after cooking to give it the smooth and paste-like consistency it should have.
• I haven't been able to trace the origins of this recipe; nearly identical versions appear at The Global Gourmet and About, and the recipe has been copied and pasted into many scrapple recipe threads on the Web.
  

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Chili Scrapple

1 lb meat
1 1/2 qt boiling water
1    onion
2 c  tomatoes
1 T  salt
1 T  Gebhardt's Chili Powder
2 c  corn meal
1 c  cold water

Either beef, veal or pork may be used in this recipe.   Boil the
meat in the water until tender (about 1 and 1/2 hours).  Remove meat
and run through meat grinder with the onions.  Measure meat stock
and add enough water to make five cups of liquid: combine with
ground meat, onions, tomatoes, seasonings and cornmeal moistened
with the cold water.  Simmer 15 minutes or until ingredients are
tender and mixture thick. Pour into greased bread pan to cool. Slice
about one-fourth inch thick, roll in flour and saute in hot fat
until golden brown in color.  Serve hot with chili sauce.

Posted in: http://www.slashfood.com/

From: "Mexican Cookery For American Homes"
By: Gebhardt, San Antonio, Texas, 1936

Notes:

• This recipe was sent to me by Jim Weller of Yellowknife, NWT, in March 2008. He hadn't tried it, but he knows my reputation for trying unusual foods and recipes and called it "weird but probably tasty."
• The ingredient list is a little bland, so when I make this scrapple, I add a tablespoon of freshly ground black pepper with the chili powder. The resulting seasoning is very savory, but not "spicy," and the taste reminds me of a sun-dried tomato flavored corn chip. Although it sets up a little wet, it fries nicely and develops a deliciously crispy shell.
  

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Tomorrow: Step by Step Photo Guide To Making Scrapple

In Praise of Scrapple

If you're not from the northeastern United States - especially Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, or southern New Jersey - there's a chance you've never heard of scrapple.

Scrapple is a pork product. Basically, it's a spicy polenta with pork added. Finely minced or shredded cooked pork is mixed in a mush with cornmeal and spices and cooked until thick, then cooled in a mold, sliced, and fried. Originally, it was made with "scraps" of pork and pork offal unsuitable for other purposes at hog butchering time - hence the name - but most recipes today call for readily available cuts of pork rather than odd bits.

To cook scrapple, the loaf is cut into slices about a quarter of an inch thick and fried until brown on both sides. Some people flour the slices lightly before frying, but I don't bother. I usually melt a little butter or bacon fat in the pan and put in the slices after the fat melts, frying them over medium heat until they are brown and crispy outside and creamy smooth on the inside. Another excellent way of preparing scrapple is to slice them a little thinner and then brown thoroughly on both sides until each slice of scrapple is like a crunchy cracker. This intensifies the porky flavor and the spices and offers a completely different taste sensation. It can also be deep-fried (I ordered scrapple for breakfast at a diner in southern New Jersey once, and that's how they cooked it. It was a massive 3/4-inch-thick slab of deep-fried porkmushy goodness, and although it was more magically delicious than a bowl of Lucky Charms I'd never cook it that way at home.)

Scrapple is a great breakfast food, as an accompaniment to eggs and home fries, or all by itself. Its savory deliciousness puts it in the same league as bacon or sausage, and it lends itself to pairing not only with mild foods like eggs but also to sweeter partners, like maple syrup (and figs!)

There are many commercially available scrapples on the market. I've tried several of them, but it's taken some effort to do; New England is on the outer periphery of scrapple territory and when I find it at all, it's generally Jones brand, in the freezer case next to the sausages. Here's a rundown of my impressions of the ones I've tried:

Hatfield Scrapple - Wetter than most others, slices of Hatfield in the skillet popped and launched cornmealy shrapnel into the kitchen. Saltier than others with a faint rancid taste. I've given Hatfield two tries and neither of them were very good. A scrapple of "last resort." Pity, too, because Hatfield bacon is pretty decent.

RAPA, Habbersett, and Jones Farm scrapple - These seem to be the Big Three of the scrapple industry, and they are all owned by Jones Farm. Despite what their websites and company spokesmen say about "distinctive old family recipes," there isn't a bit of difference in the taste of the standard scrapple products. I've had all three side by side in blind trials and they all tasted identical. And delicious, I might add. I grew up eating Jones Farm scrapple, and whenever I have some of the famous RAPA brand or the almost equally-famous Habbersett, it's like revisiting a favorite flavor.

RAPA Hot & Spicy Scrapple - It's made by RAPA so it tastes great, but unfortunately I have never detected a bit of "heat" in the stuff despite the jalapeño peppers listed in the ingredients. My wife, who doesn't like spicy food very much, reluctantly tried some and agreed that it was quite mild.

RAPA Scrapple with Bacon - Quite good, it reminds me strongly of the flavor I get when I cook plain scrapple in a bit of bacon fat. The smoky overtones of bacon just naturally go well with scrapple.

Parks Beef Scrapple - A very different product than the pork variety, Parks Beef Scrapple has a hearty beef flavor with notes of liver and, to a lesser extent, tripe (turns out that there is tripe in the mix.) The first thing I noticed about it was how the knife refused to glide through the way it does with the porky varieties - I actually had to cut through. More chunky and uneven in texture that the pork, I could see bits of gristle, tripe, and ominous dark-colored "meat" in there. It's good enough that I buy it when I can find it (which is not often, and not a surprise, since the supermarket where I occasionally find it never carries Parks regular pork scrapple.)

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Relevant links:

RAPA Scrapple - If you really need a scrapple fix, RAPA ships their stuff all over the country from November to February (cold weather is their "shipping season.") You can find details at their page.

Habbersett Scrapple - Click on "NEWS" on their homepage and you'll find a list of recipes which call for scrapple as an ingredient.

Jones Dairy Farm - Click through the "Products" link on their main page to find scrapple; try not to get distracted by all the delicious sausage products you'll find on the way.

Hatfield Quality Meats

TOMORROW: Make your own scrapple! Recipes, tips, techniques, and more.