Smokin-It User Forum!
Recipes => Pork => Topic started by: polarlys on August 02, 2020, 11:08:33 AM
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Hey there. Happy Corona days of August.
Thinking of something new here. We here in NJ know and love our pork roll, Taylor ham or whatever it's called where you are. To me it's all Pork roll and I want to try making some. I think I have the basic process down and I'd like to smoke mine. Sometimes I get it from a place in Pa. and they smoke it very nicely. Not sure if I should smoke it before cooking or after. I think the commercial brands use a liquid smoke additive.
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What’s a pork roll?
Off to google I go.......
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Ahhhh Jeremy. That is the 64,000$ question in this part of the country. It's a ground pork sausage product with spices added. May be smoked or not. Around here it goes by the name pork roll or Taylor Ham, named after the guy who developed it in Trenton, NJ. The farther you get away from New Joisey the harder it is to find and people never heard of it. It's ground very fine and mixed to a consistency maybe close to a bologna. It's usually packed into a cloth casing and I think either boiled or steam cooked. When cool it's slice and enjoy .
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Interesting, and interesting enough I’ll be asking some of my work colleagues in the Jersey area about it tomorrow!
As i was reading, I wondered if it was cased but you answered that! But sounds like you could really do some cool stuff with it based on what flavor profile you were wanting.
So, lets see some pics of your next pork roll!
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Even here in NJ I sometimes find people that don't know it or (even worse) don't like it. I feel sorry for them. I like it fried with eggs but one of the best uses is pork roll, egg & cheese on a toasted bagel. That's probably the best way. Like many of the things we discuss and make here it's probably best not to be an every day diet health wise but it sure is good.
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Roger, up North here we call it Taylor Ham. Same deliciousness! Nothing better than taylor ham, egg and cheese on a hard roll.
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I have never had Taylor Ham but have wanted to for some time. W.E.B. Griffin mentions it in his books. I guess it is pretty regional. I found this video awhile back it may be helpful.
https://youtu.be/vDkB1SkPsC8
I posted about my Ham Log project (Posts #74 & #77) with a picture here https://www.smokinitforums.com/index.php?topic=7977.msg70265#msg70265
Ham & Cheese logs:
Pork butts cut to fit the grinder
Dust with the Basic Dry Cure Listed in My Bacon Posts
Course grind one pass
Layer ground meat in tub as it comes out of the grinder with High Temp Cheddar Cheese and a little Maple Syrup.
Mix well and stuffed into 3lb capacity muslin sausage casings
*I used the stuffing plate and large tube for stuffing burger bags to fill casings from the grinder
Smoked at 250 until an IT of 150, Ice bath until below 100 IT then cooled in fridge 24 hours before packing for the freezer.
It was all eyeball measurements, but turned out fantastic. I realize eyeball measurements may make some folks nervous. Next time we make it I will try and come up with a recipe. When we shook the dry cure onto the cubes of butt, we covered all sides as if we were salting a steak for the grill. That's the best guide I can give you for now. I did not ferment or add culture. I would re-post the picture but I deleted it. You can find it in the link I posted.
Here is another video. They don't ferment but use citric Acid to the the Twang flavor. I did not consider it when I made mine but might try it in the future. Good Luck with yours. https://youtu.be/v_UTNiVgrcI
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Intrigued, had to seek one out. Oddly enough, found the sliced variety at a Publix in Murrells Inlet SC. Wife thinks I'm nuts due to the quest to find it.
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Tasty! Tried the traditional sandwich. It does remind me quite a bit of Spam. I know that's an unpopular comparison but I like Spam so it's not a cut down.
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This is the only recipe I have come across for it.
http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/NewJerseyPorkRoll.pdf
The Porto wine surprises me.
I did just get some starter culture I a. Itching to use from Walton’s Inc, I’m going to try it in a pepperoni snack stick
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Well I finally did it. I made the pork roll and mostly followed the recipe above. I think the results are encouraging but need some work. I expected some texture difference since I have the traditional rotary grinder while commercially they seem to use one more like a food processor on steroids. I'm OK with that. The more coarse grind is fine with me. I used some synthetic casings that I had on hand but when gone will try with homemade cloth bags more in tune with what we see in the commercially made stuff. The big shortcoming is in the taste. Now, what I made is OK. Doesn't taste bad just not quite what I was looking for. The cooking part had me worried at first but came out OK in the end. I used a turkey frier outside and just dunked them in. I was afraid that the casings may not hold up to the hot water and experimented with a small cut off but in the end they held up well. It took about an hour to reach the 150*F and when cool they were very nice. I'll have the same concerns when I try the cloth bags but see no reason that they won't work out OK as well.
So, in the end I'm encouraged with the outcome and will look farther into the seasoning but would certainly do it again.
ThanX all for the input.
Roger enjoying a sunny and mild NJ these days.
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I made the pork roll and mostly followed the recipe above
Could you share the recipe, please?
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The recipe is a couple of posts back. I made some modifications and I neglected to smoke it when done. Technically it worked out well but flavor wise mine needs some work. Maybe I should have followed it better.
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Just saw this, we in Delaware know the product very well