Skilandis

 As I have said before I  spent about a year in Lithuania with my wife while she was finishing college, and one of the things I enjoyed the most was a traditional dry cured smoked sausage called Skilandis.  So since I have gotten into charcuterie you can bet this was top on my list to try.
Making Skilandis is about a four month process so I will start one or two now and then two more in a month or so.  So where do we start?  Well meat. In my research I found that Skilandis is traditionally made by using actual chunks of meat (no grinding), and grain alcohol along with garlic, herbs, and spices.  Some recipes do call for grinding, and omit the alcohol.  I think for my first try I will go with the latter. From what I can tell the meat used in Skilandis is a fairly lean product without the discernable fat of say a traditional salami, so I started with boneless pork loin with some fat on it as well as some lean beef, both of which are free-range grass fed all natural animals.


Second, the cure.  The cure for Skilandis is just your basic cure; salt, cure #2, and sugar (see table for ratios).  after I prepared the cure I cut the meat into 1.5” to 2 “ cubes, then added the cure, mixed well and into a zip top bag for three days.  In three days the meat will be ground and stuffed.  Skilandis is traditionally stuffed into a pig bladder but my efforts to procure one have been fruitless thus far.  We’ll see what I can pull of by Tuesday.  Stay tuned…

Skilandis Cure

Pork Loin (unprocessed)	1592 grams	75%
Lean beef (unprocessed)	530   grams	25%
Salt	75     grams	3.3%
Sugar	10     grams	.05%
Cure #2	6       grams	.25%

There are a few other ingredients that go in after the initial cure.  I will post them along with the ratios when I get to stuffing!