Horse meat, like the sausage from it, is today considered a real delicacy. It is much more useful than other types of meat, contains a protein that is full in amino acid composition and is digested 8 times faster than beef. Hypoallergenic and diet horse meat helps lower blood cholesterol and increase hemoglobin. There are several types of horse sausage, for example, "Kazy", "Shuzhuk", "Makhan". These national Central Asian dishes differ in cooking technology. In our article, we will talk in detail about the sausage "Mahan" and present a recipe for its preparation at home.
Description and photo
"Makhan" is a dry-cured sausage, which is made only from horse meat. Neither pork nor beef is suitable for her. Even the name of sausage “Makhan” comes from the main ingredient of this Central Asian dish and translates as “horse” or “horse meat”.
"Mahan" has a delicate taste. The product has a dense structure, but it literally melts in your mouth. The real "Mahan" is a sausage, the photo of which is presented above, almost black. When you look through it at the light, a ruby hue is clearly visible. It has a characteristic slice in which minced meat and large pieces of fat are traced. The peculiarity of this dry-cured sausage is that in its manufacture mince is never used, but only whole pieces of meat and fat. However, real connoisseurs of such a product consider this rather as its advantage, emphasizing the naturalness of sausage "Mahan".
Structure
The composition of the sausage is as close to natural. For the manufacture of this dried product, only horse meat, raw horse fat, salt and spices are used. The traditional "Mahan" is made exclusively by hand, and from the meat of specially grown horses. Animals are intensely fattened, then horse meat is dense with a small layer of fat. "Mahan" is not prepared from the meat of workhorses, which were used as draft force. The age of the animal should not exceed two years.
In the manufacture of sausages, not only the composition, but also the ratio of ingredients is taken into account. So, for example, the approximate amount of horse fat is 5-10% of the total weight of the meat. However, different sausage manufacturers may not have the same ratio.
Makhan horsemeat sausage : manufacturing technology
Even on an industrial scale, the real "Mahan" is made by hand and only from fresh, not frozen horse meat.
The whole technological process of production can be divided into several stages:
- Boning - the muscular removal of horse meat from bone. This method of processing the carcass of an animal allows you to quickly and better perform the next stage of the process.
- Vein - removal of veins and connective tissue from horse meat. The purpose of this step is to get top-quality meat. It is from such high-quality horse meat without veins and films that the sausage "Mahan" is made. After preparing the raw meat, it is cut into large portioned pieces about 3 cm in size on each side.
- Ambassador and ripening of meat - at this stage salt and spices (sugar, pepper, garlic, etc.) are added to prepared meat pieces. Horsemeat is thoroughly mixed and left in this form for ripening in refrigerators. The duration of this step is several days, provided that no maturing accelerators are added to the meat.
- Formation - at this stage, a semi-finished product is formed. The meat is stuffed into a natural shell, the diameter of which is usually 40 mm and sent for drying.
- Drying - the formed products ripen in special chambers for 40 days. Horse sausage "Mahan" is not amenable to heat treatment. It is prepared in a dry-cured way, thanks to which it is possible to preserve its natural color and aroma.
Finished sausage cut in a chilled form to a temperature of 0-7 degrees. The thickness of each slice should be no more than 1.5 mm.
Sausage Reviews
Opinions of folk tasters of sausage "Mahan", as usual, are ambiguous. Of course, in the first place, everything depends on the manufacturer. But even without taking this factor into account, sausage positive and negative reviews can be distinguished into two independent groups.
“Mahan” was liked by customers as follows:
- interesting natural taste;
- pleasant aroma;
- natural composition and benefits for the body.
Negative customer reviews are as follows:
- the presence of chemistry in the composition of products of most manufacturers (flavorings, flavor and aroma enhancers, color fixers, antioxidants);
- the use of minced meat, not sliced;
- specific taste, the presence of coarsely chopped fat.
When choosing dry-cured products, it is important to pay attention to the quality criteria that a real Mahan sausage should have. This is its structure (not stuffing), and color, and composition. The above reviews and recommendations will allow you to buy a really tasty and healthy horse meat sausage. Meanwhile, with a great desire, it can be prepared at home.
How much is the Mahan?
Anyone who wants to try a truly high-quality and tasty "Mahan", which does not contain any extra ingredients, should know that such a sausage can not be cheap. The average price per kilogram of this dried product made from horse meat, horse fat, salt and spices is about 800-1000 rubles per 1 kg.
Sausage "Makhan" is usually sold in whole or cut loaves weighing 400 or 200 g. The length of a whole stick can be 40 cm.
"Mahan" (sausage): a recipe for cooking at home
For the preparation of uncooked smoked sausage, you will need horse meat and horse fat, chilled and cut into slices 5-10 mm thick. The ratio of meat to fat in home sausage is usually 10: 1, that is, 1 kg of fat is taken per 10 kg of meat.
After cutting all the ingredients, horse meat is salted for 3-5 days. To do this, 380 g of salt, 200 g of sugar and squeezed garlic, ground pepper to taste are added to the container with meat pieces. All ingredients are thoroughly mixed, after which the raw materials are sent for ripening at a temperature of 2-6 degrees in a ventilated room. Next, the meat blank should be filled with a shell (celiac or collagen proteinosin) and sent for drying.
Sausage "Mahan" at home crashes for about 30-45 days in a ventilated area and humidity of about 70%. You can store it in the refrigerator for 120 days, after wrapping each loaf in parchment paper first.