Putting Food By - Janet Greene [77]
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
In plain cans. Pack hot meat loosely, leaving ½ inch of headroom. (Optional: add ½ teaspoon salt to No. 303 cans, ¾ teaspoon salt to No. 401 cans.) Fill cans to the top with boiling meat juice (extended if necessary), leaving no headroom. Wipe can rims carefully to remove any fat. Seal. Pressure-process at 10 pounds (240 F/116 C)—No. 303 cans for 65 minutes, No. 401 cans for 90 minutes. Remove cans; cool quickly.
• Adjustment for my altitude_________________.
See Chapter 12, “Canning Convenience Foods,” for dealing with ground meat, pork sausage, bologna-style sausage, corned beef, and soup stock (including broth).
Canning Variety Meats
Most of the variety meats—liver, heart, tongue, and sweetbreads and brains—are best cooked and eaten right away. Certainly sweetbreads and brains, the most delicate foods of the lot, should be served when they are fresh. For liver and kidneys, freezing is recommended. Tongue may be canned satisfactorily, as well as frozen.
Canning Beef Tongue
The following procedure of course may be used for smaller tongues.
Soak the tongue in cold water for several hours, scrubbing it thoroughly and changing the water twice. Put it in a deep kettle, cover with fresh water, and bring to boiling. Skim off the foam well, then salt the water lightly; cover, and cook slowly until Medium done—not tender in the thickest part. Remove from kettle and plunge into cold water for a moment; peel off skin and trim off remaining gristle, etc., from the root.
Cut in container-size pieces, and pack Hot as for Large Pieces of Meat, or slice evenly and pack Hot as for Small Pieces of Meat. Pressure-process at 10 pounds (240 F/116 C) for the times required above.
Canning Frozen Meat
If you’re ever faced with a freezing emergency, you can salvage frozen meat by canning it—provided it is good quality to start with and was correctly frozen and stored.
First, thaw it slowly in the refrigerator below 40 F/4 C; or microwave according to maker’s instructions. Then handle it as if it were fresh, using Pressure Canning only, Hot pack only, and the processing times that apply for Canning Large/Small Pieces of Meat, above.
CANNING POULTRY AND SMALL GAME
The following—which use chicken as the example for simplicity’s sake—may be applied to canning domestic rabbits, wild birds, and other small game, as well as canning other domestic poultry such as ducks, guinea hens, geese, turkeys, etc. All these animals may be canned the same way: general preparation (with specific exceptions as they come along), packing, and processing are the same for all.
If you refrigerate adequately, prevent contamination during handling, work quickly, and don’t try short cuts in packing and processing, poultry and small game may be canned satisfactorily.
Freezing of course is easier.
Use Pressure Canning only, and Hot pack. Use straight-sided jars or plain cans.
Where Canning Poultry, etc., Is Different
Unlike the procedures given in the preceding section for packing meat, the methods that follow include canning with the bone left in.
Also, the skin on large pieces of birds—breast, thighs, drumsticks—is left on: processing at 240 F/116 C compacts the surface of meat next to the sides of the container (making a pressure mark), so the skin you leave on acts as a cushion. Breast meat is skinned if packed in the center of jars/cans (surrounded by skin-on pieces that touch the containers’ sides); so skin as you pack.
To Dress Poultry
Dressing involves two steps: (1) removing feathers by plucking or removing the fur pelt by skinning and (2) drawing, which is removing the internal organs in one intact mass. Domestic birds are plucked before being drawn