Thu 23 Aug 2007
Dandoodle
Posted by Phil under farmers markets, meat
[3] Comments
Last weekend, I was back in Virginia visiting my parents. We went to the Yorktown Farmers Market on the river in Yorktown, Viriginia. I quickly saw what I wanted:
“Smoked Dandoodle” — what’s that? I’m familiar with the array of country dishes, from panhaus to cracklins, but I’d never heard of dandoodle. More suprising, neither had my country-raised mom. I was intrigued.
I went up the the vendor, and his eyes lit up as he responded “I’m glad you asked.” From one of his coolers, he pulled out this:
Yep, that’s a hog large intestine, also know as chitlin or, more formally, chitterling. It’s stuffed with pork sausage and then smoked in the same smokehouse that the Slades have been using for decades.
Doing some research on the internet, I could only find references to it in Smithfield county and the surrounding area in Virginia and North Carolina. Slade Farm is close by in Surry.
I found two variations, both being a stuffed and smoked large intestine. The first variation was what I found, the stuffing being pork. The other variation was with a stuffing consisting of a 1:4 mixture of pork fat and small intestine, seasoned with salt and red pepper.
As for the cooking method, I just sliced it in 1/4″ slices and pan fried it. It has a fine texture, like that of a cured salumi rather than a course ground fresh sausage. The smoking gives a very nice flavor, without being stale or overpowering. It was great on biscuits.
The most common usage I found was to cook it with greens and cornbread dumplings with greens. I think it would also work well as the meat for a simple kale and pasta dish.
