Erbswurst - The Pemmican Alternative

My Recipe for making Erbswurst (pea-sausage)
Ingredients
100 grams Lard
50 grams Pea Protein
150 grams Ground Lentils
25 grams Bacon Bits
Directions
Melt lard over low heat
Fold in lentils and pea protein until very thick so it almost won’t hold together
Spoon into molds
Let harden in fridge or freezer
Vacuum seal
Additions and substitutions
Lard, tallow
For Keto use pea protein powder, hemp protein or lupin flour
Dried, lentils ground into a flour
Add other spices or dried veggies
Other meats such as beef, pork, bacon
Storage options
Sausage casings (natural or artificial)
Wrapped in parchment or wax paper
Poured into silicone muffin cups
Vacuum sealed

Nutrition
Lard (100g) 100g Fat = 900 cals
Pea Protein (200g) 12.67g Fat / 153.41g protein / 6.67g net-carb = 754.35 cals
Total 1654.35 cals
serving of 65 grams = 360 cals
 
Traditional Recipe
Ingredients
Fresh pork belly
or smoked bacon 350 g 0.77 lb
Hard fat 250 g 0.55 lb
Pea flour 400 g 0.88 lb
per 1000g (1 kg) of meat
Salt 18 g 3 tsp (less if smoked bacon is used)
Pepper 2.0 g 1 tsp
Marjoram 1.0 g 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg 0.3 g 1/4 tsp
Thyme 0.3 g 1/4 tsp
Onion 30 g 1/2 onion
Instructions
Dice fresh pork belly or smoked bacon into 1/4" (5 mm) cubes.
Dice hard fat (or fat trimmings) into 1/4" (5 mm) cubes.
Chop onion finely.
Fry both belly and fat cubes until gold, stirring often.
Fry onion in some fat until gold. Don't make it brown as it will taste bitter.
Heat up a pot on low fire and start adding pea flour stirring continuously. Add all spices, keep on stirring.
Add all meats, fat included, stir together and keep the mass warm otherwise it will harden.
Stuff firmly into 40 mm casings making 8" (20 cm) straight links.
There is no need for cooking.

100 g (3.5 oz) of Erbswurst mixed with 750 ml (3 cups) of water will make delicious pea soup.

[nemoignorat]

My mother always had a sausage of Erbswurst and a glas of Wiener sausages as a last resort for supper when she didn't have time to make a real supper :) It's a pity that you can't get it ready made anymore, it was a good supper and easy to make. Thanks for the recipe.

[mtnbound]

this stuff is great for hikers, campers, Busch crafters and survivalists! i love it!

[christiankammer]

Sehr gut. Danke Dir. Und denk dran: Alles hat ein Ende. Nur die Wurst hat zwei. Alte deutsche Weisheit.

[randyrhyne]

Beef jerky was my go to when I was in the military. My Mom would send me big chunks of it and I kept it in the top flap of my rucksack.

[chrisazure]

Baking parchment paper inside a used paper towel roll would be a great way to form it and carry it.

[tallanvor]

I really love the Knorr Erbswurst in all variations and truly resent them for discontinuing the production a few years ago. However: That bugs can't get at it is unfortunately a myth. We had a case of bugs (Brotkäfer = drugstore beetle) at home and these little sh*ts tore into the original packaging like it wasn't even there and devoured the precious Eiserne Ration Erbswurst we still kept for hiking and camping. Now I will continue your video and hope to learn something and produce my own Erbswurst. :) Something I noticed in your recipe is the mold process. I tend to lean towards using a meet grinder (attachment for my kitchen appliance) with a sausage nozzle and (probably food safe) plastic tubes as molds. Knorr made them (until they stopped production) into portion sized pellets, so that will be my way to go as well, probably.
Anyway, thank you for your efforts and best regards from Germany!

[CitizenJane-]

You put a lot of work into this video Mark and I thank you for that. It was terrific. I can't wait to see how you cook with it.

[cmanofthewoodscentralus]

Thanks for Sharing. Looking forward to your field test.

[robaldridge]

Erbswurst and Landjager make a fine meal AND a filling, nutrition rich meal as well...

[donmoroz]

I've made a soup when out fishing in the late fall using some beef jerky, ramen noodles, ramen spices and water, and it was both warming and tasty. I would imagine that adding some finely cut up jerky strips and some ramen noodles to the erbswurst would make a similar, but superior soup for cold weather situations. THE RAMEN SPICE COULD OF COURSE, BE LEFT OUT. The noodles and jerky are practically weightless to carry in with you and give you some carbs to burn to help keep you warm. Another great and highly informative tutorial, Mark!

[ralph]

Thanks Mark for both the erbswurst and pemmican recipes. Think I will attempt both and also your combination of the two. Great channel and videos. Thank you for your time.

[bangalorebobbel]

Great video, thank you very much.
I really loved to be remembered of good old Erbswurst, almost forgot it since last week ... ;-) Joking, of course, but I really love that stuff...
In fact, the original recipe was with tallow, just to mention that as you discussed the use of tallow instead of lard. Tallow might also be of better use in warm conditions as lard melts a bit earlier. In later versions animal fat was, afaik, replaced by any plant fats (palm fat?).
One can easily eat it as a soup and a meal by itself but as you talked about other foods to combine with it, almost everything goes (and should so, maybe). The Prussian Army made initially a test run giving soldiers nothing else to eat but Erbswurst-Soup and bread for a period of 6 weeks ... and they survived all well, it seems. So I guess bread is the first thing which should still work well. But in fact you can combine it of course also with scrambled eggs, bacon, fried spam cubes, salami, jerky and so on. My favourite items to put into Erbswurst-Soup were always pieces of Landjäger, a traditional sausage from Germany (I'm grown up there), or small cubes of Black Forest Ham. When we were in the Alps we used sometimes Brögge, a dried bread from South Tirol, which we broke in small pieces and threw them in the soup.
Especially in Germany, Erbswurst was a staple food in every household at leat up to the 80s, and of course it was simply compulsory on any hike or camping trip to have at least one times Erbswurst. When I started with outdoor experiences Erbswurst was kind of the mother of all canteen cup cooking dishes, we all started our first cooking moments with Erbswurst-Soup. With more and more ready made meals and instant soups and so on, the market share went continuously down, so finally Knorr discontinued the production, as you mentioned in 2018. Knorr itself kind of cannibalised this product by offering plenty of instant soup variations, among others also pea soup varieties, which were maybe a bit more easy preparation wise and came very close to the taste of Erbswurst soup. Means you can get the original Knorr Erbswurst (kind of) also nowadays but not in form of a sausage made out of tablets but as instant powder soup.
For those experimenting in making their own Erbswurst, you can try to replace half of the pea flour/protein by chickpea flour (in India it is very common, called Besan flour). For the taste one could maybe try to add more salt and more (dried) spices, such as e.g. pepper, nutmeg, marjoram, and thyme, or instead of the Mediterranean spices a mix of curcuma and a bit of chillie powder. One can also easily add dehydrated veggies like carrot cubes or cabbage flakes, and dehydrated fried onions can not only extend the texture experience but also add some great taste (IMHO, of course).
And in order to finally end my super long comment (sorry, but I'm kind of an Erbswurst enthusiast, so it came over me): As I'm since many years mostly in India where I don't get lard or tallow, and ghee usually melts in higher temperatures, I ended up with mixing all dry ingredients and pack them in a ziplock bag (for a tour) or a container (at home). No idea about shelf life, never kept it for longer than a couple of weeks. For cooking, I add some oil or ghee in the hot canteen cup or pot, add some tablespoons of my dry mix, stir, add water and stir again. And boil and stir until it is done. That's kind of my personal instant pea soup, instead of the good old Erbswurst, RIP.

[torondin]

Fascinating watch, and always nice to see a fellow Maritimer on here.

[kevinlytle]

In the US Army I got introduced to Erbwurst when stationed in Germany and realized it was something my mom had or at least similar in her kitchen from time to time. Not a staple just there once in a while. My mom used what is commonly called bone broth leather but you can make broth concentrate without tons of bone. We used the broth leather and Erbwurst or any dried peas carrots potatoes and whatever else was there to make a simple and filling soup or stew my favorite was barley, lentils whole grain rice etc. with carrots onions and a little mushroom. Thanks so much for showing how you made it.

[thedriftingspore]

Really good stuff there Mark. I appreciate you taking the time to show and work through the process. It would be worthwhile to make these to taste for a quick soup mix or like you said as an emergency ration. I had forgotten about the Knorr soup mixes, some of those were very good. Thank you for sharing this Mark!

[paulellsworth]

I like the thought of using casings to put my regular pemmican in for storage. I may have to try that, thank you.

[verneolson]

The other high protein seed is buckwheat. I don’t know what’s In buckwheat flour, but the groats are readily available and could be ground.

[HistoryOnTheLoose]

Made and adapted plenty of pemmican, dried meat, dried soup, etc. Although not quite my time period of focus (1750s - 1840), I will give this a try.

[charlesknight]

Mark … Erbswurst soup with Trappey’s hot sauce sounds like a tremendous soup dinner; add cooked or dried meat and simmer for an hour to tenderize the meat and it sounds beyond excellent!!! If you haven’t tried Trappey’s, order it on line. It’s not sour like some hot sauces and it is incredibly flavorful without burning the mouth. Sounds delicious!!! Outstanding recipe; better video!!! God bless you and yours!!! Chuck Knight from Atascocita (Houston), Texas, USA.
✝️🎣👨‍🌾⛺️🦌🙏

[douglas]

Going to make this in the morning. I loved the Knorr Erbswurst variety
But they discontinued making this several years ago