Sausage Making

I have posted a few sausage recipes below. There are quite literally thousands or recipes for sausages. From the earliest Roman soldier's ration to the modern rubbish served from hot metal trolleys to drunk tourists. The tradition of taking pork meat and storing it in a handy sausage skin is as old as civilisation itself. The scope for variation (and abomination) is immense.

I guess what we all aspire to create when we set out to make our first sausages is a classic English breakfast sausage. The recipe posted below for 'Regular Breakfast Sausage' has the benefit of being straight forward and low on the effort quotient. Sausages in the UK tend to be made of around 80% pork with the balance made up of rusk (yeastless bread crumb), water and spices.


The addition of water and rusk might appear to be detracting from the wonderful pork you are stuffing into your sausage skins. However, the rusk and water help to promote a moist texture and soak up some of the juices and fat from the gently cooked meat.

It is entirely up to you, as sausage designer, whether you want to vary these ratios. You might prefer a sausage with 100% pork and only spices added, Toulouse sausages are like this. You may prefer to add breadcrumb and Stilton and only have 50% pork meat, pretty much anything goes.

The other established practise that is also open for experimentation is the inclusion of a certain amount of fat. Traditionally, one would use around 50:50 mixtures of shoulder and belly pork, minced. With a naturally reared, rare breed pig you would normally expect a higher proportion of fat in the meat already. Therefore we have settled on using mostly shoulder meat for our sausages. I like to save the belly joints for slow roasting or for using in pork rillets.

Then there is the spice. Around 1-2% by weight is normally salt. The other regular is pepper, in both black or white forms. Herbs, well that is your option.


So there you have it, 80% pork, 20% rusk/water and 2% spices and you have made your sausage mix. While keeping the mixture cold, mush it all up in a nice clean mixing bowl and stuff into your sausage skins. Mr P has very kindly offered the loan of his excellent sausage stuffing machine so we're in business for the sausage making day on 2nd May.

If mixing up your own sausage mixtures seems like hard work, I can recommend the mixture from the website www.sausagemaking.org called Old English Breakfast. It is maybe a little commercial but the results are consistently good. Also, while at the e-store, buy some natural sausage skins and some rusk and you will have all the ingredients you need.

Jamon Libre!

Lincolnshire Sausage

I have made this recipe on a couple of occasions and I like it a lot. The recipe is obviously open to your own interpretation and the number of ingredients makes it a bit time consuming but if you have the patience I think this is a good one. Sourced from sauagemaking.org this variation was originally posted by 'sausagemaker'

Sausagemaker wrote:
Lincolnshire Style Sausage, 2 Kg mix

1.000g Pork Shoulder
500g Pork Belly
270g Water (Chilled)
180g Rusk / Breadcrumb
50g Seasoning

Lincolnshire Sausage Seasoning
(Adapted from a Recipe supplied by Parson Snows 2005)

50g Salt
5g White Pepper
5g Black Pepper
5g Nutmeg
2g Mace
3g Ginger
1g Allspice
15g Dried sage
14g Corn flour

Mix above together until even in colour.

Preparation
1. Chill all meats well, 2 – 3 Hours
2. Chill the water in the refrigerator
3. Dice meats to fit Mincer Throat – return to refrigerator until ready to start
4. Weigh up the seasoning as above & weigh out the 50g required
(Keep the rest in a screw top jar)
5. Weight up rusk or bread crumb – put to one side

Method

1. Mince the meats through the blade of your choice (Course or fine)
2. Add meats to the bowl & fit onto the mixer with the K beater
3. Start the mixer on slow speed and add the seasoning
4. Add the chilled water and continue mixing on slow for the water to absorb this should take no more than 20 seconds.
5. Turn the mixer up to speed 4 and mix vigorously until the meat mixture looks sticky, Again about 30 – 40 seconds (this is myosin the protein that sticks the sausage together & gives texture, rather like the gluten in bread)
6. Add rusk or bread crumb & mix well in
7. If the mixture is wet or soft let it stand for a few minutes for the rusk / breadcrumb to re-hydrate.
8. Fill into suitable casings,
9. Allow standing overnight to Bloom (Flavour Development).

Cumberland Sausage

This is about as complex as I think sausage recipes can get and the addition of phosphate and dextrose makes it closer to a commercial recipe than a homemade one. However, someone has clearly spent a lot of time working on this recipe so you've gotta think its going to be good. The phosphate is intended to improve the moisture content and mouthfeel. The dextrose should darken the colour of the meat and potentially add some sweetness. (source: sausagemaking.org)

For 80.79 % Meat Content

78.4 % Pork Shoulder = 63.33g
21.6 % Pork Belly =17.45g
Iced Water 10 % of meat = 8.079g
Breadcrumb 10% of meat = 8.079g
Phosphate 0.8 % of meat = 0.646g
Seasoning 2.9 % of meat =2.34g
Total weight = 99.26g

The seasoning for the above batch of 100grams would be:
Salt = 1.528g
Black Pepper = 0.152g
White Pepper = 0.152g
Nutmeg = 0.155g
Mace = 0.078g
Coriander = 0.155g
Cayenne = 0.02g
Dextrose = 0.173
Sage = 0.229g
Thyme = 0.127g
Parsley = 0.127g
Total 2.9

I would kike to know if Oddley thinks these quantities match up to his recipe

Gloucester Pork Sausage

Rich in sage this recipe is for a tradition Gloucester pork sausage. (source: sausagemaking.org)


Pork 80%
10 % Breadcrumbs
10 % Iced Water
1.88 % Spice Mix

Spice Mix

79.7826 % Salt
5.5449 % Black Pepper
4.4359 % Nutmeg
5.5449 % Sage
3.412 % Thyme
1.2797 % Marjoram

Usage weight 18.8 g/Kg or 1.88 %

Method

Keep all meats cold. Mince pork once through a 8 mm plate then mince again once through a 4.5mm plate. Mix Pork, water and all spices for about 2 min's in a mixer, or by hand about 5 min's, or until texture changes to slightly sticky, kneading like bread. Then add the breadcrumbs (3 day old bread crumbed in a food processor) or rusk and mix until well distributed. Stuff hogs casings. Leave in the bottom of fridge overnight to bloom. Eat within 3 days or freeze.

Regular Breakfast Sausage

A fairly plain sausage with a bit of a peppery bite. Ingredients for 1kg. Recipe sourced from sausagemaking.org

780gm Pork Shoulder (about 75/25 meat to fat)
80gm Rusk
120gm water
20gm seasoning mix

Seasoning mix:

Salt 60gm
Pepper White 10gm
Pepper Black 8gm
Nutmeg 2gm
Mace 1gm
Ginger 2gm

This gives about 1.45% salt.

Endless Summer Sausage

A US based recipe from sausagemaking.org making about 5lb total mix.

Robust seasonings and long, slow cooking in the oven make this a fine-textured, flavourful sausage that cries out for a good homemade mustard and crusty bread.

5 pounds ground beef chuck
3 tablespoons curing salt (such as Morton’s Tender Quick)
1/2 cup dry red wine
1 tablespoon pressed garlic
2 tablespoons each chopped rosemary and sage
3 tablespoons chopped sweet marjoram
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, or 2 tablespoons minced fresh jalapeño or Serrano chiles
2 tablespoons fresh ground, toasted coriander seed
4 tablespoons brown sugar

Chilli Willies

A spicy little number (source: sausagemaking.org)

Sausage Meat

488 gm Minced Lean Beef Minced through 3/8 Plate
228 gm 60/40 Lean Fat Pork Belly Minced through 3/8 Plate
30 gm breadcrumbs
90 gm Chili Paste (See Below)
3 gm pepper
6 gm Salt

Chili Paste

215 gm Finely chopped onion
100 gm Tomato Puree
2 Minced Cloves garlic
2 Skinned Red Chilies
4 gm Cumin Seed powder
4 Tbs Light Olive Oil

Method

To make the chili paste skin the red chilies by holding them over the gas until they are blackened put them into a sealed plastic bag for five minutes the skin should then rub off easily. meanwhile in a frying pan fry the onions in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until caramelised. This will add sweetness to the paste. Add the garlic and chopped chili to the pan and fry for 1 minute do not brown. then add the cumin seed powder fry gently for 2 minutes to release the oils. now add the tomato puree and fry gently for a further five minutes. When cooled slightly put into a blender with the remaining olive oil and blend until smooth. You can also use a mortar and pestle to accomplish this.

To make sausages make sure your meat is cold at all times (between 1 - 4 deg C) slice the meat across the grain to easily fit the mincer then mince on the 3/8 in plate. Now massage all the ingredients into the meat. Fill the skins and link. Place in the bottom of the fridge overnight to mature.

Louisiana Sausage

A US recipe for Louisiana Sausage (source: sausagemaking.org)

5 lbs. medium ground pork butt (shoulder)
1 1/2 tsp. cayenne
1 1/2 tsp. chilli pepper
5 tsp. salt
1 large minced onion
2 tsp. black pepper
4 cloves pressed garlic
1/2 tsp. allspice
1-cup cold-water
2 tsp. thyme


Mince either once or twice for prefered texture and fill into hog casing and link to required size. I prefer to poach each link for about 10 mins in water/beer mixture and then fry or freeze as needed.

Yuletide Cocktail Sausages

A Christmas special, from sausagemaking.org by Paul Kribs

Ingredients

1500 grams Turkey Leg meat cubed (sinew and tendons removed)
500 grams Pork Belly cubed (skin removed)
60 grams phosphate * (optional)
50 grams redcurrant jelly
35 grams Sea Salt
15 grams Sugar (or 25 grams Dextrose)
10 grams Dried Sage
10 grams ground dried Orange Zest (or finely chopped)
5 grams Ground White Pepper
2 grams ground Cloves
1 gram ground cinnamon
1 gram ground Nutmeg

200 grams sausage rusk
200 grams iced water

Sheeps Casings

Method

1. Chill the cubed meat for 30 minutes in the freezer. Pass the meat through the mincer. I like to pass it once through an 8mm screen and then through a 4.5 screen. Put the minced meat into a large mixing bowl.

2.Sprinkle the dry ingredients (including the rusk) evenly over the meat. Mix well for 2 minutes and then add the redcurrant jelly and the iced water and mix well for a further 4 or 5 minutes. If the mixture feels stiff, then add more water little by little until the mix becomes pliable.Leave to stand for 15 minutes. At this stage you can fry a little patty and adjust the seasoning to your taste if required.

3. Stuff into sheeps casings and link off at 2" increments. Leave to bloom overnight in the refrigerator before cooking.

Superb eaten hot or cold.

note: If you are unable to obtain dried orange zest then it's easy to make. Use a fine vegetable peeler to remove the zest (not the white pith) from 2 or 3 oranges, place the zest slithers on a flat plate and place in an airing cupboard for 2-3 days. Crumble up and grind with a pestle and mortar.

They are a delicious way to utilise the turkey and can be enhanced by wrapping them in smoked collar and roasting in a medium oven for 30+ minutes. The only pain in the a*se is linking them, but you are rewarded by the fact that those who eat the turkey breast won't beleive the flavour.