Sausages

[JanetsBears]

Belly pork and pigeon breasts with wholegrain mustard, salt and a slug of Theakston's Old Peculiar makes a pretty good sausage. Not made any for ages, I really must peel a few pigeons and make a batch!

Chris

 

[bugbear]

So, how do I make the World's Best Sausage?

It's all about the tools...

Here's a fine quality money pit:

http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/

BugBear

 

[Harbo]

Our monthly Farmers Market sell nice sausages of various ilks - locally made.
Bought some nice ones from Jody Schecktors (of F1 fame) Farm shop a few weeks ago too.
We are also partial to Sainsbury's Premium range (97%meat).

Never tried making them myself though.

Rod

 

[woodpig]

To go slightly off tangent, I do like a nice sausage roll. The jumbo ones are preferred if available. It's surprising though how often vendors get the flavouring slightly wrong, most frustrating!

 

[JanetsBears]

I do hope you're not offended by my recipe woodpig!

Chris

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

There's a small rare pig breeder near us called WYSIPIG (what you see is pig). He has a butchers shop on the farm in which they have a range oven and on Saturday mornings he cooks samples of all the different sausages he makes which vary enormously depending on the mood he's in. The smell should be designated as the 8th wonder of the world!

They are quite without doubt, far and away the best sausages I've ever tasted.....not a dicky bird what goes into them mind (apart from these fabulous rare breed pigs of course).

 

[RogerS]

Never mind, Steve. I'm sure that some of us near a Waitrose can airlift you something !

 

[iNewbie]

We are also partial to Sainsbury's Premium range (97%meat).

Me an'all - and theres Tesco 97% chipolatas in a roll. mmmmmmmmmm.....

 

[blackrodd]

We are also partial to Sainsbury's Premium range (97%meat).

Me an'all - and theres Tesco 97% chipolatas in a roll. mmmmmmmmmm.....

Pork Chipolata's, Now you're talking!
Here in sunny Devon, we have some laver to go with the Chipolata's,
As Pop Larkin would say, Perfic!
Rodders

 

[mindthatwhatouch]

Steve,
As you stated you have access to decent sausages buy them from the butcher, otherwise this one may go the way of the others and close. Use it or lose it! That's why these places shut.
We try and avoid supermarket meat and support our local (and very good Butcher) yes its more expensive but we would rather eat less often but of a better quality.

Never made my own, could be fun at least you know what goes into them.

 

[JohnPW]

One of the worst food I've eaten was a Sainsbury pork and apple sausage! And my tastes are not even all that fussy, I think savloys and the shrink wraped U shaped sausage are quite tasty!

 

[woodpig]

I'm not actually bothered by the percentage of meat in sausages.

The first thing for me is texture, if it's got gristle in it I won't eat it full stop. Taste is obviously important though. I suspect high percentage sausages have higher fat, gristle and mechanically reclaimed "meat" than some others.
I used to love school sausages because the flavour was nice and I'm pretty sure they were at least 25% rusk or bran!

 

[SpoonsbySven]

Hi Steve,
Finally, a subject on which I feel I can contribute something useful! I’m not a professional butcher, and the following is just my opinion, but it’s based on a fair amount of research and a decade or so of various culinary adventures (including buying and butchering a whole pig with a couple of my mates last summer).

Sausages are definitely worth a go! Here are some thoughts:
• A combination of fatty (eg belly) and lean (eg boned shoulder) meat is good, half and half ideally.
• I like it coarsely minced to give bangers with some proper texture.
• Might sound like cheating, but adding some rusk/breadcrumbs actually helps the sausages to retain fat when cooking and keeps them moist. About 5og per kilo of meat. Not absolutely essential though. If using, mix the rusk in well (use your hands!), then add 100ml water per kilo meat.
• Salt is a crucial ingredient- about 5-10g per kilo of meat.
• Ingredients- anything you like! Some of my favourites are: White pepper 30g/kilo meat. Sage, apple and cider: a good handful of sage, 120g finely chopped apple/kilo meat, and use cider instead of water. Toulouse: smoked garlic, sage, rosemary, lovage, thyme and basil (1.5 handfuls of herbs/kilo of meat). It’s great fun to make little test-patties, choose your favourites and then multiply up.
• Don’t overfill your casings. You need to leave enough room so they don’t burst when you twist them. Leave them a bit flaccid (sorry, but it’s the most appropriate word!).
• A sheet of polythene, vinyl tablecloth or similar on the table, and a gentle mist of water from a spray bottle makes doing the twist thing a doddle. If the casings get dry, they stick to each other and are a right pain.
• My mates and I struggled for ages with making links (those professional looking bunches of bangers that butchers do), watching videos, and tying ourselves and the sausages into all sorts of crazy knots. Then one day I had a eureka moment. Links are just a “chain sinnet” knot like this one (with a wee variation):
http://www.animatedknots.com/chainsinnet/index.php?Categ=decorative
Look at each element of the knot, and imagine making them a bit longer so the 3 “strands” are parallel. Then imagine the rope is your casing of sausagemeat! So you start with a loop, and pull another loop through it. Pinch the casing at the crossing points. The variation is that when you pull the loop through, just take it round the back, and then flip it through the same loop again. This stops it coming undone. I hope that makes sense, and would be really interested to know if it does! This is where keeping everything moist and slippery with a spray bottle really helps.
• Once you’re done, hang the sausages up somewhere cool (and animal-proof!!) for a few hours/overnight. A fair amount of liquid will drip out, and you can then cook or freeze them.

Hope that's useful.
Enjoy!
Best,
Sven

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hey, Sven, that is really useful, thank you.
Toulouse: when you say 1.5 handfuls, do you mean of each or in total?

I agree about the rusk business, I think sausages are better with a bit in. A sausage can actually be too meaty sometimes.

 

[SpoonsbySven]

Toulouse: when you say 1.5 handfuls, do you mean of each or in total?

No, in total. But (as you have probably guessed) it's not an exact science! I'm not even sure how authentic that is, but it's "in the style of", and it tastes great!!
Happy bangering.
S

 

[Steve Maskery]

Thanks, I will give that a go.
I think I'm going to have to get myself some casings and a stuffer. I do have a cheapo mincer, it works OK, a bit difficult to clean, all plastic except for the blades. But it doesn't have a sausage nozzle. I've since seen similar budget machines which do. I don't know if I can get just the nozzle bit.

 

[NickWelford]

Is it electric, Steve? Otherwise you'll need three hands!,

 

[Steve Maskery]

Ah. No it isn't, it's cranked. Ten quid from Boyes, Novo!

 

[Amateur]

one of the best things about making your own sausages is that you know exactly how much fat you put into them and the quality of meat. I don't go with this 50/50 fat mix. Firstly you put too much weight on and secondly I don't consider the flavour being any better with more fat. Having said that you need some fat to make sure the sausages aren't too dry after cooking, but making sure you only cook them in an oven at 180 deg for 20 mins gives you a good moist sausage with not much fat content.
If you add flavourings there are a couple of things to be aware of. The salt content is one in these additives, They are very high in salt. Many recipes over do the flavouring. As a rule the mix I use is 1 kilo minced meat, 100grams rusk and 10grams of flavouring. One other thing is to ensure you soak the skins if you use natural ones, for at least two days. Make sure you change the water at regular intervals and pop back in the fridge, Many butchers don't soak their skins for long enough and consequently when the flavouring is added the salt content can be through the roof. Just my experience. Hope it helps.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well a couple of days ago I heard the letterbox go and I found a clear plastic bag with with something quite revolting inside it. It looked as if it could have been an appendix or possibly a prophylactic. I really would not have known what it was had I not seen my neighbour scuttling home. It was some sausage casing.

So today I decided to have a go. I'd asked him what sort of recipe I should use and he said simply, pork, salt, white pepper. Sage if you want.

I mixed:
850g belly pork (derinded)
500g shoulder
300g cheek
1 tbls salt
1 tbls white pepper
1 1/2 tbls dried sage

It all minced fine, so I tried a small patty. It was absolutely fabulous. Really, really good.

But I don't have a nozzle. I've been exchanging emails with a company that supplies them and they say they can't tell me what the flange diameter is! Morons. However, I thought I could use a savoy bag and icing nozzle. No I can't, I've just got a big mess to clear up. So now I've got over 1.3kg of excellent sausagemeat that I can't make into sausages. I think I shall just roll them up in cling and freeze them. Just as long as I don't forget to take the cling off...

I've just ordered a couple of nozzles off eBay. They are just down the road from me, I'd have preferred to tootle along and buy them over the counter. They are 5x the price of exactly the same product, also on eBay. Except that is coming from China and I wouldn't get it for a month. These nozzles are more than I paid for the whole mincer. Crazy.

Anyway, I am very happy with the culinary product.