There are few foods that with a little care and attention are as tasty as the simple sausage. When on vacation we all try the local sausages. I’ve often praised a well-made artisan sausage from an honest butcher, but recently I discovered how easy making my own sausage is. Here I’ll explain what you need and how simple making your own sausage is.
Mincer or food processor?
Making a sausage requires no more than pork, spices, casings and a mincer. For the meat, choose a nice fatty meat such as pork shoulder, and grind this yourself in the mincer, or if your food processor has meat blades to “cut” then use those. Simpler, but the ground meat does get finer and it also gets heated up a bit. You can vary the sausages with all sorts of flavorings: add a little white wine, bacon, garlic, rosemary and thyme for a Toulouse; garlic, crushed fennel seeds and a splash of red wine for authentic tasting Italian Salsiccia; add smoked paprika for a reasonable imitation of chorizo or swap pork for lamb, add harissa and create your own merguez. The world in a sausage.
Next, you’re going to stuff the sausage. Sausage casings come in two varieties. Collagen casings are great for Frankfurters, but for a real sausage, of course, you have to use natural casings. You fill the casings with a sausage stuffer, or possibly improvise with a sealant tube. Put a knot in it and you’re done!
Enjoy!
If you have invested all this time and effort in your fresh sausage making, you also need to prepare them properly. Don’t quaff them in a hot pan and poke them with a fork – the sausage casing does an excellent job of keeping all the delicious juices in and the cooking fat out, so make sure the sausage is smothered in its own fats that were hand selected by you. After all, if you’re worried about the fat content, you’re better off nibbling on a carrot. Fry until the skins turn light brown and begin to caramelize, then it’s time to offer them up on the tray and reap the admiration!
