A sausage fest, indeed.
Feb. 20th, 2011 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madbakerThis week's Resolution Recipe: To make sausages.
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nightbocci and her husband John, aka the New Apprentice, came over yesterday. She socialized upstairs while John and I played in our kitchen. Part of our contract is that John owes me a corvee of twelve work days per year - which really means that we schedule a monthly work day to focus on something. This was the first one and we had a terrific time. Plus, we both learned things.
Hand chopping the meat is the more authentic way to make the sausage. Does it make a meaningful difference, given that it is much more effort than getting pre-ground meat or grinding it yourself? That's what we wanted to find out. It was a good experiment and I'm using it as this week's Resolution Recipe since while I've made this before, we tried four different ways.
To make sausages.
1 1/2 pounds pork meat, ground (see notes)
1 1/2 tsp ground fennel (I just threw in the seed out of laziness)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp powder fort (cinnamon, ginger, pepper, mace, cubebs, cloves)
pork sausage casings
Mix pork with spices and continue mixing until tacky. Rinse casings as needed. Stuff and twist at desired lengths, piercing with a pin or needle as necessary to fill evenly. Knot to finish.
Bring a pan of water to a boil. Braise sausages for about 10 minutes. Pat dry and smoke for one to two hours in a hot smoker.
We made four batches. The first used 1.5 pounds pre-ground pork from the local quality butcher. The fat was included and it was a fine hamburger-type grind. Batch #2 was 1 lb boneless pork leg and 1/2 lb pork belly, coarsely ground through the Kitchenaid attachment. #3 was 1 lb pork leg coarsely ground with 1/2 lb pork belly hand-chopped. Batch #4 was 1 lb pork and 1/2 lb pork belly, all hand-chopped. We hand-stuffed all the mixtures into pork casings.
#1 was sticky rather than tacky and not a coherent mass but a bunch of masses. Some of this may have been from the meat being too cold from the fridge. The texture was completely uniform, which was not as visually appealing but was easier to form into consistent links. This makes sense since the texture is more consistent.
#2 was rougher texture but looked more like what we think of as handmade sausage.
#3 was much easier to work than #1; the irregular bits of fat scattered throughout looked very nice. I accidentally doubled the spice in this one.
#4 was the easiest to stuff. The mixture cohered as a mass even before mixing and the meat striations stayed visible even when chopped. The distribution of fat and meat was very good.
There were significant differences in appearance (see below). Once cooked those mostly went away; #1 was easily distinguished but the other three, not so much.
Taste tests:
The consensus was descending order - 4,3,2,1. Several people commented that #1 looked "too commercial" which is a nice compliment to our skills. What was meant was the uniformity of texture from the grind made this look like a mass-produced sausage rather than something house-made. We all liked the texture and mouth feel that hand-chopping produced better than grinding. However, the general agreement was that #3 was a good compromise that achieved most of the benefits of hand-chopping with lesser work.
The guinea pigs appreciated our work and would eat these again. Oh, and the double-spiced one was actually appreciated at that level.
I should try making this one as a four-day cold smoke, though...
nightbocci and her husband John, aka the New Apprentice, came over yesterday. She socialized upstairs while John and I played in our kitchen. Part of our contract is that John owes me a corvee of twelve work days per year - which really means that we schedule a monthly work day to focus on something. This was the first one and we had a terrific time. Plus, we both learned things. Hand chopping the meat is the more authentic way to make the sausage. Does it make a meaningful difference, given that it is much more effort than getting pre-ground meat or grinding it yourself? That's what we wanted to find out. It was a good experiment and I'm using it as this week's Resolution Recipe since while I've made this before, we tried four different ways.
To make sausages.
To make sausages after killing a pig. Take some meat and chops, first from the part they call the filet and then from another area, and some of the finest fat, as much of one as the other, in the amount for the number of sausages you want. Have this finely ground and chopped by a pastry cook. Then grind fennel and a little fine salt. Next, thoroughly mix the fennel with a quarter as much of powdered spices. Combine well the meat, spices, and fennel. Fill the intestines, that is, the small intestines, with this mixture. Know that the guts of an old pig are better than those of a young pig because they are larger. After this, smoke them for four days or more. To eat them, bring once to a boil in hot water and then grill.
(Menagier de Paris)
1 1/2 pounds pork meat, ground (see notes)
1 1/2 tsp ground fennel (I just threw in the seed out of laziness)
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp powder fort (cinnamon, ginger, pepper, mace, cubebs, cloves)
pork sausage casings
Mix pork with spices and continue mixing until tacky. Rinse casings as needed. Stuff and twist at desired lengths, piercing with a pin or needle as necessary to fill evenly. Knot to finish.
Bring a pan of water to a boil. Braise sausages for about 10 minutes. Pat dry and smoke for one to two hours in a hot smoker.
We made four batches. The first used 1.5 pounds pre-ground pork from the local quality butcher. The fat was included and it was a fine hamburger-type grind. Batch #2 was 1 lb boneless pork leg and 1/2 lb pork belly, coarsely ground through the Kitchenaid attachment. #3 was 1 lb pork leg coarsely ground with 1/2 lb pork belly hand-chopped. Batch #4 was 1 lb pork and 1/2 lb pork belly, all hand-chopped. We hand-stuffed all the mixtures into pork casings.
#1 was sticky rather than tacky and not a coherent mass but a bunch of masses. Some of this may have been from the meat being too cold from the fridge. The texture was completely uniform, which was not as visually appealing but was easier to form into consistent links. This makes sense since the texture is more consistent.
#2 was rougher texture but looked more like what we think of as handmade sausage.
#3 was much easier to work than #1; the irregular bits of fat scattered throughout looked very nice. I accidentally doubled the spice in this one.
#4 was the easiest to stuff. The mixture cohered as a mass even before mixing and the meat striations stayed visible even when chopped. The distribution of fat and meat was very good.
There were significant differences in appearance (see below). Once cooked those mostly went away; #1 was easily distinguished but the other three, not so much.
Taste tests:
The consensus was descending order - 4,3,2,1. Several people commented that #1 looked "too commercial" which is a nice compliment to our skills. What was meant was the uniformity of texture from the grind made this look like a mass-produced sausage rather than something house-made. We all liked the texture and mouth feel that hand-chopping produced better than grinding. However, the general agreement was that #3 was a good compromise that achieved most of the benefits of hand-chopping with lesser work.
The guinea pigs appreciated our work and would eat these again. Oh, and the double-spiced one was actually appreciated at that level.
I should try making this one as a four-day cold smoke, though...
| Top is #2, bottom is #1 |
 |
| Top is #4, bottom is #3 |
 |
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