Making sausages: the recipes and know-how
Country Living magazine brings you a workshop on how to make your own sausages
Making sausages is easier than you think, from getting the perfect taste and texture to sourcing the best pork, Country Living Food Editor Shona Crawford Poole delves deep into the world of charcuterie to discover how to make fresh sausages and air-dried salami. Click on the recipe names below for step-by-step instructions, and scroll down for all the know-how you'll need on equipment and ingredients...
Equipment
Sausage-making demands high standards of kitchen hygiene and keeping every item of equipment spotlessly clean. Although it is possible to make sausages with just a knife to chop the meat and a funnel to fill the sausage skins, that really is doing things the hard way and I'd say a mincer and sausage stuffer are essential. I use the mincing attachment of my trusty electric food mixer that has three sharp metal cutting discs with fine, medium and coarse holes, and plastic sausage stuffing nozzles in two sizes. Alternatives include a hand-cranked mincer plus a hand-cranked sausage stuffer, or powered versions of both, which are larger and designed for farm shop or artisan producer use. You'll also need accurate scales and measuring jug, sharp knives, scrubbable boards, adequate fridge space and plenty of hot water. In this case, a clean apron is to protect the food not your frock.
Ingredients
It is no bad idea to order the meat in advance, particularly if you need hard, pork back fat to dice for dried sausages. The quantities of salt, herbs and spices used in sausages are small so why not use the best - fine sea salt, freshly ground peppercorns and fresh herbs?
Sausage skins can be natural casings - cleaned intestines preserved in salt - or manufactured casings made from animal collagen. Hog casings are the size for classic British bangers, and sheep casings for slimmer chipolatas. Larger sizes are needed for dried sausages that will shrink by about a third as they cure. Beef middles are a larger casing, good for homemade salamis where curing temperatures can't be accurately controlled. The point being that the bigger and, particularly, thicker the sausage, the longer it takes to cure and the greater the risk of failure - going off or growing the wrong moulds before ready.
Specialist ingredients are used in dried sausages to inhibit the growth of harmful organisms during the slow curing process. Curing salts, which replace the saltpetre in old recipes, and salami starter are available with instructions by mail order. Acidophilus powder can be liberated from capsules sold by pharmacies.
For casings, ingredients, equipment and advice, visit www.weschenfelder.co.uk or www.sausagemaking.org.
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