Skip to main content

A Trio of Sausages


On Friday Emma Sandford picked up a pig so on Saturday and her and I cut it up, we did chops, a couple of rolled leg roasts, bellies for cooking and bacon, shoulder roasts, hocks, kept the fat and the offcuts and a shoulder for sausages.  My grandad was a butcher but he died when I was just ten, I have always felt ripped off about that as I love having a crack at butchery, but he no doubt turns in his grave every time I do! We also cooked up a brine for cider cured ham, from Hugh Fernley Wittingstall’s River Cottage Meat Book. The cure for the bacon was 500g salt, 100g brown sugar, 1 t black pepper and the zest of a lime finely sliced. 
Today Matt Sanford and I made sausages, it’s a family affair with the Sandfords
as daughter Abbey and I started some limoncello yesterday and Jade and I made the soap together last week. I was pleased to get the opportunity to show Matt  a new skill as he has been very helpful in recent years teaching me the art of keeping my rusty old bus up to standard for the COF dudes. He also gives me guidance, tools and workshop space so I can effect other small maintenance jobs on both my bus and car.  Matt is a mechanic and truck driver by trade so sausage making was completely new to him, I must say though he is a master of the art of pavlova and was game enough to give chocolate eclairs a go last week which were a roaring success.

We made three flavours using about 10 kg of pork and fat, Cumberland for Emma’s English parents who have been in lockdown with them, Matt wanted pork and apple and I was keen to have a crack at choritzo. We were not that thrilled with the Cumberland recipe so gave it a few tweaks and they turned out remarkably well. The choritzo recipe I used was from a book call Professional Charcuterie by John Kinsella and David T Harvey but it really lacked some grunt so we nearly doubled the paprika and added the cayenne pepper. We made up the apple recipe but I had made them before so had a fair idea of what we needed. The good news about sausage making is you can taste the fillings before putting them in the casings to ensure you have got the seasoning right. It is always a god idea to refrigerate your sausage overnight either the mixture before you fill the casings or the finished product to let the flavours develop, then you can freeze them. We used the Kenwood Chef which has both a mincer and sausage filler attachments to fill them and borrowed a small mincer from a friend, this gear is fine for a small batch like this. Last time I made them we had 50kg of meat so you need big gear, it was a six hour marathon even with a bigger mince and filler. Whenever I make then I always question why we but that shite from the supermarket, here are our recipes.



Pork & Apple Sausage
3 kg pork and fat, approx. 25% fat, diced

2 onions, peeled

8 apples, cored

2 C cider

2 C breadcrumbs

3 T salt

4 t black peppercorns

3 t fennel seeds toasted

Mince the pork, fat onion and apple, with a medium mincer blade. Grind the black pepper and fennel in a mortar and pestle. Thoroughly mix all ingredients together and refrigerate for an hour. Fill your casings and twist into desired length sausages.



Cumberland


2 kg pork and fat, approx. 25% fat, diced

1 C breadcrumbs

2 C cold water

2 T salt

4 t black pepper

2 t thyme

2 T sage

1 t nutmeg

½ t mace

½ t cayenne pepper

Mince the pork and fat with a medium blade, mix all ingredients together and the pass through the mincer again. Fill your casings and form sausage into three large round coils.



Choritzo

2.8 kg lean pork, diced

1.4 kg pork back fat, diced

4 t cumin seeds

3 t dried chillies chopped up

1 T coriander seeds

16 cloves

2 t black peppercorns

6 T paprika

4 T smoked paprika

1 T cayenne pepper

3 T honey

2 C red wine

¼ C salt

4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

Toast the cumin, chilli, coriander and black peppercorns in a dry pan and grind up in a mortar & pestle or spice grinder. Mince the pork and fat with a medium blade, add all other ingredients and mix thoroughly the pass back through the mincer. Mix by hand again and refrigerate for an hour. Fill your casings and twist into desired length sausages.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The official blog launch, or is it lunch of entertaining!

Ok here is the thing, my key performance indicator, to use corporate wank language is how much fun I am having. I have had three rules for many years. 1. Don't hang out with shit people.  2. Avoid all things boring unless absolutely necessary.  3. Always have something to look forward too. (I stole this one off a friend)  in recent years I have added  4. Only stay in Hawera 1 weekend a month.  Oh how the mighty have fallen! (I ripped that line from Tom Waits) if you don't know who he is I am not surprised.   1. I now have a dog to hang out with for a month, His name is Murphy, and he is only borrowed.  2. All those jobs here in my house, like cleaning it, tedious shit like painting that window, weeding the garden properly, sorting the shed out, renovating my desk (an old table from Butcharts Bakery), even mowing the lawn, there it all is right there in front of me with all the time in the world to get on with it having ignored i...
22 comments
Read more

A quick soup, best I can do in a short timeframe

  Hot & Sour Soup 500g shark 1 packet mild Singapore laksa paste (I know I know I know, but sometimes needs must) 1 t salted shrimp 1 t tamarind 2 T of the oil leftover from spicy smoked mussels ½ an onion peeled and finely diced 4 cloves garlic peeled and finely diced 1 thumb ginger peeled and finely diced 2 silverbeet leaves or other leafy green 1 tin coconut cream 500 g fish stock 2 serves noodles I used ramen 1/4 cup fresh lime juice Fry the onion, garlic and ginger in the oil, add the spice paste, salted shrimp and tamarind stir it all around until it is cooked a bit then add the fish and cook for 5 minutes then add the stock and simmer for 10 minutes. When you are ready to serve it add the coconut cream, bring to boil again then add the noodles,  when boiling yet again add the silverbeet or greens. Once wilted turn off and add the lime juice.
Post a Comment
Read more

Give a cake a go day.

I received a delivery of jam, the fruit was left in the bowl at Kidsbarn for lockdown so Emma knocked up a batch of jam with it, I scored a bottle on the proviso it appeared on the blog so this is what I did.  I based in on a recipe from a book called Harbour Kitchens which was a fundraiser many years ago for the schools in Lyttleton. There is a classic recipe from the witt of Joe Bennett for fish and chips if you can get your hands on a copy.  This is an adaptation of the Lemon Yoghurt Cake by Jane Simmons. False Pretences Cake  Zest of 2 lemons 1 ¾ C sugar 2 eggs Juice of half a lemon 4/5 C of greek yoghurt Half a jar of orange, pineapple and kiwifruit or other jam ¾ C oil 2 1.2 C flour 2 large t baking powder  Line a largish tin with baking paper, I lined a smallish tin, then had too much mixture, so I lined another tin spooned the rest of the mix into that and it was too big! So I lifted it out and transferred to a loaf tin, what a palave...
Post a Comment
Read more