Sunday, April 1, 2012

Sausages, Sausages

Lemon balm bread was not the only thing I made today. I also made two different recipes for breakfast sausages. This time I followed everyone's advice and cut the meat up early this morning and then set it and the parts to the grinder in the freezer. By the time Phil and I got done putting pallets on the back of the back shed to keep the dogs out, the meat was almost frozen and the first grind went so quickly. I was so excited that it was going to be so much easier this time. However it did not work for the second grind/stuff. I had put the ground meat back in the freezer to get cold again before trying to stuff the casings and it started off good but soon clogged, and clogged, and clogged, sigh. I did most of it as links and then gave up at the end and made patties. I also tied all the links again too since I still can't figure out any way to twist them without them coming untied.

I had about 8 lbs of meat. This is the first recipe. It is quite a bit spicier than the other recipe and I think we will like it quite a bit. It called for fresh herbs but since mine are still growing I cut the amount in half and used dried.

Breakfast Sausage (small batch)

2 1/1 lbs ground pork
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. dried ground sage
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

I just mixed this together in a bowl and after the meat was ground the first time I mixed it really well with the meat before stuffing the casings.

Breakfast Sausage #2

5-6 lbs ground pork
2 tablespoons salt
3/4 tsp. white pepper
3/4 tsp. ground sage
1 1/4 tsp. dried thyme
1 1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp.  red chili pepper flakes


It may not look like much but that is one of my biggest bowls and it took hours to make that much sausage. My feet were definitely unhappy by the time I got done (should have had shoes on but I never wear them in the house). We'll have sausage for breakfast again anyway but I am seriously thinking that after these casings are gone, I might just make breakfast patties and only stuff the Italian sausage (because I absolutely love it!).

16 comments:

  1. Great sausage making!
    Thank you for sharing the recipes :)
    Carolyn

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  2. One of the fascinating things about the butchery course we did was learning how to link sausages. If you can find a friendly butcher to show you it would help - I've seen diagrams but having someone show you hands on is the best way to learn :)
    Great looking sausages though!

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  3. They had sausage making on one of the cooking competition shows here - it took one team about 3 hours to make one sausage. It just doesn't look easy. Good for you for persisting with it - bet they tasted fantastic.

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  4. My son in law made venisen brats for the first time this weekend and watched a few you tube videos to get a few pointers. The recipes and already made product look great by the way!

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  5. I had a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. The sausage (this is from the big batch) tastes like any other sausage I would buy from the store. I can't wait to try the other batch and see how it differs from this one. One of the best things about making your own has to be the fact that you can makes ones that are better/different than store bought.

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  6. I have three of those cushy mats in my kitchen. One in front of the sink, one in front of the stove, and one in front of the section where I cut things. I so love them especially during canning season. I'm in stocking feet or barefoot in the house, so when I'm standing a long time it is always in one of those three spots. It really helps the feet.

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  7. Looks great! Making me hungry!

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  8. We love making our own sausage. We have used natural casings, but have found that when they are frozen, the casings are hard to cut through and difficult to chew and we have even gagged on the casing. What kind of casing to you use?

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    1. I did not find that to be the case with the casings we used. I just used hog casings on the Italian sausage and collagen casings on these little ones. I tend to think that these collagen ones are harder to use though and may tree some sheep casings next time.

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  9. Where do you get the casing? I'm thinking of getting some pigs to have pork, but need to get some more info on raising them. The sausage look great by the way! Makes me want to learn how to do it!

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    1. I bought my casings off eBay. We are raising pigs for the first time this year. So far it is going well. I have not found them to be hard to raise. My pen has held up just fine and I fed them just hog pellets at first and now I feed them hog pellets mixed with cracked corn. I also give them leftovers and hard boiled eggs.

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  10. Becky, I know precious little about making sauasages, so I am hardly qualified to advise but... My perception is that you are trying too hard. Things like this come together better after you have gained some experience. You shouldn't expect to be an expert straight away. A professional butcher does that sort of thing every day, but he's probably been doing it for 20 years!

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    1. Well, I am not unhappy with the sausages we got, I just wish it would go faster.

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  11. Those sausages look very good. I enjoy sausages most of the time. I will have to find my recipe for black bear sausage. Now that is a sausage.

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