Does anyone here make their own sausages ? Came back from the UK with a kit from Lakeland that I am planning on trying this weekend. ALDI have a promotion on an electric grinder with sausage attachement next week which is tempting me. Grateful for any tips/recipes.
Steve
We can get Sandoux at Metro so if someone's getting you skins they'll find Sandoux nearby.
Thanks for that Bernadette. Will have to think about the refreezing as I put the meat in the freezer when I had the problem with the skins. OH will panic if I refreeze it
Suppose I could buy fresh pork and use the frozen meat for summat else. Pork pies possibly if I can find some sandoux
I make mine using a cast iron mincer - one tip I picked up quite early was it is easier to mince the meat if frozen (but only if you do not want to freeze a batch - cannot freeze twice [although have done so for years with no ill effect, don't let the HSE police know!]). I use fresh breadcrumbs if I cannot be bothered to make rusks, and have a sausage seasoning mix in the pantry which consists of equal quantities of pepper, all spice, sage and thyme. Fat to lean ratio should be about 20/80. Mince your meat on a medium blade and then add breadcrumbs and spices a little at a time, frying and checking a little between each addition to check the flavour (sorry have always been a throw it together cook and rarely weigh ingrdients- I think I use about 10% breadcrumbs). Remember that the meat will be processed further by the skin stuffing so you do not want too fine a mixture. I buy skins locally and soak them, always quite easy to slide onto the tube. If adding fruit or more liquid flavourings (such as apples) I use dried breadcrumbs to absorb the excess fluid. Have fun, the OH does trying the latest experiments :)
More or less the same he says. What sort of casings did you buy - chipolatas? The CSM says that he'll give you a ring for a sausage making discussion if you like, but not this evening as we have table d'hôtes guests.
Jan
Umm. Could you ask the CSM what the difference in diameters is between the tube and the end of his nozzle ?
I've consulted the chief sausage maker and skin threader and he says that after soaking he gets a wooden spoon (or bit of dowel would do) that fits into the end of the plastic tube holding the casings. He passes the spoon through the nozzle and into the end of the casings tube, thus holding everything together. After that, sliding the casings off the spool and onto the nozzle is easier.
Hope that helps,
Jan
These came spooled on a 14mm tube, I thought the idea was that they would slide from the tube onto the nozzle but the difference in diameters made that difficult
Now you can see why it became a part of 'The Generation Game'!
Don't think you can oversoak them. What we do (and they are definitely tricky beasts to do) is run cold water through them first to clean them out, open them up and reveal where the knots are. Then we start threading them by holding the nozzle under the tap and having the water run through that and through the casings as you manoeuvre them onto the nozzle, if you catch my drift.
Bon courage!
Jan
I bought some casings from Weschenfelders but am having problems getting them from the plastic tube onto the nozzle of the mixer, do you have any tips ? Can you oversoak them ?
if you look on google...you can pick up a recipe for rusk...its easy...pretty much flour and water...
Boyaux naturels. We get ours from Metro and they come in a pot full of brine. You have to soak them first, to get the salt off (run the tap through them too to get it out of the inside) then (usually) unknot them before threading them onto the stuffer nozzle. Any of you old enough to remember the Generation Game will have seen this done! If we want chipolatas we buy some ready spooled casings from Weschenfelders and have them delivered to the next UK friends coming out to see us in a car.
What are the skins called in French Jan ?
just read the rest of the postings....and to add...rusk really improves sausages..didnt think it would...I tried 100% and they frankly were like eating sliced meat....its the rusk that makes them into proper sausages....and I use natural skins from a sausage makings provider...they keep for about 2 years...
get the grinder! my husband, at my behest bought me a sausage making kit...with a plastic grinder..useless! so then I used my old mincer....very hard work....4 hours for 4 lbs of sausages...ridiculous! Here in France I was buying pork belly and lean pork and mixing...I did try sausagemeat from a butchers and 2 supermarkets...all had bits of ground up bone...and one friend hurt a tooth...so wont be doing that again. The sausage meat here often contains bone...so you are much better making your own....electric grinder so much better....I buy the seasonings online as well...have found them better than anything I have managed...but I do add lots of garlic and onion powder...etc. happy sausage making!
I mentioned rusk not skins because we can buy skins here in France at metro. Rusk's a bit harder to get hold of. I'll have to get Richard to answer the 'recipe' question.
We make our sausages and it is definitely a two person job. Adding some rusk to the meat helps to stop the sausages bursting during cooking, also it adds a little bulk. We do add rusk and herbs (choose whatever flavouring you want, or experiment) but not a lot of rusk. We buy our natural skins at the local butchers. I would recommend you buy the grinder on promo. I certainly would not dream of trying to stuff sausages with a piping bag, as you say it would be hard work.
Good Luck, there is nothing nicer than eating something you have made yourself and knowing what the ingredients are.
Thanks for the info Jan. The kit I got from Lakland has a piping bag which I imagine is going to be really hard work.
Interesting that you mention the rusk you buy rather than the skins, is this because you prefer a less than 100% meat sausage ?
Is the added rusk the main differnce between British bangers and the sausages we can buy buy here ? I thought it was the fineness of the cut and the spices added
Here are my random thoughts about the home-made banger process:
- We found that sausage making was much easier when after we'd bought an electric grinder.
- Stuffing sausages is a 2 person job if, like us, you have a hand cranked sausage stuffer.
- We started off using the sausage stuffing attachment to our Kenwood, but it made the machine groan!
- We buy our rusk from Weschenfelder.
- Big sausages are much easier to stuff than chipolatas and if you have to thread the skins onto the nozzle from scratch, it's a beast of a job
I'll get the chef online if you have any more technical queries!
Jan - the woman who cranks the handle and calculates quantities.
We do! Friends just arrived for coffee so more later.
Jan