Italian Sausage

Starting from Scratch

char·cu·te·rie -- Pronunciation: (")shär-"kü-t&-'rE
Function: noun
Etymology: French, literally, pork-butcher's shop, from Middle French chaircuiterie, from chaircutier pork butcher, from chair cuite cooked meat
: a delicatessen specializing in dressed meats and meat dishes; also : the products sold in such a shop.

I've declared this my Year of the Sausage. I've long had an urge to make sausage and this seemed like a good time to pursue it further. Consequently, when I got an urge a few weeks ago to make a sausage ragu I had to start by making the sausage.

I've long since lost the original recipe and so I've no idea where it came from, but it called for Italian sausage. So step one was to get Bruce Aidell's Complete Sausage Book. I have another book with sausage recipes (The Sausage-Making Cookbook by Jerry Predika) that I bought a few years ago, but it didn't get me very far. The biggest problem with it is it doesn't emphasize the importance of fat. It turns out commercial sausage contains anywhere from 30 to 50 percent fat and quality artisanal sausage is somewhere between 15 and 25 percent fat. But if you buy even a fatty cut of meat like pork butt you probably don't have more than 10 to 15 percent fat because meat is trimmed so closely these days.

Fat not only provides flavor and that of-so-essential mouth feel, but it's required to produce a moist sausage.

Experiment: It's the difference between delicious and dull... ~ Elizabeth Schneider

My first efforts at sausage had too little fat and I ended up with a dry, almost sandy texture -- because, remember, you need to cook pork to at least 150F and that temperature will cook out most of the liquid in ground meat.

In addition to Aidell's book, I ordered the sausage funnel attachments for my Kitchen Aid and sausage casings.

Casings come in a variety of types, sizes, and materials ranging from lamb intestines, which are used to make small breakfast-type sausages, to muslin, which is used to create some dried sausages. For the Italian sausage I ordered 50 feet of medium hog casings. These are pig intestines used to make sausages 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter. That was far more pig guts than I needed for a single batch of sausage, but it's sort of an all-purpose size and suitable for both fresh and smoked sausages and they'll keep a long time. (They come packed in salt.)

Italian Sausage

2 lb pork butt
1/2 lb pork fat
2 tbsp pickling salt
2 tbsp fennel seed
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp caraway seed
4 oz red wine

Cut meat and fat into 1" cubes and place in freezer until semi-frozen.

Soak about 5 feet of medium (32mm - 35mm) hog casing in water for an hour, replacing water at least once. Rinse thoroughly inside and out. Return to bowl with water.

Grind meat using 3/16" plate. Add spice mixture and wine to meat and knead and squeeze to mix thoroughly. Pinch off a bit, fry it, and taste to adjust seasonings.

Attach small funnel to grinder attachment on Kitchen Aid. With a little bit of water in the casings, slide onto the funnel until about three inches remains. Tie a knot in the end. Turn on the KA and begin feeding sausage mixture through attachment, gradually filling casing, but being careful not to pack too tightly.

Once casing is filled -- but before cutting off excess -- start at the tied end and every five inches pinch the casing to form a sausage and twist a couple of turns to seal off. Continue working back toward open end and when last sausage is made twist end and trim.

The books say to If you can get someone to help you stuff the casings, do so -- the job is best done with four hands. Also note that I only stuffed half the sausage into casings. I frequently use Italian sausage in recipes where I end up discarding the casing.

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