Two-For-One Sausages

I don't know what the heck Otto Von Bismarck was on about when he lumped law and sausage into the same category of things you never want to see made. That's disrespectful of sausage. And now that I am an official sausage maker, complete with sausage making device and several thousand feet of hog intestine in my freezer, I take exception to his most famous statement. Sausage is pretty fun to make.

My nude little sausage experiment a few weeks ago confirmed for me what I already knew. I would like to make actual sausages with actual casings. So Cakes and I trotted off to K&K deli last Saturday and bought us some hog guts. Than we trotted off to Home Outfitters (which, by the way, still has a HUGE assortment of the sexiest blenders and mixers ever, please buy one. I think everybody should have one!) and procured us a sausage stuffer meat grinder contraption for the Kitchen Aid.

Then we stuffed ourselves a heap of sausages. We made two different kinds: a beer, garlic, rosemary and mustard sausage and a spicy black olive Chorizo sausage with red wine. Both were pretty yummy, although I think we'll have to use slightly fattier meat next time as they felt a little dry to me.

I thought I'd be grossed out at having to handle innards, but it really wasn't gross at all. Mind you, the casings came all nice and clean. I don't know that I would have enjoyed the sausage making as much if I had to clean the intestines from a hog I once knew as "Pinky".

Stuffing the sausages is dead easy, although it's definitely a two person job: one person to fill the hopper and work the on/off switch and one person to guide the sausage and twist the links as they come off. We stuffed the whole batch that you see in the photo above inside of 30 minutes. We had 4 Friends over to help us celebrate our new talents and by the end of the night, the six of us managed to eat all the sausages but about a dozen. Pretty impressive feat. J-Y kept claiming that they were the best goddamn sausages he'd ever eaten, but then J-Y also drank a whole bottle of wine all by himself so perhaps was feeling pretty positive about the whole world, deserving or no.

Judge for yourself.

Chili and Black Olive Chorizo

Will make about 20 to 25 sausages if you use 18 mm casings

• 800 grams organic ground pork
• 600 grams organic ground beef
• 150 ml red wine
• 5 cloves garlic minced
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 1 cup minced pitted semi-dried kalamata olives
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1 1/2 cups cooked arborio rice
• 1 cup minced fresh organic parsley

Mix really well. Before you stuff into casings, take a tablespoon or so and fry it up quickly in the frying pan so you can taste whether the seasonings are what you want. Then you can adjust the seasonings because there's not much half for a badly seasoned sausage once its in the casing. Once you're happy with the taste, stuff into soaked, rinsed casings. You could also roll these into roughly sausagy shapes if you don't have the equipment for stuffing casings, but in that case I'd add a raw egg or two in to help the sausages stick together better.

Garlic, Rosemary and Mustard Seed Sausages

Will make about 20 to 25 sausages if you use 18 mm casings

• 800 grams organic ground pork
• 600 grams organic ground beef
• 150 ml beer
• 5 cloves garlic minced
• 1/2 tablespoon crushed dried rosemary
• 2-3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 1/2 cup seeded Dijon mustard
• 3 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 teaspoons chili pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 2 teaspoons liquid smoke
• 1 1/2 cups cooked arborio rice
• 1 cup minced fresh organic parsley

Follow the same directions as for the spicy black olive chorizo.

Comments

[William]

Sausage surpasses the wheel as mankind's greatest invention, in my book. I think that your batch looks incredible.

I've got one of those kitchen-aid thingys and a couple of hundred feet of collagen casings that are just waiting for summertime. The plan is to make REAL frankfurters for Independence Day.

Man, now I'm hungry. Thanks a lot...

[Corey]

Welcome to the sausage making club.
Keep the last week in November open for the annual bambi week!
Remind me to show you how to calculate pepper quantity...the hairier the arms the better!

[Dianka]

I am SO impressed! This is not an easy task and you seem to have mastered it beautifully, Congrats!

~Dianka
Visit My New Food Blog!
http://na-zdravi.blogspot.com/

[Lyn]

hey william. Do you have a recipe for frankfurters? the real reaosn cakes and I broke down and bought the sauage suffer was our deep unnatural love for frankfurters. The ones at the store are so full of chemicals and fat, we wanted to make our own. We've seen a few recipes online, but I'd love to hear your ideas!

[Pille]

Lyn, this is a pretty impressive endeavour. Once I move from Edinburgh and can't get sausages from my favourite butcher any more, I'll come back and check out your recipe!

[celebchefs]

Those are some beautiful looking sausages. I'll be back more to check out your site.

Now, is there an accredited and certifying body for the "official sausage makers", or is that a self appointed title? :)

[kdk]

Frankfurters are not for the week of heart..they are a different breed altogether, they fall into the emulsified sausage catagory, messy, troublesome..ick. Best to just get straight from your deli...
if you insist on going ahead with it get a copy of Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman..I've got a copy...indespensible..cured sausage, smoked, fresh, everything you need to know. I highly recommend it for anyone making sausage.

[Glitechnia]

Even though these sausages don't like that appealing... your words made me want to go to the fair and get a huge long sausage link... and maybe even make 1 myself