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| How
Do I Make ... ? |
Sausages |
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In theory, sausages are pretty simple
to make - just grind up some meat and put the results
into a skin (Casing). Cook and ... wonder what went
wrong. Perhaps there is more to it...
The skill lies in balancing the herbs, spices, fat content,
and size. Therefore we should add that to make a decent
sausage is quite a skilled pastime. However, these skills
are related to making other delights not found in China
such as: Pork Pies, Sausage Rolls, Cornish Pasties,
Scotch Eggs, Faggots and Haggis.
We begin with Hank Shaw, a remarkably
adept Sausage Master from USA. At
the bottom of this page we will continue to add
other recipes for different styles of sausage + related
links - but please use Hank's method and interpolate
as necessary.
British readers may prefer David Whittall's
Award Winning British Bangers recipe which has its British
Bangers page here
Recipe Source:
Quick Tips:
1.
Keep everything as cold as possible - and we
mean everything being just above or
below freezing temperature!
2. Avoid
excess grinding, and don't use the meat grinder's sausage
stuffing attachment (It gets too hot).
3.
Experiment with herbs and fat content (The
harder and higher the fat content, the better the sausages
in general), and you will find that you can make all
manner of Sausages, Bratwurst, Salami, etc |
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| Let's get started:- Hank's Sweet
Italian Sausage |
| Ingredients: |
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4 pounds pork shoulder
1 pound pork fat
40 grams Rock or Sea salt (kosher salt)
35 grams sugar
20 grams toasted fennel seeds
6 grams cracked black pepper
4 grams ground nutmeg
1 cup minced fresh parsley
1 head garlic, peeled and chopped
¾ cup dry sherry
¼ cup sherry vinegar |
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Special Equipment Needed for basic sausage:
Meat grinder with coarse and fine dies - either KitchenAid
with grinder attachment, a stand-alone grinder, or an
old fashioned hand-cranked meat grinder
Note:
China does not appear to do electronic meat
grinders, so I brought out the one I inherited from
my Irish Grandmother - and it works a treat + great
exercise!
Additional Equipment Needed
for Stuffed Sausage Links
Casings - hog casings
Sausage stuffer
Wooden rack to hang sausages to dry
Note:
China doesn't do pre-prepared sausage skins
either. However, every Chinese wet market has a vast
array of intestines - which is how sausages were originally
made of course. Therefore all you need to do is buy
a long string of intestines, clean them thoroughly,
and put the sausage mixture into them. Simple, if a
tad messy!
Note 2: We haven't even bothered to go looking
for an electronic sausage stuffer in China, which basically
means you have to put the meat into the intestines yourself.
Plastic tubes and ramrods appear to work, but again
refer to Hank's advanced blog for technical details.
| Method |
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Hank's website if brilliant, and although we
can duplicate it, we cannot better it - so please
click below:
http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_homemade_sausage/
These sausages will keep for a week in the fridge
(Refrigerator), but freeze those that will not
be used by then. The linked Recipe makes 5 lbs
of sausage, or about 15-20 links.
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Hank is certainly a 'Gem' in the world of DIY sausage
making, but he also has advice on how to cook and BBQ
them. Please click below for more advanced recipes and
methods + read all of the blog, as there is a lot of
useful information there also:
http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/2009/04/30/tinkering-with-sausages/comment-page-1/#comment-12347
Thanks Hank,
Expats really appreciate your websites and detailed
methodology.
Interestingly, China does offer a vast array of sausages
- all of which have 20 million tons of sugar added to
each mouthful, making them totally inedible to anyone
who has a taste palate!
We hope to follow this shortly with the method required
for preparing the intestines as casings - or just get
your Chinese wife to do it for you if you are brave
enough? She will cuss you, but will love eating the
finished product!
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| Additional Recipes and Information: |
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'Whittall's British Bangers recipe
by David Whittall
An excellent guide to British Sausages by a Master sausage
maker. The main link is to a Forum posting by him from
Cebu, Philippines, but we have copied this into Word
format just in case the posting gets lost over the years:
David's
Home Page
David's
Forum link (Sausage recipe)
Recipe
- Word document |
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- Recipes for making sausages, and recipes for making
dishes with sausages. Excellent and clean site that
is easy to navigate and use. |
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| Sausagemania.com
- another excellent photo guide, but with less methodology
than Hank or David above. |
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The
Cook's Thesaurus
A reasonable list of types of sausage, most with
pictures and brief description. No recipes unfortunately,
but interesting for sausage fans all the same. |
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Sausagelinks.co.uk
Some extra information here
and recipes using sausages and similar here |
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| Weston
Supply USA) - a supplier of useful equipment and
machinery |
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This information is as supplied by ourselves, and ably
supported by our friends and various internet portals.
In addition we personally wish to thank David
Whittall and Hank
Shaw for sharing with us all their excellent skills
and recipes. |
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