British Sausages -- Quick Start good results

[Seraphina]

We make our own sausages because we live in the Med and we miss British sausages (comfort food, hardly Cordon Bleu). Other reasons for making your own might be that you like to experiment or you don't fancy the rubbish bits of meat that are recovered mechanically that invariably end up in factory sausages, or maybe you don't really trust the butcher, either? I have a foot in all those camps.

You can do the research and you end up going round in circles if you are not careful.....this post is about how to make basic comfort-food sausages with a few pointers for the more adventurers.

First, the key to it is sausage meat. You can form sausage meat into sausages with no skins, or into skins, or into patties (like McDonalds, which I happen to like, how sad is that?) Dare I admit to such a thing here? McD is great for what it is. Anyway, back to sausages....and I do suggest you make patties rather than fiddle with skins on your first few trials.


You can mince your own pork if you have a decent mincer -- you really need three passes through a medium to coarse mincer and I MEAN a mincer, not a processor which doesn't mince, it chops. We have a hand mincer that also has a sausage-filling nozzle, Spanish. It is very hard work. Best of all is to choose some pork on the butcher's counter and then ask him to mince it for you for the consistency of sausages. I always aim for 10% fat; any less and you won't get the flavour or the texture. You might see (or be offered) pre-minced pork. It's best to avoid that as it is required to have preservatives by law and could be any rubbishy cut from the counter. All minced pork and sausages are required to have preservatives under EU law; provided you are not allergic or sensitive, and provided you don't notice the flavour (I do) then fine.

OK, so you have some minced pork.... keep it nice and cold as it does not have preservatives. 1C is ideal but def. less than 5C.

Now you need to mix up your seasoning mix....

For 440gm of minced pork you will need

Salt 1.5 teaspoon
Sage (dried, bottled) 1.0 teaspoon rubbed in fingers until fairly powdery if you need to (some sage is already OK)
Or you can use fresh sage if available, even better; use several teaspoons of fine but carelessly chopped. Dried sage is OK, though.
Nutmeg powder 0.5 teaspoon
Ginger powder 0.5 teaspoon
White pepper (fine ground) 0.5 teaspoon
Shop bought white breadcrumbs natural, not flavoured, 33 grms

Weigh 33 grms of the breadcrumbs into a small cup, using digital scales.
Add the dry ingredients and mix well. This makes about 44grm seasoning powder which is ideal for 440grm meat. I tend to mix up three times this at a time and keep it in a small glass jar, and weigh out 44grm at a time.

Put the pork meat into a small mixing bowl and sprinkle some of the seasoning mix over it, and fork it in. Carry on sprinkling and forking-in to get an even distribution of seasoning throughout the sausage-meat. Add water a tablespoon at a time to keep the mix moist enough to work with the fork. It is important to get the seasoning evenly mixed for obvious reasons!

If you are lucky enough to have a food mixer with dough hooks that is ideal. I have a Braun handheld that also has attachments and it makes this job really easy.

Spoon the mix into a plastic Tupperware style box. Leave overnight at least. If you work nice and cleanly and keep it in a good cold fridge circa 2 to 5C then it keeps well to the normal life of the pork. Just be careful to work nice and clean - no dust, keep it covered and keep it cold. Remember, anything minced needs extra special care.

To make patties, take a generous dessertspoon of seasoned pork and put it on a side plate. Using a palette knife (or old-fashioned Sheffield flexible stainless blade) and the back of a fork, make into a round, flip over, tidy up and then pop onto some greaseproof in the box. And so on, separating the patties with greaseproof.

Cook the patties like beefburgers....we tend to cook pork more than we cook other meats in the UK. I'm not sure that it is really essential these days, but it is the custom and people don't like to see undercooked pork on their plates however irrational. Works well with chips and beans, and other traditional sausage dishes where the sausage shape isn't part of the experience ("pattie in the hole" is not going to catch on).

There is loads of information on the Internet about skins, apparatus, and other recipes. We have been making our own now for over two years and two years ago at Christmas we made sausages to go with a trad. turkey meal, in Spain, for 80 guests... I urge you to start simple. The above recipe is very basic but most people like it and it forms a good basis from which to branch out and introduce your own ideas.

[format]

Christ are you sure you are not actually my old boss?
Haha, he used to do the exact same with 'sausage' meat - put them into burger shapes.

Although his recipe always added a lot of grain mustard, very tasty. In fact I think I'm going to make some today

edit: keep up the great posting

[Moby-Dick]

nice job there - I dont suppose you've watched Heston Blumenthal's "In Search of perfection" ? the sausages he makes on there look great if a little complex for everyday making. He uses rusk as the filler.

I get sausage meat from my butcher as I don't have a mincer but it gets used in all sorts of ways.

[Seraphina]

nice job there - I dont suppose you've watched Heston Blumenthal's "In Search of perfection" ? the sausages he makes on there look great if a little complex for everyday making. He uses rusk as the filler.

No, we don't have UK telly where we are in Rome as it needs a 3m dish. I think rusk is fine but you can buy breadcrumbs more easily on the continent and they work fine. I think part of the key is that it must be dry....it is the dry rusk or crumb that absorbs the juices and holds it together, so if you wanted to make your own you'd want to dry them well at the bottom of the oven when baking.

When we started, I bought some various additives from a specialist online sausage-making store (when ordering skins) but quite honestly the additives do nothing for us. Could be that if you use good meat in the first place, you don't need them? Or maybe breadcrumbs do the job well enough? I don't know the reason but I have chucked-out the additives now. Simple is good when it comes to sausages, I think.

I need to do some more experimenting but I tend to bash out some basic sausagemeat when we feel like it and the basic recipe is so acceptable, I don't get round to it. Sausage, egg, chips and beans isn't exactly Heston Blumenthal grub anyway! I keep promising to make some pork and apple but I have yet to find a source of dried apple...could use fresh, of course, but it is going to affect the texture and is in danger of discolouring unless you add ascorbic acid. Has anyone else had any luck adding apple to the sausage mix? How much? Dried, fresh? Does it discolour badly?

I get sausage meat from my butcher as I don't have a mincer but it gets used in all sorts of ways.

That's what I do now, and get him to mince it before my eyes. Not inexpensive, but at least you know what you're getting....no cheeks and bottoms and so on

[Funkstar]

Sausage, egg, chips and beans isn't exactly Heston Blumenthal grub anyway!

I wouldn't be so sure. Though if Heston did that, he'd spend months experimenting to get the best sausage, egg and chips you had ever seen

At some point I will try these though Seraphina. If you continue to post though, you could have a detremental effect on my waste line

[Seraphina]

Christ are you sure you are not actually my old boss?
Haha, he used to do the exact same with 'sausage' meat - put them into burger shapes.

Although his recipe always added a lot of grain mustard, very tasty. In fact I think I'm going to make some today

Well, your old boss must have had good taste You can form skinless sausages if you prefer, just mix it a little drier which is OK if you are using dough hooks but very tiring if forking the seasoning in (I say that from a LOT of experience and am delighted to have the Braun, now). Needs to be really cold to hold its shape. Works OK though with the basic recipe.

[Moby-Dick]

I don't think a DVD is available of ISOP - but it was essentially HB looking at classic dishes ( he was trying to create the ultimate bangers and mash in this particular episode ) one of the tricks I did try of his was to make Mash from the insides of Baked potatoes - gives a wonderfull flavour! My butcher delivers , and hopefully they aren't too much of the scrap meat - they are all Gloucester Old Spot though so even if they are , they taste pretty good

[Zak33]

Seraphina, welcome

Nice nice guide. Thanks muchly for it

Have you tried altering the content of the pork, ie meat to fat ratio?

100% meat, with no fat is not actually as tasty as having good fat content, and therefore not too good for a sausage, as the good old banger was invented to use up less attractive cuts of pork in the first place.
Part of the magic is making an ugly piece of pork taste divine I reckon and we all know, fat adds flavour.

[Seraphina]

I don't think a DVD is available of ISOP - but it was essentially HB looking at classic dishes ( he was trying to create the ultimate bangers and mash in this particular episode ) one of the tricks I did try of his was to make Mash from the insides of Baked potatoes - gives a wonderfull flavour!

We always bake a few more jackets than we need. I haven't made mash with it (will try, thanks) but it frys up brilliantly for an English breakfast -- kidney, bacon, egg, mushroom, tomato, potato all fried in the bacon fat. Hard to get decent bacon here...we have to bring back vacuum packs from Blighty when we nip back. Very hard to get lambs kidneys here, as well....you find the lambs are VERY tiny and they are hung whole on the butcher's so you have to seek the kidneys and try to get him to supply them by themselves. It's not something they use, it seems.

Am just looking on You Tube and a lot of HB's stuff is on there....am looking at his 24 hour steak right now

[Seraphina]

Seraphina, welcome

Nice nice guide. Thanks muchly for it

Have you tried altering the content of the pork, ie meat to fat ratio?

100% meat, with no fat is not actually as tasty as having good fat content,

Thanks I agree about the fat *fat = flavour* hence comfort food is fatty food, but it's a bit of a compromise with diet. I always go for 10% fat by eye, so that's probably a bit more than 10% as there is quite a bit of fat in the flesh itself.