homemade sausages (merged)

halloweenqueen_2

Having aquired a kenwood chef for xmas, I have found you can make your own sausages with the relevant attachments! Two questions- where do you buy sausage casings and does anyone have any recipes/knowledge of sausage making!

sb44

Don't know if these will be of any use:

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=3416

http://www.sausagelinks.co.uk/Recipe_Making.asp

http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/Casings.html


http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=35&osCsid=d7ce21caaf406e47547b03608856fbf2

halloweenqueen_2

Thanks! ;D

neilk_2

http://www.sausagemaking.org - there's a forum there and an archive of recipes and the owner, Franco, is very helpful and will send samples. They also sell other things such as salt petre for preserving bacon and ham and dried black pudding mixture. Mmmmmmmm. I've made my own cumberland sausages using a mix and they were excellent - the real secret apart from the recipe and the spices (I think) is the mixture of the meat - obviously it's nice that you know there aren't any of the more "dubious" cuts in your sausages, but don't skimp on the fat - it's essential to have a good proportion of fat to lean, to make the sausages juicy, and you need a small proportion of crumbs/rusk to absorb some of that fat.

http://www.rivercottage.net and http://www.downsizer.net both have discussion forums where this sort of thing is regularly discussed.

HTH. Try it, you won't regret it!

halloweenqueen_2

Thanks for that! Will look forward to them sizzling in a pan!

elona

Try lakeland.

halloweenqueen_2

I will - brilliant service from that shop.

Ivor_Headache

Halloweenqueen, hi

Been making my own sausages for years. Trouble is, once you make them you will never buy shop made ones again.

The skins you can get from your local butcher, use 'natural' ones not the artificial ones, ( best to buy your meat from him at the same time though.) They come in quite largish bundles (and should cost you about a tenner, but you can make 'miles' with them), that you have to seperate, roll up individually, and then bung in the deep freeze and get them out when you need them. Just soak them in cold water for a few hours before you use them.

As for recipes, best just to experiment yourself. If you just use 'bellypork' to start with, make sure you cut off the rind, you should have about the right mixture of fat and meat. ( Not for the health conscious). You can then add herbs as you wish, bit of sage etc. After you have 'minced' your meat, give everything a good stir with some salt added to the mixture, this seems to get everything to 'gel'.

I used to use the processor to chop the meat, but nowadays find a mincer better. The processor will give you a coarser filling, but if you overdo it, you end up with a slurry for a filling.

You can get an old fashioned iron mincer from most good cookshops, but the best thing is, you can get a 'sausage ' nozzle to fit on the end. I mince the meat first, mix everything together, and put it back throught the mincer without the cutting blade, straight into the skins which fit over the nozzle attachment. If you use the mixture from your processor, fill it into a large 'icing' bag with a plain nozzle, and pipe into the skins. If you are a genius, you could make one long sausage, and twist them and link them like the butcher., never seems to work for me so I just tie a knot in the end before I put meat in, tie off the other end and bobs your uncle, or whatever. Good luck.

Wish I hadn't started this, starving now.

tom_and_barbara_good

I have had a few attempts at making sausages, I bought proper skins and a stuffing attachment for my kenwood chef. They all came out looking great but they taste just OK not fabby, and the filling doesn't seem to stick together together like butchers sausages.
I'm not aiming for the pink paste you get in cheapo supermarket ones (far from it) but when cut open they just fall into minced pork, they taste like minced pork as well, I have experimented with seasonings and herbs but I'm getting something wrong somewhere

Curry_Queen

Have you added breadcrumbs and beaten egg to bind them?

tom_and_barbara_good

I followed a recipe byJimmy, the pig farmer of BBC's Jimmy's Farm, it was in the Daily Mail mag a while ago, there were breadcrumbs but no egg