Making Sausage

  I decided to teach myself how to make sausage. I bought Rhulman's book, read and ordered stuff, and gave it a try. The first attempt was a recipe straight out of the book. I hated it. I must have been doing something wrong. The texture was off and it was so strong of garlic, until I reeked for days after eating it.
Back to the cutting board.
The next try was only marginally better. This time I tried a recipe I made up, still adhering to salt and fat ratios by weight, but this time using spices I know my husband prefers. I was cooking cajun for his birthday party, and wanted to make a homemade sausage and dirty rice dish. I combined both beef and pork...blech. Still not outstanding, and according to Mitch, not hot enough. That will remain in debate since the only thing the man does not put hot sauce on is cereal.
The next try was several months and a lot of reading later in preparation for our anniversary dinner. This was a big deal; 100 guests. So my experiment started well in advance. I had wanted to make a pork and veal based sausage (which sent the kids in the house into fits about me using a baby animal) I did it nevertheless, since the last combo of beef and pork was just too beefy tasting. I also wanted to utilize some of the produce from the garden: onions, poblanos and herbs.
So after purchasing by meat, dicing and freezing it, I traipsed out to the garden and harvested green and yellow onions, poblanos and cilantro. Yes I was thinking Mexican-ish flavors. I also had read in a post by Addie Broyslea about sausage making where she used salt pork as the added fat, instead of just fat back as Rhulman suggests. Just be careful if you do this. I got mine too salty and had to grind up another bunch of meat to adjust. I do like the smokey flavor it adds though.
 I roasted 5 poblanos, chopped two kinds of onion coarsely, threw in my spices: salt, a ton of black  pepper, cilantro, 1 preserved lime,1/2 apple, some garlic ground it on the medium grind then added chili  garlic paste, and some siracha and sugar. I moistened the mixture with water and a little beer. Then made up a pattie to taste. It was good, but not quite as Mexican as I thought it would be. My sister who was here confirmed my feeling that it was good as is, even asking to take some home bulk style for her family. Then we stuffed sausage. It made a LOT. We served  it oven roasted, then over a bed of caramelized onions and peppers with homemade brioche rolls.
The next sausage foray was successful, too, albeit a lot more work. It was also to be a dish served at the anniversary party. I wanted to have a non pork, non red meat sausage, which meant poultry or fish. I already had fish dishes for the buffet planned, so poultry it was. I decided to do a twist on Turducken, and make a Turducken sausage, but with some Asian flavors, So it was chicken thighs and drumsticks, turkey legs and thigh meat from a duck, along with all of its skin. Then I had to use vegetable collagen casings UGH. They are tiny and break a lot. I seasoned the meat with garlic, ginger, green onion, salt and then moistened it for the mixing stage with mushroom soy sauce. Once it was determined the flavor was right, we set about stuffing. Initially Sasha and I were hand extruding it through this very tiny hopper thingy, it was murder. I thought well, lets put it into the hobart attachment and machine stuff it. I hated the look of it. The additional mixing created by the process was emulsifying the meat and turning my pretty Turducken sausage into hot dogs. O.K, so we halt the process and return to the hand done method. This necessitated (because of how tiny the diameter of the extruder pipe, and the smallness and fragility of the casing) me standing on a chair and using my whole body weight to get enough force to push the meat through the pipe and into the casing. While I was pushed, Sasha held down the sausage stuffer front, simultaneously  supporting the casings. Then when the plunger part would reach the bottom, we would have to pull all the casing off the pipe, and because of the intense suction, it would take two of us to be able to pull the plunger back out in order to reload. Once we figured the method out, it went a little more smoothly, and we ended up with a good amount of nice looking sausage. The sausage however, was the only thing nice looking when we finished.The table, counters and floor were a mess. I was blissfully unaware until after I twisted the last link, Sasha looked at me and said " We look like we have been having a war in here with a diaper full of poop, and you're the casualty." I looked down, and sure enough I was covered. It was all over my shirt, on my neck and in my hair. I don't think I'll ever get away from the messy part of creating...I guess it's just like when I paint: blissfully unaware, and totally covered in paint. We served the Turducken sausage oven roasted, too. It was cool because it made it's own sauce in a way, and after it came out of the oven I drizzled it with some black sesame oil. To accompany the sausage, from the garden we picked and pickled in sushi vinegar a salad of Japanese eggplant, shredded savoy cabbage, julienne cukes and carrots and slivered baby onions. There were no leftovers. I love it when that happens.
Now I have two options for the menu at APOMO