Chicken Sausage, with Paprika, Chorizo Pollo con Pimenton.

Another Chicken recipe, this time with hints of Spanish sunshine.

Ingredients:
1 kg of minced chicken, very cold, but not frozen!
2 teaspoons of dried Oregano
1/2 medium red onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped.
2 tablespoons of spanish paprika.
1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper.
15 gms of salt.
4 gms of supraphos.
5 gms of mustard powder.
A splash of malt vinegar
1 tsp of dried chilli flakes.
50 mls of olive oil.
3.5 mtrs of sheep casing.

Instructions:
Sprinkle a teaspoon of the dry ingredients at a time into the minced chicken and mix thoroughly until all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the mince.
Place into the bowl of your stand mixer and mix for about 3 minutes, until the forcemeat becomes sticky.
Once the forcemeat has become sticky and not before, slowly add the olive oil, until it is all incorporated. The forcemeat will become slippery, but once the oil is incorporated into the bind it will become sticky again, continue to mix for another minute after this point.
Refrigerate the forcemeat until you are ready to stuff the casings, once stuffed, link the sausages, and refrigerate on an open tray to meld the flavour for a couple of hours.

Use within 3 days or freeze!

Chicken Sausage, with Tarragon, Sundried Tomato, and Garlic.

There is still cheap chicken at the Supermarket!

Ingredients:
1.2 kg of minced chicken, very, very cold, but not frozen!
40 gms of sundried tomato, finely chopped.
1 supermarket packet of fresh tarragon, stems removed and finely chopped.
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped and mashed with the blade of a knife.
1 tsp of freshly ground black pepper.
24 gms of salt.
4 gms of supraphos.
5 gms of mustard powder.
1 tsp of hickory smoke powder.
25 mls of cold water (if required).
50 mls of olive oil.
3.5 mtrs of sheep casing.

Instructions:
Sprinkle a teaspoon of the dry ingredients at a time into the minced chicken and mix thoroughly until all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the mince.
Place into the bowl of your stand mixer and mix for about 3 minutes, until the forcemeat becomes sticky, add the water if required to prevent the forcemeat becoming too stiff.
Once the forcemeat has become sticky and not before, slowly add the olive oil, until it is all incorporated. The forcemeat will become slippery, but once the oil is incorporated into the bind it will become sticky again, continue to mix for another minute after this point.
Refrigerate the forcemeat until you are ready to stuff the casings, once stuffed link, the sausages, and refrigerate on an open tray to meld the flavour for a couple of hours.

Use within 3 days or freeze!

Chicken and Shrimp Sausage, with Feta Cheese, and Jalapeno Pepper.

Inspired by cheap chicken mince at the local supermarket!

Ingredients:
900 grams of cheap supermarket chicken mince (9% Fat)
350 grams of cooked shrimp, coarsely choppped
100 grams of Marinated Appetina feta cheese, the one in the jar with the oil and herbs, use the oil as well!
3 fresh Jalpeno peppers, seeds removed, and diced finely
4.5 grams of Accord,(a phosphate mix, available cheaply from your local asian shop, used for making fishballs etc)
1 level tablespoon of salt
1 1/2 teaspoons of freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons of dried sage
1 teaspoon of dried garlic powder

Instructions:
Just mix all the ingredients thoroughly until they become sticky, you may need to add a little cold water, then either stuff into sausage casings, or make small patties, leave overnight in the fridge and when you are ready, fry until golden.

These will need to be eaten within 2 or 3 days, if kept uncooked. Cooked they will last for about a week in the fridge.

Eat and Enjoy!

Smoke Cured Cod Roe

Cod roe is one of the richest natural sources of Omega3, this recipe takes the roe to another level, once cured it can be used either on its own or as an ingredient in spreads for sandwiches, on toast, or as a dip for a light lunch.

Cod Roe

Simply take a fresh cod roe, weight it and rub it with 40g per kilo of premixed bacon cure available from butcher suppliers such as sausagemaking.org (Franco’s). place into a plastic food grade bag and leave in the fridge for a week, remove from the bag rinse under cold water, dry with kitchen paper and place onto a plate or rack uncovered until it forms a dry skin, normally 3-4 days, but can take longer.

Cured dried roe.

Once cured, the texture of the roe will have become much firmer, and the roe can be sliced without spilling it’s contents everywhere, it can be used as is as a flavouring for pasta with some olive oil and garlic, salt and freshly ground black pepper or spread on toast. It also makes great taramasalata, mashed up with soaked bread, or cooked potatoes with finely chopped onion, olive oil and lemon juice, or simply mixed with a little creme fraiche.

Kept in the fridge this will keep for quite a long time, as it dries it will become harder and the flavour more intense

Smoke Cured Veal Breast or Veal Bacon

Veal Bacon Sandwich!

A simple pork-free substitute for regular bacon, lower fat also so suitable for those watching their calorie intake.

This requires a breast of veal, ask your butcher as it is not something normally on sale, mine came bone in and required boning before curing.

Veal Breast bone in.

Once boned, the meat is trimmed into two slabs, and the sides tidied up. I size mine to fit a couple of plastic boxes which contain racks to hold the meat out of the resulting liquid produced during the curing process. The meat is rubbed all over with a weighed quantity of premixed cure which gives the correct ratio’s of cure, salt, flavourings etc. this is available from many sausage supply companies, I use Franco’s in the UK.

Curing Salts with Smoke Powder

Weigh the meat and then weigh out the correct weight of cure, 40g per kilo of meat. Rub the meat all over with the cure, and either place the meat into a ziplok bag or place on a rack in a plastic food container.

Cure rubbed meat on rack.

Stacked boxes

The meat then needs to sit in the fridge to cure, this takes about 2 days per 2.5 cm of thickness, plus 2 days. It will do no harm if the meat is left longer, as the meat is already protected by the cure and the salt.

I left these pieces for about 8 days before taking them out of the fridge, they then need to sit uncovered in the fridge until they form a pellicle, which is a dry skin on the outside. Some people wash the excess salt and cure off the outside of the meat before drying, I have never found this necessary

Cured meat ready for drying to form pellicle.

After a couple of days, you should be able to slice the meat and bag for storage, the following pictures show the thinner piece of meat, sliced by hand. If you have a small domestic meat slicer and wish to use that for slicing, it may be necessary to partially freeze the meat before slicing.

Thinner end of meat, hand sliced.

Structure of meat and fat.

As usual I had to try some of the finished product, it was breakfast time after all!

Breakfast, Veal Bacon Sandwich with Tomato Ketchup

Veal Bacon Sandwich, with Tomato Ketchup

Duck and Cranberry Sausage (Duck and Garlic revisited!)

Duck and Cranberry Sausages.

A friend of mine is not only intolerant of gluten, but also lactose, she can’t eat anything containing milk or wheat. It struck me that there may be many people who are gluten intolerant and or lactose intolerant who may not be able to eat commercial sausages. I will in future be trying to remember to mark my recipes for both gluten free and lactose free. This recipe is a revisit of an earlier duck recipe which my family love. I have changed the recipe to remove the dried milk and have replaced it with with a small quantity of phosphate binder to assist with locking in the fat and moisture, this will ensure flavour and juicyness of the final product.

These sausages are made when we see frozen whole ducks on special offer, we remove the meat, skin and fat from the carcass and the bones are boiled with vegetables to make stock or soup, don’t want anything to go to waste!

Stock pot!

Ingredients:

3 metres sheep casings

Salted Sheep Casings

1.5 kilos  fresh duck meat, including skin and fat cut into chunks to suit your grinder

Cubed duck meat.

2 Tablespoons chopped dried chives

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 red onion, finely diced

1 handful of dried cranberries, coarsely chopped

2 teaspoons ground coriander seed

1 1/2 teaspoons ground mace

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons of sweet smoked paprika

8 grams of Supraphos (a phosphate binder)

1 dl of chilled water or finely crushed ice

Spices weighed and ready for mixing.

Instructions:

Prepare casings by soaking them in water.

Casing Soaking in Fresh Water

Mix the dry ingredients apart from the onions and the cranberries with the meat and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Spices mixed with cubed meat.

Grind the mixture through the medium disk of your grinder.

Add the chilled water or crushed ice and work the forcemeat until it become sticky.

Farce after working by hand.

Refrigerate the forcemeat again until firm, about 30 minutes.

Add the onions and chopped dried cranberries, and mix thoroughly.

Stuff into casings and twist into 4 inch links.

Refrigerate overnight to allow the flavours to develop.

Grill or Fry until browned.

Ready to eat!

The sweetness of the red onions and the tartness of the dried cranberries, perfectly matches the duck, these sausages are moist and delicious.

 

Runder Rookworst (Coarse Ground Dutch Style Smoked Beef Sausage)

Inspired by a couple of fellow members on Sausagemaking.org’s forum, thanks Zulululu, and Culinairezaken! I have made an all beef rookworst, rookworst is a smoked sausage from The Netherlands, available from a couple of major producers it is very popular. Unlike the commercial versions, this sausage contains no fillers or added binders, simply meat, fat, salts and spices. Because of this, temperature control is critical, and the ground meat has to be thoroughly worked to achieve the primary bind.

Ingredients:
1.5 kgs of boned beef rib

Cubed and all gristle removed.

Salt 25g.
Fresh ground Nutmeg 1 1/2 tsp.
Dry Ginger freshly ground 3/4 tsp.
Freshly ground Chili 1/2 tsp.
Freshly ground Coriander 1 1/2 tsp.
Pepper white 3/4 tsp.
Freshly ground Clove 1/2 tsp.
Dextrose or sugar 1 tsp.
3 mtrs of Natural Sheep Casing
200 grams of crushed ice
100 mls of iced water

Instructions:
Place the cubed beef on a tray and place in the freezer to chill, it needs to be crispy but not frozen.
Mix the spices, and the cubed beef.

Grind the meat through the course disc of your grinder.

If the fat starts to smear, stop grinding and clean the cutter blade of the meat grinder, you are looking to have clean definition between meat and spices at this stage.

Place the ground meat and spices into a bowl and place into the fridge for 6-8 hours or overnight to cure.
Place the ground meat onto a tray and place into the freezer until it firms up and becomes crisp, do not freeze.
Prepare 200 grams of crushed ice and 100 mls of iced water.
Place the frosted meat and spices into the bowl of your food mixer, mix in the iced water, start the mixer with a beater installed and run the machine on medium speed for 5 minutes, slowly adding the crushed ice to keep the farce cold you are aiming to release the water and salt soluble proteins from the meat, and allow them to coat the fats and liquids, this will make the farce sticky.

Once the farce is sticky, prepare to stuff your casings.

The next picture shows one of two coils of sausage made with 1.5 kg of meat.

Next step is to tie the ends and make rings of the casings, this is traditional for Rookworst, and allows hanging the sausages on smoke sticks in the smoker.

After all the rings are tied, the sausages should be placed into the fridge, uncovered, to allow the casings to dry a little.

Once dried, the sausages can be prepared for smoking. I used a recently acquired vertical smoker  bought second hand.

The sausages were simply hung up on their strings by passing a wooden skewer through the twine loops on the sausages.

These sausages were destined for cold smoking, they can also be hot smoked if required. The cold smoke was supplied by a ProQ Cold Smoke Generator from Mac’s BBQ, the smoker was filled with oak chips.

This was fired up and placed into the bottom of the vertical smoker, the sausages were hung above it. Just to maximise the benefit from the smoke, some Norvegia cheese, together with a Norwegian Camembert, and some almonds were also added to the smoker!

The sausages smoked for about 10 hours, which is what the amazing ProQ will do with one filling! The cheeses and almonds had about 8 hours.

A large pot of water was brought to the boil, and the heat switched off, the sausages were added to the pot and a plate was placed on top to keep them submerged, the pot was then placed into a preheated oven set to about 95 degC. It would be quicker to heat on the stove top, but this way the heat is more evenly applied and more importantly more gently applied, we are not only trying to cook the sausages, we have to set the emulsion which holds the sausages together, this is what holds the moisture and fats in the sausage.

Once the internal temperature of the sausage reached 68-70 degrees they are removed from the oven and chilled with very cold or iced water then dried, as they are cooked they will keep for a week in the fridge, or for months in the freezer.

These sausages are extremely juicy, and very beefy, if I was to make again I would increase the spicing a little. They are good to eat either poached in water, shallow fried, or grilled, and at a minimum they simply need heating through as they are already cooked.

Poached

Grilled

All Beef Hot Dogs, not for the faint hearted!

Once again inspired by cheap minced beef at the local supermarket, I was left trying  to find a new sausage to try. All beef hot dogs are very common in the US,  this is my take on this classic, the only issue I had was that my mince didn’t appear to be fatty enough, the normal ratio in commercial products is up to 50% meat to fat, this recipe adds cooking oil to the emulsion to try and recreate the mouth feel of the normal hotdog.

This is not a recipe for the beginner, it is a lot of work, and the risk of failure is great, it requires a close eye on temperature to ensure that the emulsion doesn’t fail. This recipe doesn’t contain any artificial binders or chemicals to assist the formation of the emulsion or to replace it, it is a test of the sausage makers skill to reproduce at home! Good Luck!

Ingredients:
800g of minced beef
20g salt
3g cure #1 (pink salt)
280g finely crushed ice
30 mls of light corn syrup
4g dextrose
6g minced garlic
9g mustard powder
6g hungarian paprika
3g coriander seeds, roasted and ground
2g fresh ground white pepper
1 1/2 tsp of liquid smoke (essential for that hot dog flavour) you can leave this out if you want to cold smoke the sausages
100g of chilled cooking oil (placed in fridge)
3 mtrs lamb casing

Instructions:
Mix the salt and cure #1 with the minced beef, mince through a fine disc, place onto a tray and place in the freezer until chilled but not completely frozen.
Mix all the spices and the liquid smoke (if using) with the minced beef, and again grind through a fine disc.
Place the farce into the bowl of a food mixer and using a beater work the forcemeat on high speed for 3 minutes slowly adding the crushed ice. This process will help in producing the protein emulsion which is what will bind the meat, fats, moisture and liquid oil into your sausage.
Slowly dribble the chilled oil into the bowl of the food mixer, the soluble protein in the farce will coat the oil and entrap it as long as the farce is kept cold.
Do a quenelle test on a portion of the farce to check the seasoning.
Place the farce back into the fridge while you are doing the quenelle test and preparing the lamb casing and stuffer.
Stuff the casing and link into 200 mm links. Place the links into the refrigerator overnight for the maturing and to allow the cure #1 to work.
The next morning if you are cold smoking, cold smoke the sausages for 2 hours.
Prepare a large pan of hot water and poach the sausages in water keep between 70 and 80 degrees C, until the internal temperature of the sausage reaches 60 degrees C. 10 minutes should be fine.
Chill the sausages in very cold or preferably iced water, remove and dry.

These next pictures show the emulsion and the bind, unfortunately the emulsion is not perfect as is shown in the first picture, there are air bubbles! I first thought that this was due to rendering out of fat particles, but there was no sign of this in the poaching water which was completely fat free! It must be caused by the beating of the food mixer. I will try beating the mixture at a lower speed next time and see if that helps. The bind is fine, and this was achieved without the assistance of chemicals or additional binders!

As these sausages are already cooked they will keep for about 1 week in the fridge, but will freeze for many months!

Easy Romanian Kosher Beef Sausage

Made with minced beef on offer in the local supermarket these sausages are economical to make. They have no added fat, or preservatives apart from salt and spices. They contain no fillers or additives.  Cheap, tasty, nutritious, and healthy, what more could you want in a sausage?

Ingredients:
1.2 kg of ready minced beef, refrigerated
4 g freshly ground black pepper
19g salt
3g ground coriander
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground bay leaf
4 cloves freshly ground
1 tsp mustard powder
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tbsp yellow mustard seed
1 tsp sugar
1/2 cup shaved or finely crushed ice
lamb or collagen casings

Instructions:
In large bowl, mix the minced meat with the salt and spices.
Add enough ice to allow you to work the spices in and keep the mixture cold.
Knead well until the mixture is sticky.
Stuff into lamb casings and tie into 5 inch links.
Hang in a cool place for a few hours to dry the casing and mature the flavour.

Sausages will keep for three days in the fridge, or will freeze for two to three months without loosing quality.

Good fried and served in  bread with fried onions and mustard!

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