I’m calling this Italian sausage as it’s loosely based on recipes of the same sort of ingredients. Unlike most sausage recipes which start with 100% of sausage weight before specifying percentages (eg 80% meat, 9% water, 9% rusk, 2% seasoning), my recipes specify percentages based on the weight of meat you’re starting with. I think this is much easier to calculate for the home sausage maker!
[alert type=”muted” close=”false” heading=”Ingredients”] [icon_list] [icon_list_item type=”check”] Coarse minced pork shoulder/belly (add some back fat if it looks a bit lean)[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 1% salt [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 0.4% course ground pepper [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 0.8% ground fennel seed [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 0.2% garlic powder [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 0.2% onion powder [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 0.02% ground chipotle/chilli flakes*[/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 5% rusk [/icon_list_item] [icon_list_item type=”check”] 10% water [/icon_list_item] [/icon_list]* I started with 3.8kg of meat and used about 1g of chilli. I definitely should have used more!
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Freeze the meat for half hour or so before mincing to ensure a cleaner grind.
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Method
- As outlined in the Basic Sausage Skills post
Notes 27/09/2015
- Didn’t taste enough fennel. Not sure if this is because me seeds weren’t very fresh, or if it was because I didn’t use enough
- Definitely could have added more chilli. I was after a subtle heat that you don’t get immediately, which is almost the case here, but another gram or so would have been better
- Texture was ok, really on the border of being a bit crumbly, but just about got away with it. Juiciness also ok, lost a reasonable amount of fat in the oven. Still room for improvement on both fronts.
- For some reason, the test patty I did before stuffing bore no resemblance to the final sausage. It was flavoursome, juicy and held together perfectly.