I have always loved sausages, not the good quality ones or the European style frankfurter and hot dog.
I like the cheap ones 'English Breakfast' type which are the minimum of meat and probably contain things most of us would rather not know about. Rubbish is what my mother used to call them, but I love them.
Since my problem with wheat I have not been able to enjoy anything other than the odd one, now and then. BUT as I can not buy or make a decent loaf of bread which is gluten free I am accumulating a lot of gluten free bread crumbs in the freezer which I thought would be fine for coating fish or chicken. But I need to eat coated meat and fish every day for a year to use it all.
So, after reading loads of 'ingredients' on sausage pack wrappers which seem to indicate what I need. I have minced pork and can mince/ put through the blender/food processor any thing else I need and might even get a machine and skins if I can get the texture and flavour right.
I can always do skinless ones to start with.
I have found home made sausage recipes on the net but they all seem to be made by people who want the good quality ones.
There must be some one who can give me a hint about the 'seasonings' which go into the rubbish ones I like.
Any ideas?
Lots of E numbers and chemical flavourings.
Why not make up your basic mix of minced pork and fat and breadcrumbs then season with salt and pepper. You may need an egg to bind it. Take a teaspoonful and fry it till cooked then taste. Add more salt/pepper/meat/crumbs as needed to make it taste the way you want and make a note of each addition so you can repeat the recipe in future.
Keep frying little bits and tasting till you're happy.
Other common additions to proper sausages are a variety of herbs or spices, finely chopped onion or leek or apple.
Try looking at the ingredients list on a packet of your favourites and see if there are clues on there for which spices and herbs to add but you'll never match things like mechanically recovered meat, hydrogenated fat and chemical flavour enhancers in a home kitchen.
I completely agree with you about "good quality" sausages - far too much meat! I much prefer cheap ones too but would prefer cheap ones made from good meat. As a result I normally don't eat sausages!
It's a slightly different route, but I'm about to order a load of dried pigs blood with a view to making flat black puddings in a tray (I've found an old Highlands recipe) - good as a sausage alternative! It comes in fairly huge quantities, want me to send you some?!
Oh, 2 of the secret ingredients are fried onions & Allspice but maybe you know that? I didn't until I started making skirlie.
The main ingredient that is producing the flavour you like is fat.
If you look on the ingredients, it will normally say how much pork, but this will contain a certain amount of fat, then next on the list will be extra fat, this is in addition to the fat already in the pork.
The 'chemical' ingredients are there mainly to try and bind the ingredients together (you will need more than an egg) and add some colour. Flavour enhancer comes in the form of a load of salt.
I have tried to mix it myself Obbelex and they turn out more like meat balls or burgers, perfectly edilble but not quite right.
I wont need preservatives and I do have xantham gum, soya flour and know where to get un-rendered lard.
I need to know from a sausage maker, possibly a butcher what I need to do to get the mushy sausage texture rather than the meat ball/berger texture I get.
I think the last time I tried, I did put too much meat in it, it needed more fat because it was dry. I can not say that I have ever noticed egg in the ingredients of a sausage.
Any one want to guess what connective tissue is?
Connective tissue is cartilage, tendons and ligaments generally... for the flavour enhancing, have you thoguht of using cheap stock cubes?... if you have a look through their ingredients some of them are more or less pure MSG.... Good luck in your seach for a homemade terrible sausage BTW....
We used to make sausages, but haven't done so for a while. Might have another go, inspired by this thread.
We used to get our ingredients from a friendly local butcher, but I see that these guys http://www.sausagemaking.org/acatalog/Traditional_Pork_GF_sausage_mix2.html do a gluten free mix, which contains the GF rusk and spices.
I think that with English sausages, the simpler the better. We used white pepper and sage, and a mixture of salt and saltpetre (as a preservative, but I don't think you can readily buy it any more). We also added ordinary sugar (ie sucrose) as a browning agent, but I see that the website recommends dextrose.
You need plenty of fat to make a good sausage, so belly pork is a good choice.
We used a Magimix to chop and mix our ingredients. A mincer tends to press the meat too much and make it dry. We had to judge it carefully, since we were aiming at a fairly coarse texture, but if you want the finer texture of "ordinary" bangers, then it'll be much easier.
I don't think you need flavour enhancers or anything like that.
Thanks Melbourne, Those sausage stuffing machines look rather expensive for what they do. I wonder if we can work out a method of adapting a mastic gun to do the same job?
Need a bit of an inventor here.....
Quote from: PurpleHeather on March 19, 2010, 06:15:53
Thanks Melbourne, Those sausage stuffing machines look rather expensive for what they do. I wonder if we can work out a method of adapting a mastic gun to do the same job?
Need a bit of an inventor here.....
I've just had a look to see if I could find our old sausage stuffing machine, which was like an oversized hypodermic syringe. It was certainly not expensive. Sadly, it seems to have gone to the great kitchen cupboard in the sky.
The solid barrel mastic guns, aka sausage guns, look as though they'd work. You'd have to put a tight fitting washer into the tube, otherwise the mixture would simply flow back around the plunger, and you'd have to glue a longer piece of tubing on the end to hold the casings (which would be easy to do).
We also once tried using an icing bag. It does work, but needs two people, one to keep pressure on the bag, the other to manipulate the sausages. It's also almost impossible to clean!
Found the same thing for sale on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sausage-42cm-long-Guaranteed-quality/dp/B002XMSZNM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1269005458&sr=1-5
http://www.tooled-up.com/Product.asp?PID=25696
If you want to pump rather than just plunge your sausage
We are definitely getting there. I realized that icing bags were probably not going to be workable for me I have no strength what so ever in my hands.
£14-£15 is reasonable enough.
I did one have a biscuit maker which had a ratchet type of system for turning out the dough into perfect rounds. I have not seen it for years so think I must have given or thrown it away. That was similar, it also had icing nozzles. Come to think of it. I bought it before I got married and the 42nd wedding anniversary is due in a few days. So may be it did die. Can't remember...Not a problem...but I hate an unsolved mystery especially when my own brain is the cause.
So, we now know where to get the gear, it is just a matter of a recipe.
Too much or too little of anything will make a difference. I have a list of herbs and spices now but have not a clue if I should add a pinch or a handfull and that will take a bit of messing with.
I usually use the Keith Floyd method when messing with food and after the first bottle gets emptied, the details of the ingredients used is any body's' guess.
For what it's worth a friend and I made sausages once a month for a couple years,, don't know why we stopped.
It's the fat that binds the ground meat together, it's does tend to take a lot of fat. also a lot of salt, if you taste the what you think is right soon after you have made/mixed it altogether it will taste very salty, but it has to rest about 24 hours.
Some recipes call for cereal, fine Matzo crumbs or similar, if you can get pigs skins to fill with the said meat, good, I don't recommend the man made skins. also if you do fill your skins, don't over fill and try to link them lie the butchers, and then hang them foe several hours, if you don't they will burst when you cook them.
I will try and find our recipe or maybe Audrey still has it, I know we maybe a batch of spice mix and kept it in the freezer till we needed it.
Do you have a food mixer , or a hand cranked mincer, A sausage filling tube fits in the front of the mincer,, quite cheap, it's only plastic... qahtan,
PS Did you see the PM I sent you about sourdough
Yes thanks I do, qahtan, as I said in my origional post have all the equipment. Both mechanical and electrical.
I just do not have the recipe for spices in ratio to the meat/fat/filler. That is exactly what I am after.
You can still buy salt petre it is used to make the meat a rosy colour, it can be left out but if you really want it try small independent chemist, It will not be on show, kept in the back, as it is used in bomb making so it is the chemists discretion. I never had a problem.
I have the book The art of making sausages,pates and other charcuterie by Jane Gregson if any of you want me to look anything up .
Quick look through I see very few have eggs in.
Super recipes for pate and blood sausages etc and how use tripe,spleen,ears,heads,feet,brains,tails,
heart,lungs and even testicles. Of course there are less "different" recipes in there too. I quite fancy the one on how to make your own chitterlings.
Take a look on the net for Bangers I am sure I found it once, also English chipolatas. I was actually looking for sausages that didn't carry the cereal and found most did.
XX Jeannine
Oh Jeannine, you have got me laughing here. Not from what you said. It is very useful but you know how things trigger off the memory.
It was a story about an elderly maiden lady who had led a sheltered life. She took computer lessons and decided she wanted to google for a recipe for faggots. I wont go on because I know you are ahead of me.........
I had not thought of looking up chipolatas, will do and google Jane Gregson. I am not fond of black pudding but the family is. I understand the blood is dried like instant coffee and re-sold but my stomach is certainly churning at the thought of going that far.
Chicken !! ;D ;D
Just had a thought Heather, you are getting a bit exciting in the kitchen lately..sour dough, sausages.. you will be making cheese and and gathering wild stuff next.. I do have books by the way... XX Jeannine
I have considered cheese making in the past, looked it all up and it is interesting then a friend who married a foreigner came back from a visit to his family in the middle of Godknowswhere, They made their own cheese, with a tale about how ill she had been after eating it and it put me off. I doubt I would ever get to making my favourite 'bite's yer back' strong chedder. It would probably turn out like snotty cottage cheese.
Made yoghurt in the past. That is easy peasy.
There is one thing I know I will never manage to make and that is filo pastry. But yes, I do have a thing about making things, just the once as often as not, to prove to myself I can do it.
I think I have worked out a recipe for sausages and might be attempting a 'do' later on today if it rains and I don't go out.
Well when you get to the point where you just have to make quail pudding like the Duchess of Duke Street,,I have the cookbook!!..I buy frozen filo but I do make choux pastry for eclairs still. Glad you have found a recipe..there are lots of sausage supplies that sell the various seasoning mixtures..did you not get that link, I can find it for you if you need it.XX Jeannine
Well it is mixed and in the fridge to harden up a bit or else it will get some more bread crumbs in it.
I don't know if it was from you or not but I have used this for a seasoning idea
http://www.3men.com/sausage.htm#English%20Bangers
and worked down the ingredients to make about a pound and a half altogether. I weighed the dish then added the mush to find out.
It has caused more washing up than I hoped for. I did not want to make too much since it is just for a try out.....
Left overs and vegetables soup which will get some exotic name is in the slow cooker and I am having a well deserved cup of tea.
Let us know what they're like. That recipe looks like a lot of mace and nutmeg, but it's all a matter of taste, of course. Good luck
I dont have any mace and could not find the nutmeg.
I used a half teaspoon of Italian seasoning a good shake of salt and pepper and some seasoning mix I had in a jar with a good shake of ginger. It was just to get an idea and I think I am closer. It would have taken more herbs and more spice but at this stage I need to get the texture right. May be I will leave out the stock next time.
Every thing worked out very well, I had two for lunch, the texture is a but soft, would be fine in a casing but I had to be careful shaping it and frying. It would not be firm enough for scotch eggs but the taste was nice for a change. The dog aint getting any, any way. It is mine.
Neither my mincer nor the food processer would cope with raw pork rind, so I can not use it like I know the shop ones do.
I suppose plain lard would work instead of pork fat, so next time I will add a little to some mince pork (which I know was too dry last time I tried, add bread crumbs and then work on the seasoning.
You will have to wait a week for another report. because there is only so much sausage I can eat in a week.
I will do proper measurments next time too.
Lard would melt but chunks of pork fat would stay firmer as it still has the fibre network in it. If using solid pork fat you can take the rind off then the fat would go through your mincer.. if you want fat that melts in then grab a pot of pork dripping at your local store. Don't forget marjoram and sage give a super taste to sausages..I especially like the marjoram.
You are doing a grand job.
Have you checked out some of the US sites for recipes for English sausages, there are many expats there who yearn for a taste of home XX Jeannine
Yes I agree about the texture. It is the problem I am currently having. To get cheap pork fat. I also have to buy the rind. Obviously the butcher can't separate it either or he would not be selling fatty rind for 34p a pound.
There must be a commercial chopper which the cheap sausage makers have and the investment is worth it to them because the make tons. I only want a little.
Still working on this........
Cut off most of the fat then bake the remaining rind with a little fat left on slightly salted if you wish and you wll get great pork scratchings, the fat that runs off is lard..XX Jeannine
I have done pork scratchings like that and then used the fat for roasting spuds.
The thing is they tend to be addictive and then go straight to the hips so try to avoid my many calorific addictions where ever possible.
Why can't I like things like celery and water cress? Well I don't dislike them but they would rot in the fridge waiting for me to get the urge to nibble on them
Nor me, I love homemade scratchings XX
I think the magic ingredient in shop-bought sausages is MSG, and industrial quantities of salt!
Hi
This is a sausage I make it's better then you buy today.
1940's Speciality Pork Sausage
Per 1000g of sausage meat
Ingredients
Shoulder Pork 85% lean 51.8 % = 518 g
Pork Fat 17.3 % = 173 g
Seasoning Mix 2.1 % = 21 g
Rusk/Bread Crumbs 14.4 % = 144 g
Chilled Water 14.4 % = 144 g
Total 1000 g
Seasoning Mix 21 g
Salt 55 % = 11.55 g
White Pepper 18 % = 3.78 g
Mace 13 % = 2.73 g
Ginger 8.8 % = 1.848 g
Sage 5.2 % = 1.092 g
Total 21 g
Fred
Fred where have you been?
That is exactly the sort of information I wanted. Brilliant. Probably a little too posh for my rubbish recipe search but it will certainly help with my spice blending.
Mace is one spice I never use, it appears in a lot of 'old' recipes I know but if my ever aging memory serves I think it is mustard related which makes sense as bangers and mustard have a history of a long and happy marriage.
I went round the butchers today scavaging for bits for the ever hungry dog and there was some very pink looking 'economy mince' in one for a wonderfully cheap price of £1.48 a kilo.....
Yes we all know it is going to be nearly all fat but it is probably the right sort of thing to add to minced pork to get the cheap fatty effect. I bought some and the dog seems to find it acceptable.
Dog lovers just don't bother going there. He eats anything and everything including wrappers. Adopted as a stray of unknown parentage and age he does everything I tell him to. If it suits him.
I think Mace is the outer coating of nutmeg or something like that, but I might be wrong XX Jeannine
You are right again Jeannine, it is. I have got nutmeg. It is nice, grated onto cooked spinach. (well I think so)
It will do. I wonder just how much different the flavour is? Spice is so hard to 'taste' raw, they have to be mixed to come alive.
Hi PurpleHeather,
I've crated an excel file were all you do is type in your quantity of sausage meat, it then works out your quantity meat, fat and the different spices and so on as required.
If you want I will email you a copy my email address is : bruiron@o2.co.uk
Fred
Clever!!
Mace? These are the dregs of my bottle. Use it more than Nutmeg. In so many things. 'Meatier'.
And, in passsing, another angle -
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/cooking/sausmeat.jpg
Shades of 5 & 7 Spice?
Quote from: bruiron on March 24, 2010, 11:12:20
Hi PurpleHeather,
I’ve crated an excel file were all you do is type in your quantity of sausage meat, it then works out your quantity meat, fat and the different spices and so on as required.
If you want I will email you a copy
Fred
Thanks for the offer Fred
I have sent you an e-mail
you can get to me on
pheather0@googlemail.com
just a tip PH.best that you remove your addy from general view and PM it to him.
have fun with your sausage making!
Hyacinth I just created that e-mail address for the purpose of. Any one can use it if they want to. I aint as daft as I look.
And here's the fresh batch of Mace.
Thanks Tim. I got some ready ground and will get ..a round toit .. soon
Those things you photographed look rather like the pig's ears our dog likes. It just shows that without being able to compare size in a picture an unfamiliar item could be anything from huge to microscopic.
Agree - usually put a 'control' beside.
They are about 3 cm.
Well I nearly got there. Then cooked a little to try and it was over seasoned. I realised then that after getting the meat in pounds (as they now sell it on the market) I had got the recipe in Kilos.
I do not feel too bad about that since the NASA scientists did the same with metric and imperial measurements when sending some multi million dollar thingy to Mars, which was why (so they said) it disappeared and was never heard of again. ( I secretly hoped the Martians had shot it down).
Had to add some more minced meat but had no more gluten free bread crumbs. It is actually a lovely flavour now and I like it.
Not sure how long it will take me to use up four pounds of sausage meat but it is now in seven half pound batches in the freezer and one in the fridge for me to use straight away.
Thanks to all for your contributions and buirons graph, which works perfectly....... if it is used properly......