Chorizo

Chorizo - The famous paprika rich pork sausage popular in Spain and Latin America comes in two varieties, cured and fresh. Cured sausage is uncooked and uses high quantities of salt or other curing agents such as sodium nitrate. We made fresh Chorizo, sometimes known as cooking Chorizo.

There are many regional variations, we opted for a Spanish recipe using paprika, fennel, garlic, cayenne and red wine vinegar. We used Bart's sweet smoked paprika made right here in Bristol.

A kilo of pork shoulder (pork butt) seasoned with the spice mix above and salt and black pepper. Place this in the freezer for 30 minutes then mince through the fine mincing plate.

Roll a little of the mince into a small pattie, fry and adjust seasoning as required. Repeat this until the meat is seasoned correctly. We increased the paprika up to 40g for our kilo of pork, 3 garlic cloves and around 2 teaspoons of cayenne and cumin. 

At the tasting stage the sausage was too dry but we had no more fat to add, so we used a beaten egg. This is an easy way to add moisture to a sausage, you can also add suet.

Chill the mixture and fill the sausage casings. (I thought there were plenty of photos on this blog already of sausage casing being filled  here - for example)

The finished Chorizo.

A quick Chorizo based dinner - Chorizo, sautéed potatoes and a fried egg

Verdict

I'm quite happy with our first Chorizo but the sausages are still too dry. We still need to add more fat! Also, next time I would like to use a mixture of sweet and picante paprika.

Chorizo scotch eggs - you can use this mixture to make Chorizo  scotch eggs - blog post on this coming up!

Italian style sausage

The Italian pork sausage is warming combination of dried red chilli, fennel, black pepper and garlic.

This is our first sausage using the new electric meat grinder and sausage stuffer. The electric mincer is much easier to use than the hand grinder and produced a much better quality mince in less time.

1/2 a kilo of pork shoulder (pork butt), this is a good fatty cut so helps moisten the sausage.

Cut the meat into cubes about 2cm X 2 cm and cut the fat into smaller chunks about 1cm X 1cm as it is much tougher than the meat and is harder to grind. Once chopped mix the meat and the fat together in a bowl. Remove the connective tissue and sinew, this will not grind and will add nothing to your final sausage.

Mix dried chilli, salt, black pepper, fennel and chopped fresh garlic

Season the meat with the mixture and then freeze for 30 minutes - 1 hour. This solidifies the meat, stops the fat melting during grinding and results in a better mince consistency.

Grind the meat through the medium grinding plate. Chill the ground meat for 30 minutes and then grind again through the medium plate.

Fit the sausage stuffing attachment with the coarse plate and load on the sausage casing. Normally we use natural hog sausage casing but it was unavailable so we used synthetic sausage casing for the first time. Synthetic casing lasts forever in the fridge but is not as stretchy as natural casing so it is prone to ripping and takes a little getting used to working with. The final product though is pretty good and if you didn't know it was synthetic casing - you wouldn't be able to tell.

We made two large links, firm them up in the fridge overnight.

Italian sausage, fried polenta cakes, roasted pomodoro tomatoes and salad

The final sausage was pretty good, the fennel and chilli are a great combination but the sausage was a little dry. I need to look at ways to moisten the sausage without adding extra fat.

A new dawn

This is the Breville MG1 (link) our new electric meat grinder and sausage stuffer, this should allow us to grind up batches of meat in just a few minutes and stuff it into casings much easier than the hand cranked machine. 

This should arrive in a few days, so look out for new sausages!

Update [13/7]: The sausage machine has arrived! New sausages arriving very soon!

A new mincer is needed

Sadly my mincer died today. It seized completely attempting to grind pork belly for my Chinese style sausages. I am left with a mincer that won't turn and can't be dismantled and a small bowl of ground pork, grey from the metal shavings of the grinding disk.

So while I am on the hunt for something more suitable without having to buy commercial equipment I recommend you avoid those cheap counter top hand crank grinders, they are next to useless if you are grinding meat with any fat content at all.

Scotch Eggs

I've been wanting to make scotch eggs ever since buying the mincer, a good quality scotch egg is a beautiful thing and a world away from most of the convenience food horrors sold by supermarkets and petrol stations.

The first attempt was very successful and I'm looking forward to making a range in future.

The core ingredients. One outdoor bred pork chop, 2 free range eggs.

Hard boil , cool and shell the eggs;

Roll out the seasoned (sage, pepper, salt) mincemeat thinly onto clingfilm:

Wrap the meaty jacket around the egg;

Dip in an eggwash and breadcrumb, then repeat:

Deep fry your eggs (i cooked them at ~ 170 degrees for 8 minutes)

Dry off the excess oil and cool a little

The finished delicious eggs:

I have many plans for varieties of scotch eggs including smoky paprika eggs, chilli eggs, chorizo eggs and lots more.

Minced Kebabs (Indian style)

A quick Indian style meal from the mincer - Garam Masala & coriander chicken kebabs.

2 Free range chicken breasts:

Coarsely minced:

Mixed with Garam Masala and fresh coriander:

Moulded into patty shapes using a round:

The finished kebabs - dusted with gram flour to crisp up when fried and placed in the fridge to firm up

Fried and served with mango & ginger chutney, rice and a naan.

2011 - The Year of Mincing

Happy New Year sausage lovers!

This year will bring many new sausages from both the sausage making book and our own creations. I will also be expanding into other foods too, so expect more burgers, home made pork pies, sausage rolls and scotch eggs too.

I am now equipped with a deep fryer, so multiple varieties of scotch eggs are on my to-do list including one based on a chorizo scotch egg I tried a food fair.

Ol' Porky II

Our second attempt at the basic pork and herb sausage was much more successful than the first.

Recipe: 1 kilo pork loin

60g breadcrumbs

few tablespoons of water

1.5 tsps salt

1.5 tsps black pepper

2 tsps sage, 2 tsps thyme

1/2 tsp sugar

Hog intestine

1 Kilo of pork loin with enough fat for a good moist sausage.

Diced into smaller cubes than last time for easier mincing, about 2cm cubes.

Here's the coarse mince.

The last batch was very over seasoned and we didn't try it before filling the skins. A little of the sausage mixture is fried up for tasting so seasoning can be adjusted. We added more salt and sage after tasting the tester.

The adjusted mixture is passed through the second mincing plate for a fine mixture.

The sausage skin is coiled up on the sausage filling tube.

The final sausages! We decided to leave these as coils rather than link them.

After 36 hours of forming and resting in the fridge - here is the finished product

This is not a huge sausage! It's just a small plate.

The sausage was not as moist as the last batch which is most likely due to not enough fat in the mixture but the seasoning was considerably better than last time. The sausage skins also seem a little tougher this time, I'm not sure if this is due to natural variation or the breed of pig or some other reason. It's something I'll look into.

Tips, Sources and upcoming sausages.

Hello Mincing Fans,

I have read the first few chapters of the sausage making book i received as a secret Santa gift and have picked up a few tips like freezing the meat for 30 minutes before mincing and making the sausage in one big tube and linking at the end.

I have acquired some sausage casings to make a new batch tonight to try out on my colleagues, I found the Bath Sausage Shop also sell skins direct to the public as well as the Green St Butchers (Bath) and Source in St Nicholas' market (Bristol) so i have plenty of sources for future use, who would have thought they would be so widely available?

Tonight's sausage is likely to be another attempt at Ol' Porky - a plain pork and sage - as the last batch were far too over seasoned.

Update!

Good Morning Sausage Fans!

Today we held the office Secret Santa and I have a new shiny copy of 'Home Sausage Making'. Expect some special Christmas sausages and plenty more mincing goodness in the new year.

Moroccan Style Lamb Burgers

There's a small delay to our next batch of sausages so we've made some lamb burgers instead.

A mix of lamb leg steaks and lamb rump to give a variety of texture and some lean and fatty meats.

Passed through the coarse mincing disc.

Blended with Ras el Hanout, fresh coriander, breadcrumbs, salt, pepper and a little water.

Moulded into patties and chilled for 30 minutes

the delicious cooked burger

open burger shot:

The burger was rich and meaty and tasted much more lamby than using regular purchased mince. The lamb leg steaks minced just fine but the tougher rump cut had a few problems going through the mincer, we removed all the fat but the mincer more crushed the meat than minced it. Chopping it into very small chunks helped it pass through, though excessive mincing started to melt down the fat which clogged the holes in the mincing plate.

We will remember for next time to chop the tougher meat cuts into smaller pieces and remove hard fats.

Overall - a success 7/10 for flavour, 8/10 for texture

No Sausages Today

Unfortunately, the sausage casing supplier has none in stock and an alternative supplier is closed. No sausages this weekend.

Monday will be sausage day!

Sausage Updates

The first batch of sausage casings are now past their best and I will be off to Source this weekend to get some more. We are going to make several batches and freeze them so we are able to use all of the casings up in one go.

We will remaking Ol' Porky this weekend to get the basic pork and sage recipe right, another pork sausage in some form and maybe some lamb sausages.

Sausage suggestions added to the list so far are venison with chocolate (The Steve) and pork, lime and coriander (The Jon). As promised these are named after the people who suggested them.

Ol' Porky - The Verdict

Our very first sausages have been eaten and a proud moment it was too. For our first attempt they were very good indeed!

The cooked sausages:

Sausage cross section

They firmed up and dried nicely overnight in the fridge, cooked as you would expect a sausage to cook and were nicely done after 25 minutes 180 degrees. We decided on oven cooking as it's healthier and our twists wouldn't be put under excess strain by being flipped every 5 minutes.

Texture - Perfect. I wouldn't expect any better from a professionally produced sausage. The balance of meat, water and breadcrumbs was spot on. It wasn't overly fatty and was nicely succulent.

Taste - Overseasoned. The guide we followed suggested 12 grams of seasoning for our amount of meat. The sausages were overly salty and the sage was a little overpowering. Next time for this amount of meat we would halve the over all amount of seasoning. It would be wise to season the mixture a little, fry up a small ball to taste and adjust the seasoning.

Looking forward to making another batch!

The First Batch - " Ol' Porky"

The first batch of sausages is complete - a simple pork & sage recipe (Ol' Porky) and it all went surprisingly well! Photos of our mini sausage factory can be seen below but of course the proof is in the tasting which will take place tomorrow. Pics of the cooked sausage and a review of it will be posted tomorrow. Only problem with the first batch is the odd range of size an shapes, hopefully we will perfect our sausage filling skills over the next few batches.

The Meat - a good mix of both fatty and lean pork

First Pass through the largest mincing plate

12 grams of seasoning, a mix of sea salt, celery salt, black pepper and sage

Final Sausage mixture with seasoning, breadcrumbs and water added

Second Pass through the finest mincing plate

Sausage stuffer tool fitted, casing end found and threaded on and the meat is starting to fill the casing.

Sausages taking shape

the final sausages! - Now sitting in the fridge overnight to dry out

Review of the finished sausage