Is that a sausage in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
April 3, 2014 5:03 AM Subscribe
I'm living outside of the uk now and miss my sausages and want to make some myself. Can you please tell me everything you know about how to make sausage like I ate in the uk? Recipes? Porky whites? Pork and apple? Cumberland? Share your wisdom!
Response by poster: Scandinavia, but I'm more interested in replicating British style sausage myself (potential hobby!) than I am finding new sausage here.... If anyone knows any good sausage blogs or websites please share!
posted by misspony at 5:30 AM on April 3, 2014
posted by misspony at 5:30 AM on April 3, 2014
I can't help with sausage production but I think sharing your location is important because the meat and other supplies will vary according to your part of the world.
posted by humph at 5:37 AM on April 3, 2014
posted by humph at 5:37 AM on April 3, 2014
Could you e a bit more specific on the type of sausages you're trying to recreate? Do you want to make the frozen asda barely meat sausages or are you more thinking like nice butchers cumberland sausages?
A small recipe for you that could get you started:
500g pork mince
100g breadcrumbs
1 egg
salt
pepper
sage
thyme
1/2 onion chopped very fine
Mix above in mixing bowl until combined and brought together. Bingo thats sausagemeat.
To fill you're going to need to find some cleaned pigs intestines and buy a sausage stuffer (which is an art in itself). You will get good enough results by just frying the meat in a hand shaped tube in some oil, or forming it into something resembling the cumberland sausage spiral and baking it in the oven for a while. The hardest part for making sausage is getting the spice mix right and putting it into the casing correctly. I tend to prefer sausages that are about 80-90% meat because if you go too high with the meat content they don't hold together well and tend to be a bit dry.
posted by koolkat at 6:13 AM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
A small recipe for you that could get you started:
500g pork mince
100g breadcrumbs
1 egg
salt
pepper
sage
thyme
1/2 onion chopped very fine
Mix above in mixing bowl until combined and brought together. Bingo thats sausagemeat.
To fill you're going to need to find some cleaned pigs intestines and buy a sausage stuffer (which is an art in itself). You will get good enough results by just frying the meat in a hand shaped tube in some oil, or forming it into something resembling the cumberland sausage spiral and baking it in the oven for a while. The hardest part for making sausage is getting the spice mix right and putting it into the casing correctly. I tend to prefer sausages that are about 80-90% meat because if you go too high with the meat content they don't hold together well and tend to be a bit dry.
posted by koolkat at 6:13 AM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
I went to google.co.uk and searched homemade sausage recipe site:*.*.co.uk to just get UK results. Here are some results.
posted by theora55 at 6:19 AM on April 3, 2014
posted by theora55 at 6:19 AM on April 3, 2014
We've been making sausages with our Kenwood mixer and sausage making attachment. It's extremely easy. I'm not sure I'd want to try stuffing them by hand.
You don't necessary need to go down the intestines route; there are collagen casings that are pretty good, and they store easily.
Your basic ingredients are pork (usually shoulder), breadcrumbs and whatever flavouring ingredients you fancy. Paul Peacock's 'The Sausage Book' is a pretty good starting point for recipes - it has everything from plain pork sausages to salamis and chorizo, and covers all the basic types of British sausage.
posted by pipeski at 6:43 AM on April 3, 2014
You don't necessary need to go down the intestines route; there are collagen casings that are pretty good, and they store easily.
Your basic ingredients are pork (usually shoulder), breadcrumbs and whatever flavouring ingredients you fancy. Paul Peacock's 'The Sausage Book' is a pretty good starting point for recipes - it has everything from plain pork sausages to salamis and chorizo, and covers all the basic types of British sausage.
posted by pipeski at 6:43 AM on April 3, 2014
British sausages are a bit more difficult to make at home than most Italian or country style sausages, but there are fanatics who attempt it. Cumberland sausages recipe? Green Irish bangers?
posted by zaelic at 9:12 AM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by zaelic at 9:12 AM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
mmmmm. Nice thread. I was in London over the weekend, and we discussed what made the English sausages so special (and good). We determined it is the sage, which is confirmed by all the recipes here. Plant you some sage. Its easy and very pretty, and now you know what to use it for.
posted by mumimor at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2014
posted by mumimor at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2014
I highly recommend Len Poli's sausage page. I can further highly recommend his Cumberland sausage recipe in particular, which I have served to Actual English People who reluctantly admitted it was probably as good as the Ones Back Home, though perhaps not if side by side, but thank you very much for trying, no, really, it's very good.
The main tip for sausage making: put very, very cold meat (as in slightly frozen, very slightly crunchy) through a very sharp grinder, keeping everything very cold throughout the process (for example, by chilling your grinder in the freezer, using a metal mixing bowl on ice). Warm meat and/or blunt grinder equals mushy, mealy sausage.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:45 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
The main tip for sausage making: put very, very cold meat (as in slightly frozen, very slightly crunchy) through a very sharp grinder, keeping everything very cold throughout the process (for example, by chilling your grinder in the freezer, using a metal mixing bowl on ice). Warm meat and/or blunt grinder equals mushy, mealy sausage.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 8:45 PM on April 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
Very nice, high end sausage.
In that case it would be worth investing in a nice solid metal mincer/sausagefiller. All recipes for sausage are essentially tough or hard to sell bits of pig that are ground into mince and spiced with some rusk and binder (breadcrumbs and egg) to make the base sausage. If you can get it, prok mince would be a good substitute for grinding your own, but it won't have the right meat to fat ratio (probably too heavy on the meat). For making your own mice you should take the less expensive bits of the pig (shoulder, belly, casserole pork) and dice them into small chunks. Cool in the fridge for half an hour and then mince into a nice rough paste. That makes up the meat portion of the sausage.
The binders which are necessary to make the sausage hold together when cut are going to be rusk and egg. The amount you want depends on your personal taste, but I would start with 10% of the mass of the ground mince and an egg per 500g.
Next are your spices. Salt and pepper are a must, and sage is very traditional to use as well (Take mumimor suggestion and grow your own simple to grow and you'll never run out) I like to add in thyme mustard and also some sweet spice like cinnamon or allspice. This is where you can go nuts but also where you get the difference between cumberland and lincolnshire sausages.
Mix everything so that things are mixed well, but don't overwork so everything is too smushed together. Now is the time for your adjuncts, your apples bits or carmelised onions bits of pear or cheese etc. etc. Cut these up quite small and fold them into the sausagemeat mixture and place into the sausage stuffer. Fill the sausages and cool in the fridge for a day to let them set and stabilise. The flavours will mix in the meat as well over this time. Bingo you've now got nice high end sausages.
posted by koolkat at 1:45 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
In that case it would be worth investing in a nice solid metal mincer/sausagefiller. All recipes for sausage are essentially tough or hard to sell bits of pig that are ground into mince and spiced with some rusk and binder (breadcrumbs and egg) to make the base sausage. If you can get it, prok mince would be a good substitute for grinding your own, but it won't have the right meat to fat ratio (probably too heavy on the meat). For making your own mice you should take the less expensive bits of the pig (shoulder, belly, casserole pork) and dice them into small chunks. Cool in the fridge for half an hour and then mince into a nice rough paste. That makes up the meat portion of the sausage.
The binders which are necessary to make the sausage hold together when cut are going to be rusk and egg. The amount you want depends on your personal taste, but I would start with 10% of the mass of the ground mince and an egg per 500g.
Next are your spices. Salt and pepper are a must, and sage is very traditional to use as well (Take mumimor suggestion and grow your own simple to grow and you'll never run out) I like to add in thyme mustard and also some sweet spice like cinnamon or allspice. This is where you can go nuts but also where you get the difference between cumberland and lincolnshire sausages.
Mix everything so that things are mixed well, but don't overwork so everything is too smushed together. Now is the time for your adjuncts, your apples bits or carmelised onions bits of pear or cheese etc. etc. Cut these up quite small and fold them into the sausagemeat mixture and place into the sausage stuffer. Fill the sausages and cool in the fridge for a day to let them set and stabilise. The flavours will mix in the meat as well over this time. Bingo you've now got nice high end sausages.
posted by koolkat at 1:45 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
You might check out Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polecyn. That's where I got my start, and it has step by step instructions for sausage making, though the book isn't only on sausage.
This is a nice online repository of recipes.
I just found this forum, which is actually a bit British for my needs, but should have what you're looking for. There are a ton of people there who really know what they're doing, and more than a few of them are professionals in the field.
What I've learned in the last five years of sausage making is that it's as easy as your crappiest tool. If you have a great mincer, but a lousy stuffer, it's going to be frustrating, and your sausage won't be as good as it can be.
The enemy of sausage is any kind of heat, even room temperature. The further from 0 C your meat gets, the more likely the sausage is to end up with a texture like papier mâché, which is just as unpleasant as that sounds.
What I'd recommend, if you're willing to sink some money into it, is an electric meat grinder and a hand cranked piston stuffer. I started out with a gigantic hand crank mincer that you bolt onto your table, and it was ridiculous in the amount of time and effort it took.
You might look around on forums in your area, especially hunting and such. If your lucky, you might find someone who'll let you watch or help out making sausage before you decide to do it.
After a moment of thought, I realize I could go on for days, but I'm on my phone, which makes links a pain. Feel free to memail if you've got questions.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:29 AM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
This is a nice online repository of recipes.
I just found this forum, which is actually a bit British for my needs, but should have what you're looking for. There are a ton of people there who really know what they're doing, and more than a few of them are professionals in the field.
What I've learned in the last five years of sausage making is that it's as easy as your crappiest tool. If you have a great mincer, but a lousy stuffer, it's going to be frustrating, and your sausage won't be as good as it can be.
The enemy of sausage is any kind of heat, even room temperature. The further from 0 C your meat gets, the more likely the sausage is to end up with a texture like papier mâché, which is just as unpleasant as that sounds.
What I'd recommend, if you're willing to sink some money into it, is an electric meat grinder and a hand cranked piston stuffer. I started out with a gigantic hand crank mincer that you bolt onto your table, and it was ridiculous in the amount of time and effort it took.
You might look around on forums in your area, especially hunting and such. If your lucky, you might find someone who'll let you watch or help out making sausage before you decide to do it.
After a moment of thought, I realize I could go on for days, but I'm on my phone, which makes links a pain. Feel free to memail if you've got questions.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:29 AM on April 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
Sorry, this Is the forum I meant to link to.
If you're truly interested in this as a hobby, I think that's an awesome idea. It's got everything you need. Just the journey from chunk of meat to sausage is kind of like magic, and if you like problem solving, it's great for tinkering with recipes. It's best to keep a notebook (nothing too nice, it will get dirty) and keeping meticulous notes on each batch you make.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:58 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
If you're truly interested in this as a hobby, I think that's an awesome idea. It's got everything you need. Just the journey from chunk of meat to sausage is kind of like magic, and if you like problem solving, it's great for tinkering with recipes. It's best to keep a notebook (nothing too nice, it will get dirty) and keeping meticulous notes on each batch you make.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:58 AM on April 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
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posted by Brockles at 5:17 AM on April 3, 2014