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With a fatty cut of meat and a food processor, you can make sausage
Since I’m a beginner in this whole charcuterie business, I go straight to the professionals when I set out to write stories like tomorrow’s article about making sausage at home.
A few weeks ago, I went out to the commercial kitchen of Salt and Time, where Bryan Butler showed me how to make a basic breakfast sausage.
Butler is the newest addition to the Salt and Time team, which sells both cured meats like prosciutto and fresh sausages at the Barton Creek and HOPE farmers’ markets.
For many years, he’d worked as a butcher at the meat counter of grocery stores, including Wheatsville Co-op, but now he helps business partner Ben Runkle break down large sides of Richardson Farm pigs into smaller pieces that they turn into mortadella, chorizo, sopressata, bacon and fresh sausages like bratwursts and even hot dogs.
Butler has a large meat grinder and sausage stuffer, but you don’t have to have special equipment to make sausage at home, especially if you decide to make loose sausage instead of stuffing it into casings.
If you decide to go beyond the method that only requires a food processor or preground meat in a bowl, you’ll need some device to help stuff the meat into the casing. A stuffing attachment on a Kitchen Aid or other powerful stand-up mixer will work, but it often adds more heat than you want and can melt the fat. It’s a tedious way to get the job done, but you also can use a pastry bag to stuff the casing.
If you’re going to make more than a few batches, it’s worth it to buy a dedicated sausage stuffer, Butler says.
No matter what you use to stuff the meat into the casings, make sure the casings have been soaked in water for at least 20 minutes and rinsed several times with fresh water before using because they are heavily salted in storage.
Slide several feet of casing onto the stuffer attachment and tie a knot on the end. Start filling the casing slowly and wait until you’ll filled the length of the casing before you start twisting links.
After you’ve twisted the links hang them in the fridge overnight so the outside of the casing can dry out and the meat inside can set up.
Butler recommends “Bruce Aidells’s Complete Sausage Book” for fresh sausage recipes and techniques, including more information about how to use casings.
Here is a recipe for breakfast sausage that we didn’t have room for in the paper. You can find recipes for green garlic and herb sausage and fig ancho chorizo here.
Breakfast sausage
5 lb. pork butt
2 Tbsp. salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. ground white pepper
1 Tbsp. rubbed sage
1/2 tsp. ginger powder
1/2 Tbsp. nutmeg
1/2 Tbsp. dried thyme
1/2 Tbsp. hot red pepper (optional)
Cut up the pork into 1- to 2-inch pieces, and place in a large tray or bowl. Mix in salt with hands or a spoon and refrigerate for at least an hour. In batches, grind all the meat using a meat grinder or food processor and return to refrigerator.
In a small bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients and whisk in 1/2 cup ice cold water. Remove meat from fridge and add spice mixture. Combine with hands and another 1/2 cup cold water until mixture is thoroughly combined and sticky, but do not over mix. (If excessive fat and meat are sticking to your hands, the meat is getting too hot and is probably getting over mixed.)
You can leave loose and cook as patties or links. Use within five days or freeze for up to six weeks.
— Adapted from ‘Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing’ by Rytek Kutas (Stackpole, 1984)
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