It'll be Italian Sausage time soon

[DATsBBQ]

Just got back from the supersafeway. No deals on beef or ribs :badgrin:
But I did get a favorable price on blade steaks, small butt and a couple of small boneless chops. :grin:

Figure I'll get the old grinder out and make some signature hot and sweet Italian sausage. Two meals for the weekend.

Pasta with red meat sauce on one day and grilled Italian sausage sammys w/provolone/peppers/onions on the other.

Haven't figured out which day for each, but at this point I don't care. If I have any left over, might try a fatty.
Dave

 

[wittdog]

That sounds great. We make some Eyetalian sausage last week, we put some sun dried tomatoes. fresh basil. and fresh oregeno sp. Dat's care to share your recipe? I havent' been happy with mine................

 

[Pigs On The Wing BBQ]

Just got back from the supersafeway. No deals on beef or ribs :badgrin:
But I did get a favorable price on blade steaks, small butt and a couple of small boneless chops. :grin:

Figure I'll get the old grinder out and make some signature hot and sweet Italian sausage. Two meals for the weekend.

Pasta with red meat sauce on one day and grilled Italian sausage sammys w/provolone/peppers/onions on the other.

Haven't figured out which day for each, but at this point I don't care. If I have any left over, might try a fatty.
Dave

Groovy! Anouther sausage head. :grin: I have been making sausage for years, ( The Lazy way )

 

[DATsBBQ]

The following ramblings are how I do sausage. Some may agree, some may not but I don't care. I've never gotten sick or had anyone else get sick from eating my sausage. I attribute this t0 using meat and equipment that is nearly frozen. Hard on the fingers, but worth it.

I cut all the pork up into grindable chunks and popped them back in the freezer. After about 3 hours (once the chunks were nearly frozen stiff) into the grinder they went. Had to stop twice cause the pork was beginning to thaw. Pork & the whole grinder back into the freezer. Warm pork in through the grinder results in not too good eats.

After I had got it all ground (course bit) I weighed it out. Just a touch over 5lbs total. This is good for me cause my recipes are predicated on a total of 5 lbs of pork. :grin:

My better half appears and thinks it would be a good idea to make a batch of Italian and a batch of Chorizo. So much for the good luck of of getting 5lbs of pork to work with in a single batch. :-(

I personally haven't had the best results trying to scale down or up sausage recipes so I decided to come up with a recipe for a mini-batch of each.

Now, these haven't been taste tested yet, so no guarantees. Feel free to adjust quanities depending upon the your individual tastes and quality of your dry ingredients.

Decided to skip the casings and just go with bulk since I have no plans to smoke these. The Italian sausage will either be browned and used in a pasta sauce or made into pattties for sammys. The chorizo will be browned and I only use it to kickup green chili for mexican eggs. Besides, the last casings I got weren't worth the time and money to get them.

Mini Batch Italian Sausage.
2.5 Lbs course ground pork (see above), almost frozen stiff
3 cloves pressed garlic
1 TB Kosher salt (if using table salt, reduce by half)
1 TB Fresh ground black pepper
1 TB Sweet Paprika
1 1/2 TB Fennel Seeds
2 TB Crushed red pepper
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp Coriander
1/2 tsp Caraway seeds
3/4 Cup red wine

I sprinkled all the dry seasonings over the ground pork and ran it through the Grinder (course bit) again. Put the whole batch into a clean bowl. Added the red wine and mixed until my fingers were numb (Remember the pork is nearly frozen) and then transfered into a foodstorage container. Back into the fridge overnight for the seasonings to do their magic. What I won't be using in the next few days I'll freeze.

Now for the Mini batch of Chorizo
2.5 Lbs course ground pork (see above), almost frozen stiff
3 cloves pressed garlic
2 TB Onion flakes (rehydrated for an hour in warm water - better to use a raw onion but only had one that I'm saving for the Italian sausage sammy)
1 TB crushed red pepper
1 TB Sweet Paprika
1 TB (scant) ground cumin
1 tsp chile powder
1 tsp chipotle powder
2 TB Kosher Salt
3/4 cup red wine.
Same assembly process as above.

That is all.