Preserving Meat - Sausages

I love making sausages but haven't made too many for a long time as I haven't needed to. The only exception has been the couple of batches of Turkey Sausages I've made. The recipe I used for them was one that I adapted from a pork recipe in Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman. I would've liked to do one like this with our pork, but is was always a little tricky asking to get extra or new things done. I'll include my recipe below but there's a few things to remember when making fresh sausages.

• aim for 20% fat ratio to meat
• add seasonings before mincing the meat
• when using the mincer, and add a little water if you need to get it to mince better
• always sample a little bit first - this way you can adjust seasonings
• use less salt and add more after tasting if you are concerned about the amount of salt

Test small samples for correct seasoning

My turkey sausages - before I learnt how to correctly twist them!

Turkey and Fennel Sausage (you could use pork or chicken for these)

• 3kgs Turkey Meat
• 500g Fat 
• 2 tablespoons fennel seeds - toasted and ground
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 5 cloves garlic, crushed

Cut the meat and fat up, mix the seasonings through and then mince. Fill the sausage skins. I like to leave my sausages for a day in the fridge before I package and freeze them.

The reason I mentioned above for not needing to make sausages often, was because our business Dawson Valley Freerange ensured that we had as many pork or beef sausages as we could want. We had three different butchers using the same recipe but they were all different and I think its all about the ratio of fat to meat. Each one probably had a different view or maybe because they used different type of salt. When measuring salt in a volume, be careful as all salts have different strengths and really should be measured in grams. Which is why I suggest to use less until you've done the taste test.

If you don't feel up to, or don't have the required equipment to making your own sausages, you could probably ask a butcher to make some up for you. They may require you to get a certain amount done at once - our original butcher liked to do a minimum of 10kgs, otherwise too much meat is lost in the process in their big machines.

Please be aware of what meat you are using - ours tasted good, as we had grass-fed/grass finished beef and proper free range pork. I know it's difficult to get both of these but you can only try. A lot of beef is sold as grass-fed, but often times it's been grain assisted. But, that's another whole blog post....

I was (not so) recently asked on my facebook page for our DVFR recipe, so I thought I'd share it here as well. 

DVFR Paleo Sausages

• 10kg Pork or Beef (fat included)
• 6 tablespoons salt
• 1 tablespoon pepper
• 3 tablespoons mince garlic (from the jar)
• 1 tablespoon mixed dried herbs
• 4 cups water

I have found in the past when killing our own beef, that we have two lots of trimming - one for lean mince and one for sausages. The 20% of fat is a rough guide and with beef it's fairly easy - all the hard to trim meat is the perfect fat ratio for sausages :). If you're worried about fat, don't be, it's the single biggest factor in having tasty (or not) sausages. Most of it is cooked out anyway.

A recent thing I saw was to emulsify (fine and quite smudged looking) some of the minced meat and then mix it in with some courser mince. I think it was about 50/50 or maybe 30/70. I've never tried it, but it may give a more "sausage" like texture, whereas our paleo snags were a little like a rissole sometimes. 

Good luck and please let me know how you get on - either making some yourself or getting a butcher to make them for you. I also am going to have a go at smoking some of our sausages, so I'll let you know how I get on when I do it.