Sausage Fest

[tekobo]

I came across an interesting duck giblet sausage recipe the other day and, somehow, went from a small bag of goose giblets in the freezer to half a pig and two days of sausage making.  Here we go...

First soak your skins.  The sheep's skins are thinnest but were actually the easiest to work with.

Duck giblet sausage from the Pitt Cue Co book.  I am guessing it is an Italian recipe given the fact that your "sausage" ends up being wrapped in the neck skin. My necks came skinless so I opted for chipolata style sausages.  

Colourful rub ingredients, including orange zest.

Goose necks, giblets and chicken wings ready to go.

Onto the KK in dairy cow fat.  Smoked at 100C for three hours and then added hearts for two more hours and then livers for a further 20 minutes.  I am a little squeamish about hearts so this was a good recipe for processing all the interesting bits of poultry.

I know the idea of poultry necks will be daunting for some but just look how familiar the picked meat looks - you wouldn't know that that wasn't a (small) pile of pulled port, would you?

It was very hard work to get the very stiff mix into chipolata skins but here are the resulting sausages, waiting for their debut.  Think very skinny liver sausages with the added benefit of chopped pickled cherries.

Here is the head of the lovely pig that gave up his/her life for the rest of the sausages.

At the end of day 1 we had all the meat cut up, seasoned and waiting in the fridge for mincing on Day 2.

First we made cotechino sausages.   I totally loved these winter sausages when we bought them from Italy last year.  Imagine my surprise when I find that they are made of half and half skin and meat.  I guess that is what gives the sausages their unctuous flavour.  I found two different recipes.  One had parmesan in and the other red wine.  I made both.  Here is the batch with red wine, I think.

@Braai-Q recommended Luganega sausages in a previous post so when I saw the recipe in my sausage making book I thought I would give them a try.  Here they are, looking luscious.

We made a couple of batches of bog standard pork sausages.  One coarse cut Italian hot sausage and one fine cut old favourite, pork and sage.

And finally the Cornish Hogs Pudding or White Pudding.  Made with a mix of pork and "lights" (lungs and hearts) and groats.  They are a "white" equivalent of black/blood pudding.  You have to poach them for about 50 minutes.  In the past we have had them break at this stage, filling the pot with your precious sausage meat.  This time we paid attention to the definition of "poach", didn't boil and didn't have any breakages.

The cotechini need to hang for up to six weeks and the rest of the sausages will go in the freezer. Will taste over the coming weeks.  I imagine some of you will be uncomfortable about the "nasty bits" that go into sausages.  Don't be.  Sausage skins encase and make all meats wonderful.

Here are my left over skins, salted and waiting for their chance at greatness.

[Pequod]

Dang!

[MacKenzie]

... and that's how you make sausages.  What an awesome job, sausages look wonderful and sound pretty darn tasty. 

[Basher]

Huge effort Tekobo.

Between your bacon and snags you need to open a deli. Yum.

[Alphonse]

Wow, huge amount of work but a nice store of sausages.  The photos are great!

 

[tony b]

19 hours ago, tekobo said:

In the past we have had them break at this stage, filling the pot with your precious sausage meat.  This time we paid attention to the definition of "poach", didn't boil and didn't have any breakages.

Nice job, Tekobo! This part just screams "sous vide" to me. 

[Tyrus]

Wonderful,  wonderful as Lawrence Welk used to say. Seems like, "The Whole Beast" went into that cook. A wonderful job. I remember you smoking a large piece of meat on a hook, will you employ your cold smoker to inject some added goodness and hang a few in the KK?

[tekobo]

Thanks.  Lots of good suggestions there.  Will consider sous vide when we come to cook the cotechino and will definitely smoke a few sausages in the KK. No, won't be opening a deli.  Keeping all the goodies to myself!  Taking "dang" as a compliment - not in my Afro-British lexicon.  Yes it was hard work but The Husband is always very clear that such things should be fun and not a chore.  We did it in three separate three hour stints and managed to stay jolly throughout.  Dotty amused us by wanting to know how we could spend so long in the kitchen without producing anything that she likes to eat.  

[MacKenzie]

Gorgeous cat. 

[bgrant3406]

I was worried that this was going to be a thread about an all male party aka “sausage fest”

Great job, wish I was there to help sample!

[tekobo]

We tried the two variants of cotechino last weekend.  Both were good but neither was as good as the version that we bought in Italy.  The Husband said that was not surprising given the Italians have been making it for hundreds of years and this was our first attempt.  I am still interested in improving on our version but am also looking forward to buying the real thing when we return to Padova in December.  In the meantime, here is a plate of very tasty sausage masquerading as cotechino.

[MacKenzie]

tekobo, looks delicious, the real thing or not.  

[Tyrus]

That looks delish Tekebo and so healthy, hope it's accompanied by a good New England beer.