"CURIOSITY is my prime motivator. MEMORY is my second. EVENTS are my third. It seems that the past 20 months have been punctuated by more events than I care to admit to, mostly tragic and man-made, sometimes naturally catastrophic . . ."
My cooking inspirations are sensitive to these events and launch a tumult and churning in my mind, my heart, my cooking. As a blogger, I have little (or rather nothing) to offer in way of solutions to world-related crisis. But some kind of “comfort” in relation to these events, I know how to do. Sometimes it sparks new ideas and circumnavigations and sometimes it’s a return to the past. Those ‘pasts’ that were actually simpler and more peaceful, which then again is seldom often and common, for those who are familiar with history books …
My heart goes out to the victims and those affected by the earthquake in Italy over 1 week ago (and some recent occurrences too). Few cuisines around the world have had such a universal culinary, emotional and comforting impact in the world, albeit often transformed and mutated in order to cater to national, regional and local tastes. Despite the sometimes surprising variations, Italian food will always be Italian food and few cultures today continue to uphold the traditional manner of preparing & cooking, as they proudly still do and hence inspiring so many of us to do so too.
I admit, I don’t know Italy well. Unfortunately. Except for Milan, Florence and the surrounding regions. The furthest south I’ve ever been in Italy is San Gimignano. But I’ve been lucky enough to have grown up surrounded with Italian families and neighbors in Montreal, who, because they left Italy so long ago, seem to still proudly maintain the traditions and continue to uphold the whole old-fashioned homemade approach. Their advice is often precious and only a phone call away when I’m stuck or just being curious and experimental. By the way, none of my friends or their families are from the earthquake-stricken regions but as I said earlier, I offer my sincerest condolences to those in central Italy affected by this recent catastrophe.
Here is my humble contribution to you ITALIA : pork & fennel sausages, made by me (using my tonic beef, pork and fennel meatballs recipe as a base, see recipe here) … It’s not the sweet or hot & spicy Italian sausages you’re probably used to. It’s more “tonic” and “vibrant” in its freshness.
The 1st time you make sausages, grinding the meat and stuffing the casings seems daunting, the 2nd time is easier and by the 3rd and 4th times, it’s as easy as pie, so don’t give up ! Soon you’ll be making your own sausages regularly.
What more can I say ?
Here are a few sausage-making tips :
The pieces or cuts meat you’ll use do not have to be the best nor the most tender cuts. Fatty meat is good, lean is not as good. Grinding the meat, whether finer or coarser will inevitably make it more tender. I like to grind my meat coarsely, using a n°8 or n°12 grinding plate and I’ll sometimes re-grind half of it and sometimes I’ll reserve about 20% of the meat to slice/dice it by hand so as to have some solid pieces of meat in the sausages. This let’s me have several textures within the same sausage. Feel free to combine different meats too.
Proportions are important and yet variable, as with any recipe. For every kilogram of meat you prepare, you’ll need approximately 12-15 grams (1 tbsp - 1 1/3 tbsp) of iodine-free coarser salt (like kosher salt or sea salt) per kg and if you want to cure them for a few days (in the refrigerator because it’s still too warm outside) you’ll need 1,75 - 2,5 grams (1/3 – 1/2 tsp) of Insta Cure Number 1 (also called Prague Powder Number 1 which is a pink-colored mix of 93-94% table salt and 6-7% sodium nitrite, which will also prevent the development of the more nasty bacteria, better safe than sorry) per kg of meat stuffing. You’ll need approximately 4-6 tbsp of dried spices and other aromatics (fresh herbs, zests, etc.) per kg, and then the optional addition of other cooked fresh vegetables which I used in this recipe and correspond to approximately 20% of the total weight but you can decrease it for other versions or use dried vegetable powders too (ground garlic, ground onions, vegetable flakes, etc.). The addition of liquids is helpful too to distribute the flavors (olive oil, wine, vinegar) but not always necessary. Try and experiment your variations in small doses !
Keeping everything very cold helps with the grinding and the stuffing. You should chill your meat cubes before grinding them. You should also chill the metal parts of your grinder before using them to grind the meat and later on to stuff the casings with the also re-chilled meat filling.
Taste-testing is also very important ! Always fry up a small meat patty before letting the sausage mixture rest in the refrigerator and eventually stuffing your casings. Adjust to your taste with more aromatics, salt & spices when necessary.
Putting them in the casings is difficult at first (some casings may rip, some will inevitably have air bubbles, etc., but you’ll use a sterilized needle to prick the casings where air bubbles appear and you’ll use your hands to evenly distribute the meat filling throughout the long snail-like sausage before you start twisting them into tight links. I also find it easier to work with 2 metre lengths of casings instead of one very long length. Usually and of course depending on the diameter of the intestine casings, 2 metres of casing is enough for 1 kg of meat mixture. Oh yeah, before I forget, you can get intestine casings from your butcher, sometimes they’re stored in liquid brine and sometimes in salt. You’ll have to rinse them well first and place them in warm water to soften them at least 30 minutes before stuffing them.
You can obviously eat them on the same day but the flavors will always be better if you let them rest and mature and develop in the refrigerator on a rack at least overnight or up to 3 days (turning them over once a day). In winter, you can actually hang them up if it’s cold (between 5°C-10°C) and then you cook them up and/or freeze the extras … :)
*For a different method and approach to sausage-making, as I did recently with very smooth and creamier textures such as hot dogs, go see my recipe here !
**Sausages can also be made entirely by hand if you don’t have a grinder and stuffer, using some already ground-up meat, some hand-cut meat, a large funnel and a pestle. I’ll try to post a recipe in the future showing you how ...
TI AMO ITALIA . . . :)
