Foray into Sausage

For Christmas I got the meat grinder and sausage stuffing attachments for my Kitchen Aid mixer (I love that mixer). Before you go and say that is a horrible gift, I actually asked for them due to the sausage making class I took earlier in the year at Sur la Table. Also making sausage is not that hard if you have mechanical help.  I would not be making sausage if I had to use a hand grinder, because that would be too much like work. 

Meat grinder attachment grinding up the pork

So today I made my first batch of sausage. I made one pound of sage breakfast sausage.  The recipe called for pork butt (I used pork stew meat), fat back (I got rid of that since the stew meat had plenty of fat), sage, parsley, black pepper, thyme and salt. I also added some garlic and some cayenne pepper it to give it some kick.  I cut the meat up into 1 -2 inch cubes mixed the meat and the spices together then ran it through the grinder twice, the first time through the course the second time through the fine.  I then took some and made a small pattie to cook so my husband and I could taste it.  It is rather tasty but I’ll probably refine the recipe a bit for the next batch.  I then took the meat and sandwiched it between two pieces of wax paper and rolled it out to get a uniform thickness then used a large glass to cut patties. That is the simplest way to make sausage patties. I got 18 patties that are about 3 inches in diameter about ¼ inch thick which are now in the freezer.  The whole process took a bit over an hour from start to finish. 

Sausage patties ready for the freezer

The next thing I’ll be making is sausage in a casing. The hard part of that one is going to be finding sausage casings they just don't sell them around here.  I already have a recipe for Italian Sausage what I need to find is a recipe for Kielbasa.  Sadly neither my great grandfather (who was a butcher) nor my grandparents wrote down their kielbasa recipe it was all done by taste.  Thus I will have to find a recipe for a base and go from there. 

I may not make sausage everyday,  but I think I'll make it for special occasions like holidays. However, I'll have to work on perfecting my recipes till then. I just need to find willing volunteers to taste and eat my sausage creations.