Sausage 101

It was January 27th and bitter cold outside.  Like every Monday morning this winter, I drove my hour to work through the frozen tundra of the Illinois Prairie.  The one thing I find so ironic about my work is that I drive from the "country" to the "city" to work on a farm -- and it is not just any farm but a living history farm to boot!  It was on this day that we got to have a little living history fun!

January 27th was sausage making day at work. We ground up meat and made bratwurst.  We stuffed some and put them in freezer bags for our open season and we turned some into sausage patties for frying up as is.

I took pictures...

Take a look for yourself.


Hooray for Sausage :)

measuring the spices!

Here is the recipe

Bratwurst 

5lbs ground pork, fine grind

4tsp sugar

1tbsp ground coriander

1tbsp ground sage

1tsp paprika

2tsp dired rosemary

1tbsp dry mustard

1tsp pepper

1tsp nutmeg

5tsp salt

Hand-trim fat from the outside of meat to your desired fat preference.  Grind the meet using a fine grinding plate.  After grinding, add the sausage seasoning to the meat and blend by hand or using a meat mixer.  Be sure to mix thoruoghly to ensure the ingredients are spread evenly throughout the meat.  Form into patties or links and fry.

mixing by hand

Grinding the meat

This is how you turn the casings inside out to make sure both sides are clean for the meat.

What happens when the casing is hard to thread on the stuffer?? You blow out the casing to make it easier of course!

cooking it up and yes, I will try some bacon too :) thank you!

This is how you make the fancy butcher sausage knots!  So cool...