Sausage making

I bought a book recently, Charcuterie, and I have been dying to make sausages ever since. We had all the hardware, I scored hog casings from Trimpac and I had 10lbs of meat languishing in the freezer. A day finally came when both Roba nd I had the time to work on the Project. I selected the Sweet Italian Sausage recipe from the cookbook and as Rob cubed up the meat and pork fat, I assembled the seasonings.

mixing (those are not my arms)

Rob mixed athe meat and seasoning together and it went into the freezer as we set up the grinding stations. The book emphasises the importance of keeping your meat as cold as possible to prevent the fat from melting and giving the sausage a nasty grainy texture.

grinding (yes, those are my arms. Try not to be blinded by the terrifying white blobbiness of them)

For some reason, I decided to make sausage in a sleevless pastel top with lace detailing on the cleavage???! Anyway, Rob and I took turns pushing it through the grinder before popping it back in the freezer. We cleaned everything up and prepared to stuff. The hog casings, which come packed in salt, had been soaking in clear water and we ran water through them just in case. We went at it 3 or 4 feet at a time, Rob feeding the meat through the tube and me guiding the sausages along. 40 sausages later, we were done.

Aren't they beautiful?

We served them poached and then fried, alongside homemade pasta tossed with basila nd anchovies and a simple green salad (I grew all the greens on my little patio!).
Now we can't wait to make more flavours of sausage ~ unfortunately, we have no room left in the freezer. Anyone care to help us?