Today I tried full-sized patties of each blend, to see how they turned out after having a day in the refrigerator for the flavors to blend.
Blend #1
As I feared, it was too salty. Even my salt-loving guest taster agreed, and that says a lot. I hadn't considered the impact of the salt in the liquamen when I was measuring the straight salt at the beginning.
To adjust this, I cut up more pork chunks and included seasoning and added it to Blend #1. Here's what I used:
2 lb 6 oz meat
3 g pepper
3 g mace
15 g fresh parsley
1/2 cup cold water
Note that I did not include any salt and I was out of dried apple. The nice thing about the parsley was that it showed me how well I had mixed the new part in with the old. It wasn't well blended until the parsley was distributed throughout.
This worked out so well. The new blend had just the right amount of salt and a bright, slightly spicy flavor. We enjoyed it with fried eggs at breakfast.
Blend #2
Well, the recommendations to mix garlic in to make sausage was spot on! The garlic flavor was strong but not so much to put us off. We truly enjoyed it as a patty along with a salad and crackers. The salt balance was right and it was moist and flavorful.
Blend #3
This was the mix where I decided to increase the flavor ingredients to really make an impact, and boy, did it work. My guest taster declared it "A keeper!" and I agreed. I couldn't really taste the apple but imagined it added a bit of sweetness. The rest of the flavors were bold in a pleasant way and the salt level (from just the liquamen) was just right.
And now for a bonus!
When I chunked up the rest of the cushion meat to adjust Blend #1, I had enough left over to try another blend. I kept recalling a conversation I had with an Egyptian friend, AF, when we discovered we were both foodies who liked to cook. He told me his favorite spice combination on meat used cardamom, pepper, and cinnamon. This caught my imagination and inspired me to try it with the fourth sausage flavor blend.
Blend #4
4 lb 5 oz pork
28 g salt
50 g raisins
2 g pepper
1 g ground cardamom
2 g cinnamon
1/2 cup red wine
This turned out to be my absolute favorite. Sweet, spicy, bold, salty (just right), and the red wine added its own floral perfume to the mix. Truly a wonderful eating experience. I would make this again any time!
The Verdict
I declare my sausage-making experience quite the success. All the blends turned out well, even #1 after I adjusted it to balance the salt. And, of course, #4 was the best of all.
At this point I had to decide how I wanted to proceed. I had the ingredients to make tube sausages but I was running out of time; I had too many other things that had to be done. So I decided to make them all bulk sausage.
I weighed out 1/2 lb quantities, shaped them into cylinders, and wrapped each in plastic wrap. Each lump was labeled with the blend number and all the lumps were put into freezer bags with notes as to what was in the blend.
The funny part was how potent the garlic scent was, even through two layers of plastic and solidly frozen. It has since settled down but, wow! Strong!
It is nice to know I have a variety of sausage flavors to work with. It was also fun to discover how easy it was to make up my own flavor combinations and still have them tasty. My guest taster was astonished at how good they all were; he just hadn't had "high quality edible art" before.
Now he knows!
Stay safe and well, everyone.
Pinterest needs a picture for me to post, so I am including a picture of my cat. She did not get any sausage but she did ask for some. : )
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