Swedish Potato Sausage

My aunt, PV, has been a cook and a foodie all her life.  She has shared some marvelous recipes with me over the years, and I admire her skill.  Recently we were talking about food, and she told me about the recipe her Swedish father-in-law taught her to make:  Swedish potato sausage.  I asked her for the recipe so I could document it.  

Potato Sausage

5 pounds potatoes -- peel and grind

2 1/2 pounds ground pork shoulder

2 1/2 pounds ground beef chuck

2 or 3 medium onions -- grind

5 tablespoons salt

1 1/4 tablespoons pepper

1 1/4 teaspoons allspice

Beef casings (also called beef rounds), enough to make at least 10 pounds of sausage

Kitchen twine 

Cut the casings into 16-inch long pieces. Rinse the salt from them (inside and out), then soak them in fresh lukewarm water for at least ten minutes.  

Mix the potatoes, pork, beef, onions, and spices well.  

Fill this mixture lightly into the beef casings, recognizing they will expand when cooked.  Tie the ends with the twine.  Or you can skip tying them off and just leave a one-inch overhang on each end.  Do not prick the sausage.

Heat water with one tablespoon salt in a large kettle.  Bring the water to a simmer.

Add the sausages.  Simmer them for about an hour; do not boil them!

Let the sausages cool in their broth.  Then store or freeze them in their broth.

To serve the sausages, reheat them by simmering them in their broth.  Remove the filling from the casings before eating.

My Notes

My wonderful, amazing daughter volunteered to help me, and it turned out having two people made the work much easier!

I used three medium onions that weighed about two pounds total.  

I ground the meat, then the onions, then the potatoes.  Everything was put into a large canning kettle so I had room to mix them with the spices.

Beef

Pork

Onions

Potatoes

Spices on top

All mixed together.

Casings ready to go

Fortunately, I have the sausage stuffing attachment for my mixer's grinder.  It was easy to slide a casing over the tube, tie off one end, then have the grinder push the stuffing into the casing.  My daughter put the mixture into the grinder, and I was in charge of regulating how fast the stuffing went into the casing.  This is when having two people was very important.

About a pound of filling

Casing is on the tube.  Ready to be tied and filled.

In all, we used 12 casings, and they weighed on average 16 ounces each.  We tied off all but one because we wanted to try my aunt's method of leaving the ends open.  Thus, we had twelve pounds of sausages.  Hooray!

Once the sausages were made, we cleaned the kettle then heated the water in it.  I filled the kettle about half full of water.  This was plenty to cover all the sausages for cooking.

In the beginning

After about an hour of simmering, I noticed the sausages were floating instead of sitting on the bottom of the kettle.

Floating sausages

Once the sausages had cooled, I saved one out to taste.  The rest went into bags for freezing.  Each sausage was individually packaged with about 1 1/2 cups of its broth.

To reheat, I put the sausage in its broth in a pan and brought the broth to a simmer.  I covered the pan and simmered for about five minutes, then flipped the sausage and let it simmer another five or so minutes.

The untied sausage, reheating

My aunt emphasizes you should never fry or boil these sausages.  Simmer them for the initial cooking and again when they reheat for serving.  Also, the beef rounds are not digestible.  You must cut them open and scrape out the stuffing to eat it.  (A spoon helps remove the stuffing.)  Discard the casing as it is just a cooking vessel.  (Just like haggis!)

The Verdict

It was good!  The texture made us think of a corned beef hash, and the flavor was meaty with the onion, allspice, salt, and pepper as a good supporting cast.  The potato added its distinctive flavor but also made the sausage lighter in texture than a solid meat mixture would be.  It was a soft main course.

Success!  I look forward to eating the rest of them.

The main course

I served toast with it, so sometimes we ate the sausage as it was (by the forkful) and sometimes we spread it on the toast.  Both were good.

Later, I opened the casing of a cooked sausage and browned the mixture.  This was also a good way to serve it.  (Tasted great with a side dish of onions and apple chunks cooked in butter and spiced with pepper, cinnamon, and salt.)

My aunt says this is considered an authentic Swedish recipe, but noted there are spicing variations.  She has made this many times and finds the allspice, pepper, and salt mix "quite pleasing to my taste buds!"

After stuffing the casings, there was meat mixture left in the grinder and the tube, so we took that out and fried it as patties while the sausages were simmering.

This was also very tasty:  the exterior was a little crunchy and the interior was soft, so it was like eating meaty hash browns.  My only criticism is that it was too salty -- and that is easily fixed by adjusting the recipe.  I think that someone who didn't want to deal with stuffing beef rounds could make this filling (with less salt) and freeze it in small amounts, then fry it before serving.   A bonus recipe!

Palace Clamole revisited - by a Guest Cook!

My friend - and stellar cook - CT, tried his hand at the Clamole de Palacio, the Palace Clamole.  He made some changes to suit his tastes:  more chiles and also he used Spanish chorizo, which is cured and thus firmer.  He also scaled down the overall quantities a little.  Click here to see my previous post on this recipe.

What follows are his report and pictures.

His notes

Here are the ingredients of my version.

2 oz. pasilla chilis

1.5 guajillo chilis (I had some lying around from my last batch of chili from last year, so decided to try them in this)

6 oz Spanish chorizo (I chose Spanish for couple reasons - Spanish chorizo is cured and contains chopped pork, so it holds well when cooked.  Also, Spanish contains smoked paprika, so I thought the hint of smoke might be interesting)

1 lb 7oz Roma tomatoes

1.8 oz whole raw almonds toasted in iron skillet

1 oz 85% Mexican chocolate (I decided to go with the dark Mexican chocolate this go around)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 lb skinless boneless chicken thighs

No additional sugar - the Mexican chocolate seemed to have the right amount already

Salt to taste at the end (the chorizo added some salt of its own, so I added about a teaspoon or more -  did not measure)

Some additional water/veg broth

I started off by washing the chilis and browning them in an iron skillet (I left the chilis intact with seeds, only removing the stems:

I then immersed the chilis in hot water for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, I put the tomatoes on the gas grill to remove the skins.  I probably didn’t need to do this, since I ended up straining the blended mixture anyway, but I can’t resist grilling stuff.

I then blended the skinned tomatoes (I left the seeds and core, because I’m lazy), chilis, and about half of the chili water.

I then strained the mixture into the Dutch oven:

Only the pulp and seeds remained:

I realized at this point I forgot to add the toasted whole almonds, so put those in the blender and added a little vegetable broth.  Blended until it basically became almond milk.

Then added the almond milk to the Dutch oven:

I then added the chicken and chorizo and cooked for about an hour or so (I didn’t time it).  I found that the texture was a little too wet, so I left it simmer uncovered for last 20 minutes or so to get to the right consistency:

The Verdict

Served it garnished with a little cilantro, flour tortillas, and some grilled red cabbage marinated in rice wine vinegar, lime juice and salt which I made days before.  I paired it with a local bock beer which I think works really well with this mole.  

 

I probably could have added about 1/2 lb more chicken and maybe another 3 oz of chorizo to make it just right.  Otherwise I thought it turned out great, and I think we’ll definitely make this again.  

 

The Spanish chorizo offered the slightest hint of smoke and garlic, but not enough to get in the way of the more subtle flavors of the mole.  The chorizo didn’t melt away in the sauce, so if you like that additional bite its a good option if you don’t mind the flavors the Spanish version adds to this.  A great dish!

Thank you, CT, for trying this and telling me about it.  What I love about cooking and sharing with others is how we can all work with and learn from each other.  When we cook and evaluate the results, it is more gratifying to tell people about it.  

What is also wonderful is how you found a good beer to pair this with.  I'm sure others reading here will appreciate it!

I imagine Miss Pinedo smiling if she knew her recipes were being used again.

Sausage Rolls and Queen Victoria

 Wow.  I watched the entire three seasons of Masterpiece Theater's Victoria series.  I am excited for the fourth season!  I think the actors are wonderful and I am thoroughly caught up in the stories of their lives.  But, as what happened when I watched Downton Abbey, my attention got riveted on the kitchen scenes.

I was impressed with the actor, Ferdinand Kingsley, who played the chef Charles Elmé Francatelli.  Something they showed several times was him vigorously mixing things in bowls -- and the actor looked like he was really putting in the effort it took to make mayonnaise and other goodies.  

My favorite guest taster noticed my interest, did some research, and discovered that Mr. Francatelli (the real one!) had published some cookbooks.  He bought me A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes.  It was originally published in 1861.  

What I like about this book is that the man who wrote it was in charge of cooking for Queen Victoria and her royal household.  Later, he was a cook/chef/manager for a number of notable clubs in England, mixing with all sorts of upper class people, I'm sure.  He could have looked down upon the working class as not worthy of tasty food that is prepared well.  He could have thought his talents and experience were too high for the common folk.  But he wrote this book, for them.  He included tips and advice to the woman of the house, encouraging her to think broadly about what she can fix with inexpensive cuts of meat, or to treat her family, or to stretch what she can afford.  To me, he comes across as a kind man.

There are several recipes I want to try.  This one, Sausage Rolls, is quick and convenient because today I have bread dough.  Usually I make one big loaf with my sourdough starter but today I used half to make a loaf and the other half is reserved for this recipe.  It is recipe number 85 on page 44.

Sausage Rolls

Procure a quartern of dough from the baker's, knead this with four ounces of butter, dripping, or chopped suet; divide it into twelve equal parts, and use each piece of paste to enfold a beef sausage in it; place these rolls on a baking-tin, and bake them in the oven for about twenty minutes or half an hour.

My Redaction

1 pound and a little more sourdough bread dough

1 ounce and a little more butter (softened)

1/2 pound homemade sausage, blend #3  (click here to learn what this is)

My Notes

A quartern of dough was about four pounds by weight.  My dough was a little over 1 pound, so I kneaded it with a little over 1 ounce of butter.  This made the dough very slippery and buttery. 

I didn't have beef sausages but, being a resourceful working-class cook, I made do with some of my homemade sausage.  I cut the meat into four equal pieces and patted them into beef sausage shapes.  

I cut the dough into four equal pieces, flattened them out as best I could, and embedded a piece of sausage in each one.  This was challenging because buttery dough does not really want to stick to itself.  I persevered and encased the sausage completely, although I don't think the rolls were really very attractive to view.

They baked in a preheated oven at 375 degrees F. for 30 minutes, which made them lightly brown and smell really good.  

The Verdict

I let them cool to be comfortable to handle, and served them with a good, coarse mustard.  My guest taster and I weren't hungry enough for a full meal, so we just had one roll each and some pinot noir on the side.

I worried that the bread-to-sausage ratio would be too big, that we would feel like we were eating chunks of bread that might have some sausage in it somewhere, but that wasn't the case.  There was a lot of bread but it wasn't dominating over the sausage except near the ends, which is usually what happens when you have a bread-encased whatever.  

The butter proved to be a good addition.  The bread was flaky, not doughy or dense, which my guest taster commented on favorably.  I was pleased with the result.  A few places were a little undercooked but not in any way that put me off.

The flavor was what you might expect:  tasty bread with tasty sausage.  The mustard was a good addition, as long as it was put on lightly, or you couldn't really taste the meat.  The bread and meat combination was a good one, but that is not surprising.  I enjoyed it and so did my guest taster.

It might have been better to cook them at 400 degrees F instead.  The bread soaked up the fat from the sausage, especially on the dough between the meat and the metal tray.  It was moist but not raw or sticky.  I think a higher temperature might have browned the surface better, and cooked the dough more to the middle, but I do have to point out that the sausage was cooked all the way through.

I suspect that I should have kneaded the dough longer to mix the butter in.  I'm not sure why I think that but it seems like it might have given the dough more time to absorb it before shaping and baking.

Success!  I would do this again for a simple dinner or fun food for a gathering.  We had the two other sausages for breakfast the next morning, which was tasty and fun.  I might try it again (the next time I make bread!) with actual sausages, and attempt to make the bread casing thinner.

And, just for kicks and bragging rights, here is my loaf of sourdough bread:

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Sausages, part 3

I'm in the midst of making sausage from a chunk of pork cushion meat, using the ingredients I have around the house.  This is part three; to see yesterday's post:  Click here.


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.  : )

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Sausages, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the beginning of my sausage-making challenge.  I had 15 pounds of pork cushion meat and a variety of items in my kitchen and garden to help make amazingly-flavored sausages (I hoped!).  See yesterday's post here.

Today I want to tell you about the flavor combinations I tried.  These were combinations that I wanted to do by thinking about what I like and playing from there.

The First Blend

3 lb (1359 g) pork chunks
34 g salt
15 g dried apple
2 g total mace and black pepper, roughly 1 g each
about 65 ml liquamen mixed with 65 ml water

Following the directions from Sausage Making for Beginners, I weighed the salt and "other" ingredients, mixed them in with the pork, then set up my grinding station.

Meat and flavoring, but no liquid, tossed and waiting for the grinder

I have a metal grinding attachment for my mixer, so that was assembled and put into the freezer to chill.  The beginner's website said to use the fine plate but the mixer's instructions said to use the medium plate for sausage, so that is what I used.  I set up an ice water bath for the metal mixer bowl which will catch the ground meat.

The fit was very good!

As directed, everything was clean and cold.

It didn't take long to grind the three pounds of pork.





I took a little of the ground meat and cooked it to see what it tasted like before I added the liquid.  It was fine; I liked the flavor, which was a blend of the ingredients and none actually stood out.



Then I added the liquamen and water to it and mixed it with a wooden spoon until meat looked like the bulk sausage I have bought in the store.  I figured that was the best representation of what the paste should look like.  Really, it was just the ground meat but stickier.  I made another patty and was a little worried that it was too salty.  But I was willing to wait until the next day so the flavors could blend.

Then I packed the sausage into a plastic tub and put it into the refrigerator while I planned the next mixture.

The Second Blend

I had read so much about the wonderfulness of garlic in a pork sausage that I decided to try it in this blend.

3 pounds (1359 g) pork chunks
34 g salt
8 g of chopped garlic in oil
12 g fresh parsley
130 ml water

Garlic, salt, and parsley ready to be ground

I went through the same process:  grind the mix, add the water, stir to get a paste.

I cooked a small patty and thought the flavor was the right blend of garlic.  Not sure I got much of the parsley but it wasn't bland.

Then into the refrigerator while I set up the third blend.

The Third Blend

I had just a little over 2 1/4 lbs of pork chunks left.  I decided I would change the flavor ratios more, to make the flavors stronger.  I also wanted to use up the rest of the dried apple.

2 lb 5 oz pork
11 g chives
9 g dried apple
2 g mace
2 g black pepper
125 ml liquamen

Notice that I didn't add any salt to this one.  Since I decided to use all liquamen for the liquid, I hoped that would be enough salt.  I was still worried about the first blend being too salty.

Apple and oniony chives.  Yum!

When I tried a small patty of the paste, I thought the salt level was just right.  I also got the idea that I had put in too much pepper -- it had a bit of a burn to it!  But again, I thought it was a good idea to wait for the flavors to blend.

Tune in tomorrow for part 3 of the sausage-making extravaganza!

The "Making Do" Challenge -- Sausages, part 1

So the world came to a halt while we all hunkered down to wait for the COVID-19 virus to run its course.  As so many other people did, I purchased food to have enough to feed me and mine without having to go to the store very often.  I did not hoard and I never took the last of anything; it is important to me to share with others.

It occurred to me that I am fortunate enough to be able to afford the more expensive food items, like big chunks of meat, higher price-per-pound meat, fancy cheeses, etc.  Then I realized I should buy those foods and leave the inexpensive items for people with lower incomes.  So I came home with a 15 pound bag of pork cushion meat and an idea to learn how to make sausage.

My reading around the internet reminded me that our word "botulism" comes from the Latin word for sausage, emphasizing the need to be careful and clean in the making process.  I needed to learn the right way to do it; to this end, I found this website:  "Sausage Making for Beginners."

I appreciate the step-by-step instructions and discussion the author offers.  I like that he gives some recipes to help me see what to do.  And I am grateful for his emphasis on cleanliness.  The process looked doable, so I set about doing it.

I was inspired by this line:

You will be crafting high quality edible art.

In the area where he gives recipes, he gives these ratios:

• 1 part meat and fat
• 2.5% salt
• 1% other stuff
• Up to 10% liquid

The "other stuff" will define your sausage.  These are things like black pepper, paprika, garlic, sage, onion and chili powder.

The liquid portion can be anything wet (water, wine, stock, milk) and serves four purposes.  (1) It adds moisture to the meat resulting in a juicier sausage.  (2)  It lubricates the meat making stuffing much easier.  (3)  It adds flavor to the sausage if you choose to use wine or stock.  (4) It helps disperse the other seasonings throughout the rest of the sausage.  Make sure any liquid is ice cold before adding to the meat.

In a situation where I need to use what is in my house and not go shopping for specific ingredients, I felt like I was in control of the flavoring.  Between the spices in my pantry and the herbs in my garden, I believed I could make a variety of tasty sausages.

My goal, given the entire 15 pounds of pork to work with, was to make that variety and then freeze them for future use.  I decided that I would take several days to do the entire process.

I love the flavor combination of pork and apple, especially with nutmeg or mace involved.  I asked some experienced charcuterie makers what they thought about using fresh, grated apple and the general opinion was "meh."  Not really worth the effort and it added a lot of moisture.  But, they mentioned, they have had good results with dried fruits, so I decided to make dried apple bits to put into the sausage.

I took a clean apple, cut it into quarters, cored it, then sliced it thinly on my hand-shredder/slicer.  The pieces went onto a sheet and into my oven, set on warm.

Ready to dry

After drying like this overnight, I had crispy apple slices that I broke up into pieces (not intentionally but most had stuck to the pan), and planned on using them in at least one sausage mixture.

Dry and flavorful

I also got out the pork and started cutting it into the suggested 1 to 2 inch size chunks.  It was very cold, as it should be, but after getting through about half of the package, my meat-holding hand was going numb.  I stopped there and put the meat back into the refrigerator to chill overnight (the same night the apples were drying).

First cut the slabs.  Leave the fat, remove the slime (of which there was very little)

About 8 pounds of pork chunks.

Whew!  It helps to have a very sharp knife.

Tune back in tomorrow to see how I flavored the meat and did the grinding.

Making an Egg Sausage (part 1) -- Another Transylvanian cookbook recipe

It is time to pick a recipe from the Transylvanian Prince's Cookbook!

This is the digital translation of a book in Hungarian that I have tried recipes from before.  Here is the book reference:

The Prince of Transylvania’s court cookbook 

From the 16th century 

THE SCIENCE OF COOKING

You can find a copy of it here:
 http://www.fibergeek.com/leathernotebook/files/2018/05/Transylvanian-Cookbook-v3.pdf

The recipes I have tried are here:  Prince of Transylvania's court cookbook

Today I picked recipe number 44, found on page 11.


Cow intestines stuffed with sweet milk. 

Wash the intestines so that they will not smell; you will need sweet milk, eggs, saffron, black pepper, but mostly eggs. Mix these together, this is the stuffing. Add some parsley leaves to the milk, tie the two ends of the intestines so that the stuffing won’t leak. Poach it in hot water so that the milk will get dry like a liver. If you’re cooking it, cook it in another pot of clean water, once cooked, pass the water through a strainer, pass some sweet milk through a strainer on top of it, put some parsley leaves on it and cook it like that. Add some saffron half an hour before serving it, add some black pepper and salt.

My Redaction

The idea is that this is a sausage that is filled with an egg/milk mixture.  When I first read it I thought the filling should be like a stiff custard.  To make a custard, you use roughly 2 parts milk to 1 part egg, however the instructions say "mostly eggs", which made me think (as the translators noted) this should be more like scrambled eggs.  I struggled with this and so compromised by using roughly equal parts milk to egg.

This is my first time ever working with sausage casings (pig intestines, not cow) so I was a little nervous.  I asked my online friends who make salumi and used their experienced advice on how to poach it without overcooking it.

12 eggs (2 1/2 cups), well-beaten
3 cups milk
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely minced
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
saffron, ground in the mortar (see close up picture for quantity)

1 four foot and 1 two foot sausage casings (32 mm diameter), soaked and rinsed

This much saffron.

The sausage casings had to soak for nearly an hour, so while that was going on I put water in my big Dutch oven and put it over high heat with the cover on.  When it got to a boil, I turned the heat to low.

The four foot casing

The beaten eggs, milk, parsley, pepper, and saffron all went into a pitcher.  I saw that this liquid stuffing would be best poured into the casing and the pitcher made it easy to control the flow.  I noticed that the parsley and pepper floated to the top, so I kept a spoon handy and stirred it well just before each pouring.



Once the casings were ready, I slid them over the end of a funnel and tied a knot in the end.  I decided I would work over a bowl, just in case I lost my grip on the casings or there was a leak or other disaster.  It was really pretty easy to pour the egg mixture into the casing and allow the casing to slide off into the bowl.

The entire four foot casing fit over the tip!

The parsley and pepper floated to the top anyway.

When the first casing was full (the four foot one) and tied off, I realized I had about 1 1/2 cups of filling left, so I soaked the second casing.

I think it is pretty!

At this point I was ready to poach the sausage.  I brought the water back up to a boil, turned off the heat, put the sausage in, then put the lid on and set the timer for 20 minutes. At the halfway point, I turned the sausage over.

When the time was up, the sausage was firmer and lighter yellow in color.  I moved it into a bowl of ice water, as my salumi friends said it was best to poach it gently (as I did) and then shock it in the cold water.  I added more ice as needed to keep the water very cold and turned it over once.
It is obvious in these pictures that the parsley and some of the pepper floated to the top and the rest of the pepper sank to the bottom along the length of the sausage.

The "up" side

The "down" side

It took about 20 minutes until the sausage was cool to the touch.  Then I drained it and put it on a towel on a plate.  I put it into the refrigerator, uncovered, to dry and continue to cool overnight.



The second sausage was prepared just like the first, except it only took about 10 minutes in the ice water to get it cool to the touch.  I noticed that a lot of the pepper had sunk to the bottom of the pitcher, despite my attempts to keep it afloat with stirring.  It was hard to get it to go into the sausage casing.

Pre-poaching sausage number two.

This is the end of making the egg sausages.  Tune in tomorrow for part two, eating the sausages!