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!