Homemade Sausage: Chorizo, Brats and Chipolata

Those of you who follow me on twitter (joamuse) have heard me mention my 12-year 13-year old foodie friend who I take along with me on field trips.  He started out as a student at Create a cook with some of the other instructors and they all kept telling me you have to meet him. After 1 conversation Alasdair and I became fast food friends.

Let me introduce you to him by saying one of his goals is to get his parents to take him to a 3 Michelin starred restaurant.  At home he has his own personal kitchen set-up in the corner with his Cuisinart standing mixer a portable induction burner and more tools than most home kitchens. He and I can discuss any cooking technique, and cookbook, chef, etc., at length. He's eaten in far more restaurants than I ever have, in fact he's my 'date' for a friend's birthday dinner at Craigie on Main for Whole Hog night next Tuesday. He dined at Stir recently and Barbara Lynch was the chef that night. He schmoozed her up and told her he wanted a pacojet and a thermal immersion circulator so he can start trying out sous vide cooking but that he was having a tough time convincing his parents, Chef Lynch not only came to his defense saying of course they should get it for him, she also told him he was welcome to come spend a day with her at no 9 Park. Jealous! The boy is food mad.

A few years ago we started out by making a traditional Christmas Pudding at his house.  We hit farmer's markets, we went to Baza when they opened to ogle all the unfamiliar ingredients, we went to Kam Man a few weeks ago where I introduced him to banh mi with head cheese and pate and we wandered up and down every aisle investigating while he helped me pick up ingredients for some upcoming Vietnamese, Korean and Thai classes. There were two things he wanted us to make, brawn or head cheese and sausages.  I figured we could start with the easier of the two since finding a pig's head may require a trip to Maine to visit Heritage Hill Farm in October (more about my visit there later!) so sausages were the first choice.  

Through Kinnealey I picked up some fat back, pork butt and hog casings and then a perusal through Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie to make the final decisions.

I chose Mexican chorizo, Bratwurst and the 3rd recipe would possible be Italian sausage, but in a nod to Alasdair being British, not to mention husband, we went with the chipolata from the book Alasdair brought me as a gift Professional Charcuterie by John Kinsela.  He chose the book because he loved that all the recipes were charts.  I need to get him a copy of Ratio stat!

I knew it was going to be around 85 - 90F in my kitchen and about an equal percentage of humidity so I bought loads of ice, chilled down all the equipment in the fridge, left the fat in the freezer until the last minute and cut all the meat partially frozen. 

Alasdair acted as official Spice mix master.

We ground the meat into the bowl over another bowl of ice to try and keep it nice and cold.

Even with all these precautions to keep everything ultra cold we still had to pause occasionally and let things rest in the fridge before resuming the next step we sat down at the table with 1 fan aimed at us and 1 fan aimed right at the poor Kitchen-aid to try and cool the poor thing down.  You could fry an egg on the motor housing. Since he has been reading Eric Ripert's new book On The Line we were discussing the various stations in the kitchen and he was telling me how long it takes to progress down the line at Le Bernadin, today of course we were working the Garde Manger station.  I told him about Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour and told him he really needs to look her up for a first hand account.

After it rested in the fridge and we gulped down more liquid, the meat and spices would go back under the mixer with the paddle attachment to add some liquid, in the case of chorizo it was ice cold tequila and red wine vinegar!

After we made all three sausage mixes, cooked off little patties of each to test for seasoning and chilled everything down it was time for the stuffing.  Alasdair referred to the hog casings I been soaking in water all morning as 'granny stockings'.

The first batch, the chorizo, took us over 30 minutes to stuff, by the time we got to the chipolata we were down to 10 minutes.  Sure, we overstuffed here and there, there were a few 'blow outs', but we just squished it back in the bowl and started again.

Alasdair took charge of the link twisting.

We started at 10:30 and finished the last of the sausages by 5:30.  We were both dripping and exhausted but it was a great day.   I sent home half with Alasdair and we kept half here to freeze later.  Even though the sausages were twisted when we cut them to cook them I tied each end off to prevent the sausage from oozing out the ends as it cooked.  Husband and I sautéed some onion and peppers from the farm stand we stopped by in Ipswich on Friday and grilled some of the Brats and I made some of the Cooks Illustrated recommended Yukon gold fries that you start in cold oil (novel, but it worked!) and all was well in the world.  I'm not going to give you the recipe here Charcuterie is well worth the investment. Stay tuned for head cheese. YIKES!

Comments

[Rob Sama]

Nice work! I've made both teh brat and Italian recipes from Ruhlman's books. Brats came out awesome. For the Italian, I crush my seeds before going in, as I've never had real Italian sausages with whole seeds in them.

Wondering how you found the Kitchen Aid stuffer? I find it irritating, and decided that next time it will be easier for me to just stuff by hand.

Also, wondering if you went direct to Kinnealey for your meats, or went through a place like Dewars?

[jo]

Rob;

1st; My egg lady is sadly up in Manchester, ME so the only time I can get those eggs is when I visit Mom. I wish I had a nice local source for farm eggs!

2nd; The kitchen aid mixer SUCKED as a stuffer. If I plan on doing this going forward, I am going to look at the cabela's catalog, they have boatloads of stuff for making sausages. I might get a hand stuffer. It took us more time to stuff than any other part of the process. I think hand stuffing will also lead to less 'blow out' issues.
I am very lucky, Kinnealey is my purveyor for meat at Create a cook so I could order directly from them. I am sure if you chatted with the guys at john Dewar they could get in whatever you need, but just remember there are minimums for ordering, luckily I have a chest freezer.
The Brats were amazing, but I think the big winner from the tasters all around was the chorizo. Try making it next time. I'd even make it and not bother stuffing it in casings. There are plenty of things I make where loose chorizo would work just fine.

[Erin]

Love this! I've never really had any desire to make my own sausage but it looks like so much fun -- albeit a lot of work. Can I borrow your kitchen helper?

[rob sama]

Thanks Jo! Yeah, I go to Dewar's, and I've tried making sausages with the stuffer like 3 times and frankly, I've had it with the Kitchenaid stuffer. Thanks for the pointer to Cabela's.

[Blue Witch]

The photo captioned 'emulsify' is amazing. Really captures the essence of everythign you've written about.

Sadly the food matter interests me not at all ;)

[margaret]

Thanks for sharing the process. We grilled some brats last night and they were de-lish, but I know your handmade ones must be divine. I'm quite a fan of real, true properly-made bratwurst because I married someone who introduced me to them. How delightful to see your young friend's enthusiasm for the project. I predict he'll earn his own Michelin stars someday, somewhere!

[Maggi]

Hey Jo,
You are one amazing chef. Love the pics of the MEAT! Thanks for the great shout-out!
I want some of that sausage!!!!
:)
Maggi

[Robbie Becklund]

Very cool. My 12 yr old son loves cooking but we haven't made sausage yet...

[Mike Langford]

My wife's uncle gave us a meat grinder/sausage maker attachment for our Kitchen Aid mixer as a wedding present. We've been married for 13 years and I have yet to take it out of the box. I think you just convinced me to bust it out and give it a whirl.

Nom Nom Nom!

[jo]

Oh Maggi my Kinnealey goddess. Thanks!

Mike;

I would use the Kitchen-Aid again for most parts of making the sausage, but I think if I were doing a big batch I would follow a friends advice and get a serious stuffer. That part is both difficult on a kitchen aid AND you risk overheating your meat and breaking your fat/meat emulsion.

[Jess Kehler]

see I wouldnt have thought the process of making sausages would be so complicated. Fantastic pictures though........ now Im hungry :(

[Sian]

I just stumbled across this post - it's great to see the Kitcheaid in action. I would like to have a go at making chorizo with my kitchenaid, but do I have to use the mincer bit? I would prefer to have the pork in chunks really if possible.

[jo]

Sian;

I think you would be find if you hand chopped your meat and used the KA just as a stuffer. I agree the die provided with the machine grinds the meat a bit finer than I would like it.

[Mike]

I think the Kitchen Aid is a great appliance and okay for making smaller batches of sausage, but I prefer a dedicated stuffer.

I started out with a manual grinder with a stuffing horn and that just about killed my arm. Tried using the grinder and said I'd never do that again. Lots of work, air pockets and almost emulsified meat.