Boom Bang a Bang Banger
Posted on December 15, 2005, by Conor O'Neill, under Cooking, Family, Food.
Sadly, attempt #2 at sausage making was not a big success. Not quite Null Points but definitely at the Norwegian end of the Eurovision chipolta contest.
I actually did it a few weeks ago for the parents coming over for brunch but I’m only getting around to blogging it now.
I defrosted the meat that I had not used the last time and spent a hell of a long time on preparation. In anticipation of the Kenwood making me cry like a small girl, I diced up all the meat ultra fine (along with the top of my thumb).
Pretty much the same mix as the last time with more pepper and more herbs. This time I decided to go for the smaller chipolata-style sheep casing. I ran the mix through the Kenwood mincer attachment twice on the roughest setting but the bastarding thing still jammed once. I am nearly ready to bin that P.O.S. It also didn’t fill the casing as well as the last time either.
To just make it perfect, I could not find my nice cotton string and ended up unravelling a piece of orange washing line and using that to string them up. I’m sure all the best deli’s will be switching over to day-glo polypropylene as soon as they read this.
As my lovely wife and kids were in the house, the shower was out of the question as a curing area. So I hung them in the shed, in the full expectation that some rat would run off with them during the night.
Luckily they were unmolested the following morning and I set them over a very gentle heat to cook up for a late brunch. Several of them burst but I wasn’t that bothered as I find that most of Martin Carey’s competition winning sossies do the same.
And they were fine but nothing to write a blog about 
I thought they were too dry, which my Da agreed with. I think I need to crank up the fat content in a big way and get proper pork shoulder instead of generic diced pork to go with the pork belly. Maybe less breadcrumbs too. But the spicing was better than the last time and I liked the white pepper kick off them.
I’m not giving up yet but I really need advice on what the problem with the Kenwood mincer attachment is. Do I have a bad un or am I missing something obvious.
I just received a fabulous book called “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing“. If you have any interest in sausages, smoked foods, salamis, dried ham or any preserved meats, buy this book. It is a masterpiece. Hell, even if you never intend trying to make anything, it is just a great read. I’ll do a full review soon but what kills me about the book is that they made 90% of the things in it using a standard mincer attachment on a KitchenAid. Are they really that much better than a Kenwood?
I’ve just been checking the flickr pictures and it looks like I took none of the completed sausages. Grrrr.
[tags]sausages, charcuterie, kenwood, kitchenaid, eurovision, lulu[/tags]
4 Replies to "Boom Bang a Bang Banger"
conor on December 21, 2005
Thanks for all the tips. My late-2006 (current ETA) Chorizo should be fantastic 
I finally read the introduction to sausage-making in “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing” and they mention all of my problems as being very common. They also advise to have everything very cold so I’ll be trying that in the new year.
Noel on January 7, 2008
Can someone give me the ingredients for irish sausages??
conor on January 8, 2008
Good question. I don’t think I’ve seen any specifically Irish recipes. Most of the UK “normal” ones I’ve seen and used are very close to what we get in supermarkets here. Irish ones tend to have a lot of pepper tho.
Podchef on December 15, 2005
Don’t believe them–the Kitchen Aide is a woosey piece of crap. The Kenwood has twice the bollocks.
That being said. . .any small mincing machine has alot of problems trying to rend flesh of any sort. They don’t have the umph or the volume in the chute to really grind anything up–what happens is friction takes over and things gum up a bit.
A few things you might do for maximum sucess. Do you have a magimix? That’ll blitz the meat up into a paste before trying to grind it. . . .Second, and this stands for the magimix too–when making mince–have everything bloody cold. Put the blade, mincer, tube attachment, meat–what ever makes sense in the fridge to chill for a few hours, or the freezer for a shorter time. This will not only keep the bugs from attacking but some how seems to help. Also grind some fat first to lube everything up then put it all back through.
I’ve not made sausages, but I regularly mince up meats for whatever with a little, borrowed, countertop mincer. It is probably about the same as the Kenwood attachment. I yearn for an industrial mincer and have almost bought one many times. Develop your own Bandon Corker Chroizo and you’ll be able to get one in no time. By the by–if you don’t already own them–all of Hugh’s River Cottage videos are on bit torrent. . . .