Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Homemade sausage 


January, pork time 😋😘

The art of charcuterie was born in ancient times, since the very name "salami" means meat placed in salt. It was not just about pork, but it was a practice that could be applied to all types of meat, even fish. The history of salami, however, is affirmed between 1200 and 1300 in the foggy lands of the Po Valley. Salami has always been a form of energy preservation for the winter as it was a way to contain all the flavor of meat and spices, with a percentage of lard that guaranteed its creaminess and seasoning. The best salami were those that for shape and size could best allow to reach the maturation until the end of the year and beyond. They were the ones where the amalgam of meat, fat and spices was more balanced and balanced. A delight sometimes unattainable. January is therefore, by definition, the real time of salami! This is well known by the artisan butchers who still today for St. Anthony (Antonio) enhance and make "feast of the pig" as they say a bit throughout Italy.

The Homemade Sausage is a preparation overall simple to make as long as you have some essential elements: fresh, lean and fat pork, of excellent quality, iodized salt, freshly ground pepper, sausage making machine equipped with meat grinder, sausage bagging machine. Many wonder how to make homemade sausage, thinking of an elaborate and complex preparation. The sausage is prepared by chopping the lean and fatty pork meat with the meat grinder, flavoring them with spices, softening them with wine and, then, stuffing them into a natural casing.

INGREDIENTS FOR ABOUT 1.5 KG OF SAUSAGE

1 kg of lean pork 
500 g of fatty pork  
75 ml of dry white wine
30 g of fine salt 
7 g of freshly ground black pepper

For execution: a meat grinder with a disc with holes of medium or large size according to your preferences (or use a sausage machine), a sausage filler, sausage gut to taste, white kitchen twine. To wash the pork casing: abundant salt and white wine vinegar to taste. Generally pork gut is sold already cleaned. It is, however, a good habit to soak it for 30 minutes in cold water, added with a lot of salt and vinegar. Subsequently, rinse the casing well, running the running water also inside it in order to eliminate any trace of salt. Finally, rinse it in vinegar.

Cool the meat in the refrigerator for an hour. If you use a meat grinder, put it to cool in the freezer for an hour before using it. Otherwise, the pork would heat up excessively and spoil losing flavor. Cut the lean and fat pork into cubes of about 1 cm per side. Choose whether to use the medium or large disc, mount it in the now cold meat grinder and chop the meat, passing it only once. Collect the minced meat in a large container and season it with salt and pepper. Then, massage and mix the meat with your hands for about 4-5 minutes, so as to distribute the salt and pepper evenly. At this point, add the wine and work the minced meat for a few more minutes. It is optional to chop the meat again, in order to obtain a more homogeneous dough. Cover the container with plastic wrap and put the ground to cool in the refrigerator for at least an hour. If possible, leave it in the refrigerator for a whole night, so as to mix all the flavors.

Insert the appropriate accessory into the sausage bagging machine. The size of the nozzle will depend on personal preference. The diameter will be not very large if you prefer a long and thin sausage, or wider if you prefer larger drums. Before inserting the casing into the torch, one of its ends must be tied with kitchen twine. Then insert the other end of the casing on the funnel barrel, collecting it. At this point, introduce the minced meat into the container jar of the sausage machine and operate the sausage bagging machine manually or electrically, depending on the characteristics of your sausage machine. Stop as soon as the minced meat reaches the outer edge of the nozzle. Push, then, the minced meat inside the gut. During this operation, support the casing with your free hand in order to facilitate the bagging and help this procedure with a slight pressure of the hand. Also, be careful not to leave gaps, in which air bubbles may form. Once the whole casing is filled with meat, remove it and tie the final end. Prick the casing along its entire length with a large needle, so that during cooking the residual air can escape from the sausage knots.

The length of the sausage is due to a personal choice and the type of casing (fine or large) used to bag. Generally the narrow and long sausage is divided into pieces of about 15 cm, rotating the casing on itself and alternating the direction of rotation in the next piece.
This type is called "ribbon sausage". If, on the other hand, a larger casing has been used (for example the 22 mm caliber), normally the sausage is tied with string forming drums every 8-10 cm. This type is called "knotted sausage". Freshly stuffed homemade sausages can be eaten immediately (after a rest time in the refrigerator of a few hours). The sausage can also be stored in the refrigerator for a time not exceeding 3 days. Finally, it can be stored in the freezer for a maximum of 2 months. Finally, it is possible to season the sausage, after covering it with a mosquito net, starting from a minimum time of 15 days, If dried in the shade on a perch placed in a balcony or in a well-ventilated room, exposed to cold winter temperatures for prolonged times (30-40 days), it can be consumed as a salami. Once dried, the sausage is placed by many in a large earthenware container and covered with pork lard, so that it can be preserved for a long time.

NOTE
Sausage is one of the most popular pork sausages in the world.
As far as Italy is concerned, there is no region that does not have its own sausage. To name just a few, just think of the Sicilian sausage, the Calabrian, the Lucanian, the Neapolitan, the Tuscan, the Lombard, etc. An indispensable element to prepare the sausage made in (in addition to pork) is the gut. Preferably, it must be natural pork (called "guts"). There are also organic synthetic casings of animal origin, but natural ones are always the best. The latter are purchased in butchers shops, after asking your trusted butcher the necessary footage based on the weight of the meat.

VARIANTS
The dough we suggested is the basic one. It can be further flavored with spices and various seasonings. In Messina, for example, the "simple" sausage is sold, flavored with salt, pepper and a tablespoon of dried wild fennel seeds. Alternatively, you can buy the sausage "seasoned" with diced semi-seasoned provolone, cubes of cherry tomatoes, basil or parsley or dried fennel seeds, salt, pepper and chili.
As you can well understand about the seasoned sausage there is a wide freedom of choice, since you can add garlic powder, ground cloves, grated nutmeg, paprika, etc.). Among the variants is also to be counted a particular way of cutting pork "with a knife tip", that is, in very small cubes. Once flavored, it is inserted directly into the casing without chopping it.

OLD-FASHIONED SAUSAGE
In the absence of a machine for bagging homemade sausage, a funnel was used in ancient times. The minced pork was inserted in the part in the shape of an inverted cone ending in a wide tube (or torch) on which the gut had already been introduced. The minced and flavored meat was then pushed with the end of a wooden spoon (or with the finger) until it slowly filled the whole casing.


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