How sausages are made 

With this post I will explain how to make sausage at home. Eating healthy without sacrificing taste is possible! Yes, you heard me right. Making sausage is very simple, takes little time and gives excellent results. All you need is a good meat grinder. If you want to store your sausage in casings, check that it is equipped with bagging accessories (usually included in them). 

Thanks to this machine, in fact, you can choose the meat you like best, add the spices and aromas you want and get a product that is always fresh and healthy, without the addition of preservatives or additives, as generally happens in industrial products. Modern machines also have mechanisms that prevent meat from oxidizing by overheating. It is not necessary, therefore, the trick that is often advised to put everything in the freezer before starting work. If you plan to make large quantities or maybe you work in pairs and want to speed up the process, you can also buy the bagging machine separately. They are all very valid tools that also have the advantage, being manual, of being able to be easily controlled by adjusting the speed at will.

To make delicious sausage you need first of all two fundamental ingredients: enthusiasm and imagination. Indulge yourself as you want, try different types of meat, mix different types of spices, add ingredients to taste, in short, experiment. Hardly the result will be unsatisfactory: the sausage is always good!

The basis you need to keep in mind consists of:

2/3 lean meat;

 1/3 fatty meat, which will consist of bacon, or pork lard. The lean part instead varies according to the type of sausage you want to make:

Pork: use shoulder or thigh meat;

Chicken and turkey: boneless breasts and thighs are perfect;

Beef: you can use the lean parts of the thigh and the shoulder pulp, as long as they do not have too hard filaments that may not be ground properly; Wild boar: lean pulp is used; Sheep / goat: also in this case the boneless lean parts are used.

As you can see, you are spoiled for choice, just think of the great variety of cold cuts typical of each region, which differ precisely for the ingredients as well as for the different maturing techniques. You just have to try a different product every time. After choosing the right parts you need, for each kg of meat: 20/25 gr of fine salt: you need less if you want to consume fresh sausage, while you need slightly more if you intend to season it; 7 gr of ground black pepper. And then, as desired:

1 clove of garlic;

Thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary or fennel seeds

Nutmeg

Clove

Juniper berries

Sweet paprika 

Peppercorns

Other special ingredients:

A glass of wine (white or red): almost mandatory in beef and wild boar sausage, it goes very well with the others; Liver: each region has a particular type of salami produced with the addition of parts of meat. A small amount of liver makes the pork sausage really good;

Potatoes: typical "potato salami" of the Canavese valleys, in the province of Turin. It is a pork salami, to which boiled potatoes are added and which is eaten fresh; Beets: a particular Aosta Valley recipe involves the addition of red beets to the mix which, in addition to giving flavor, are an excellent natural preservative.

How to make sausage at home – procedure

Now let's see the process that will allow you to make the best sausage you've ever eaten! Cut the meat into coarse pieces (the right size to fit into the meat grinder). Spread everything on a work surface, mixing the lean parts with the greasy ones. Prepare a mixture of spices, adding salt, pepper and other spices to taste in a bowl. Spread the mixture on the meat, mixing well, so that the ingredients mix well with each other. At this point grind everything with the meat grinder, choosing the disc you prefer based on how much you want the dough to remain chopped more or less coarse. If you want a very fine chopped dough you can pass the meat twice, otherwise one is enough, it depends on personal tastes. You can also leave a part of bacon to grind separately, coarser. Now add any other ingredients, such as wine or pepper or juniper grains, that could not be passed in the meat grinder. Mix well with your hands, or in a planetary mixer, to obtain a homogeneous mixture. You got some delicious sausage pasta, congratulations! If you don't want to stuff it, you can also consume it like that. It is excellent for making sauces or as a filling for rolls, roasts or omelets.

How to make sausage at home – bagging

So why the bag? Because the meat in the casing blends the flavors better, acquiring taste. You can also put it to dry to have excellent seasoned sausage. So let's see how to make sausage at home like a real butcher. You must first get the casings. You can order them from your butcher or go to shops that sell butcher items. You can also buy them online of course. In principle, for each kilo of sausage calculate one meter of gut. Whether you choose the natural (edible) lamb or pork ones, or the artificial (inedible) ones, you can store them for a long time, keeping them in a cool and dry place. Take the amount of casing you need, soak it in a basin with warm water and a glass of wine. Pass the water inside, washing it well. At this point mount the hose to bag on the meat grinder (or take the appropriate machine) and insert the casing on the tube along its entire length. Leave the final part about ten centimeters long and make a knot at the end. Start letting the meat into the gut, being careful that no air remains inside it. With a needle pierce the surface at regular intervals to let out any air bubbles. You will thus obtain a long sausage ready to store. 

To create salami, excellent to mature, choke the casing at the point where you want to interrupt, turning it on itself and tie with roast string. These can be put to season, hung in long rows, in a cool room. We advise you not to do it in summer, too much heat would easily ruin them. Once you have reached the desired degree of seasoning, you can vacuum store them or freeze them.

I am sure that this guide has been useful to you and that you are ready to enjoy your delicious homemade sausage. For any doubt or clarification do not hesitate to contact me. I will be happy to give you a hand in the realization of your delicious recipes.