My friend said it would be easy to make sausages. Um, well, um, it turns out that easy is a relative term.
But what the heck, why not give it a shot.
He lent us his sausage maker and gave us some spices, which we mixed up with some already ground lamb we had in the freezer. We soaked the lamb casings in water, and rinsed them really well.
Next came the hard part, putting them on the stuffer tube. The stuffer tube is just slightly larger than the casing, and the casings don't stretch much at all. So with much struggle we managed to get the casings on the tube - minus a few rips here and there. But hey, it's my first time.
While one person was struggling with the lamb casings, another mixed the meat and spices together. Today was lamb and Mediterranean style spice mix.
Because I don't have a grinder yet, I'm working with pre-ground lamb.
As you can see, we made sausage:
Well, um sort of.
Lots of little breaks in the casings, stuffed it too full for the twisty thing to work. But we put it in the fridge and fried it up for dinner the next day.
All in all, I'm up for trying sausage making again. It's um... an interesting experience.
What I didn't like most was putting the casing onto the stuffer tube (going to try hog casings next time). That and the sausages were actually too meaty. Never had this problem before, but I think I have a solution for this. Maybe try adding 20% bread (by weight) crumbs next time.
The things I liked best was how fresh it tastes and that I didn't need to worry about the ingredients and my allergies.
I can most definitely see a meat grinder (or two) in my future.
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