SC - making sausages

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Dottie Elliott wrote:
> 
> I have been learning to make various sausages (form period sources) and I
> need a little advice.  When I am stuffing them I twist the sausage skin
> several times between each link and it holds for awhile. Yet while
> cooking, some of the links untwist.  It still tastes fine but doesn't
> look as nice. I tried tieing each link with string until after it was
> cooked and that worked but it takes a lot of string and time. Is there a
> trick to twisting the links I don't know?

Twisting the casings more than maybe two complete twists places a great
deal of stress on the casing. I'm coming into this discussion a bit
late, but I wanted to respond to some responses you've already received.
My own experience has been that it's best to twist the links in
alternating opposite directions, and tie them with a continuous length
of string, roughly 1 1/2 times as long as your string of sausage. Have
you ever examined the way a butcher ties up a roast, using one piece of
string? It's a lot like that. Use one end to tie the end of your
casings, even if you've knotted the casings. (Don't fill them too full,
but be sure there are no air bubbles, which are easier and better to
expel before sealing the ends than to prick the thing full of holes.
Sausages don't really expand when cooking, and hot dogs don't "plump
when you cook 'em", either! What happens is simply that the casing
shrinks rapidly, which, if it's not stuffed too tightly, is rarely a
problem, but a tight casing, especially one full of expanding air, which
becomes a problem a lot sooner than steam does; who cooks sausages to
212 degrees inside?)

Run your string along the first link, wrap it around the first twist and
under itself and out again, then along the second link, and so on until
you've got all the links tied off. The great advantage of using this
method is with things like liver sausages and black puddings: they often
won't support their own weight without help, and it is a source of
unending despair to have your black puds bust open not because you broke
the casings while poaching them, but because you weren't careful enough
lifting them out of the pot. With the string properly tied, you can lift
that string of links out of the pot by the string without straining the
casings too much.

Yes, it uses a lot of string. No, it's not that time consuming once you
get your fingers accustomed to the task. If using a lot of string is a
problem, make sure you use cheap, thin cotton twine, which is what
butchers use anyway.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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