[Sca-cooks] sausage report

[Maggie MacDonald]

Hello! Here's a report on the progress of that feast I'm doing around sausages.

This has been a learning experience.

I had to do a small amount of all beef sausages for those that had
restrictions on eating pork. Lesson one: beef sausage made from chuck that
has no fat tastes _nasty_.  Luckily i have some super cheap hamburger in
the freezer (part of a super pack bought in desperation), so I'm going to
remake those.  Lesson two: collagen sausage casings act really nicely after
they've been parboiled.

On to the bratwurst.  The Sabine Welserin recipe tastes great. Lesson
three: when transferring salt/pepper quantities from another recipe, do NOT
start off with 3/4 of S&P quantities.  The bratwurst was just a touch too
salty, but it mellowed out nicely once it was parboiled in beer.

On to the Andouille. I started off with even less salt with this one than I
had put in the bratwurst, and this one tasted even saltier. but, it evened
out. Lesson four: UNDERFILL natural hog casings. Those nasty suckers will
explode on you if you try to retwist the casings later. (my first run
through we had very erratic sizing, so I was trying to even them out).

Lesson five: Someone will have to give me the solution to this one later.
When I went to parboil both the bratwurst and the andouille, they
untwisted.  I now have whole sausages that are as long as 20 inches.

I'm off now to go find a decent beef sausage recipe, the one that I had
faked was just flat out nasty.  And I'm hoping that the 30% fat hamburger
will have enough 'oomph' to hold together.

Regards,
Maggie MacD.