[Sca-cooks] sausage can be fun...

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

Ok, so I had said that I was going to make the sausage for my feast on the
21st, and was trying to find someone who had a kitchenaid with sausage
stuffing attachment. One of the pages in my local group volunteered that
her family had a sausage stuffer, would I like to use it. It wouldn't take
too long, she said. Of course, I said yes, with private reservations that
we could get 20 lbs of sausage stuffed between noon yesterday and the
start of the Superbowl, my experiences with Kitchenaid stuffers making me
suspicious.

But the sausage stuffer they had was a "sausage press", with a heavy
wrought iron canister and crank-down press part, nozzle on the side. The
inside volume of the canister was about that of an industrial coffee can
and about 5 lbs of stuffing fitted in fine.

Admittedly we cheated and did not twist the sausage into links, but even
with mixing 4 batches and intermittent stops for tasting, the entire
process took less than 2 hours, with the most time being expended on
threading the casings on the nozzles!

If you see one of these sausage presses at an auction (A's dad said he
paid $20 for his) do get it. Wow! What a difference from the agony of
Kitchenaid! I have had people say to me that it wasn't safe to make your
own sausage for a feast because the meat would be out too long. This
operation should calm their fears. :)

P.S. I think I overpeppered the last batch of sausage. This comes from not
having a scale accurate down to grams available at the time. However, we
all liked the sausage, it just wasn't as amazing as it was the first time
I had it.

-- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net
"Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you
break 'em." -- Terry Pratchett, _Thief of Time_