[Sca-cooks] Sausages

[Michael Gunter]

> This past Saturday I took my first sausage 
> attempt to Caid Fall Crown Tourney for a public 
> sampling. My curious mind wondered how different 
> is chopping the meat with a knife than using a 
> food processor or a meat grinder. So I made 
> three batches of the same kind of the sausage, 
> each with different cutting method.
> 
> The full write up is here: http://aeddie.livejournal.com/371727.html
> 
> AEduin >>>

Very nice. I learned a lot when learning how to do sausage, mainly by trial and
error. Lots of error.
But at Kingdom A&S I entered zervelat as part of my "Mercenary Captain's Dinner"
display and I provided sausages both ground by machine and minced by hand.
I did like the texture of the hand minced forcemeat better but the difference is
not so great that I'd forgoe the grinder for large batches. The meat was not only
minced by hand but was also stuffed using a sausage funnel. The period instructions
were to "pour" the meat into the casing and I figured this was just an expression.
But I found out that it really helped to have the funnel about two feet above the
work surface with the casing hanging down. I did pretty much "pour" the meat
down the casing an ease it to the ends. It made the work much easier.
 
My favorite comment was from the two young men who told me that "definately
the handmade sausage was a lot better than the store-bought". Um...no, they
were both homemade, one was just made by machine.
 
It was surprising how quickly the meat went from large chunks to manageable
forcemeat. I didn't use the double cleaver method that is popular with many
cooks who create mince but using a large chef's knife and the rocking method
produced very good results.
 
Gunthar