How to make homemade Italian sweet sausage?
Homemade sausage is a the best way because you know exactly what is inside, and making sausage at home really is not so difficult as it sounds.
What sort of meat should you use in the sausage? Usually pork, but beef and lamb are also good and you also need a proper amount of fat, at least 20 percent. Now let’s walk through how to make typical Italian sweet sausage at home.
Preparation before you start:
Before you start, you do need to prepare some equipment, which will make you easier to handle the sausage.
* First, you need an electric meat grinder with the sausage stuffer.
* A scale is also needed as you need to weight and measure the ingredient in order to get a good favor.
* Then you need the casings. Casings can be purchased online or at your local butcher. Leftover salted casings can be resealed in their bag and stored in the refrigerator for many years.
Tips: It is absolutely key to have your meat very cold and grinder parts chilled. Before start, make sure the meat and the fat is extremely cold by putting it in the freezer for an hour or two. The process will be way easier if you take this advise, otherwise it can be back up in the meat grinder and leave you frustrated.
How to Make Homemade Sausage
INGREDIENTS
4 pounds pork shoulder
1 pound pork fat
40 grams kosher salt
35 grams sugar
20 grams toasted fennel seeds
6 grams cracked black pepper
4 grams ground nutmeg
1 cup minced fresh parsley
1 head garlic, peeled and minced
¾ cup white wine
¼ cup white wine vinegar
4-5 feet sausage casings
Cooking Method:
1. Freeze the ingredients: Place meats on a baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and freeze for 2 hours. The ingredients should be very firm but not into frozen solid parts. You also need to put the bowls, grinder parts in freezer for at least 30 min before you use.
2. Rinse casing in warm water: Rinse casing well to remove salt and run warm water all the way through the casing. Let casing soak in warm water for at least 1 hour or until soft and slick. Keep casings in water until ready to use.
3. Cut the meat into chunks: Trim the meat into 1 inch cubes and put them into a bowl and set it into a larger bowl filled with ice.
4. Mix the ingredients: Mix the meat and the other ingredients quickly in a bowl and put them into freezer to chill for at least 30 minutes but no more than one hour.
5.Set up your meat grinder with coarse grinding plate: Take out your grinder parts from the freezer and set it up. Use the coarse die for Italian sausage for the first time and medium for the second time to grind.
6. Grind the mixtures: Put the meat mixture through the grinder, you can put the meat in the hopper plate and use the pusher to gently push the meat into the cutter housing. While grinding, put a bowl under the head to catch the meat and make sure the bowl is set into a larger bowl filled with ice.
Tip: To test your meat for seasoning, form a small patty and saute it on a skillet to sample.
7. Run warm water through casings and set up sausage stuffer: Take out your sausage stuffer, which should have been in the freezer and put it into the meat grinder machine. Run warm water through your sausage casings. This makes them easier to put on the stuffer tube and lets you know if there are any holes in the casings.
8. Thread a casing onto the sausage stuffer tube: Lightly oil the outside of your sausage tube attachment and thread 1 sausage casing over the tube leaving a 6" tail hanging off the end. Do not tie the end as the initial air comes through to escape.
9.Put meat onto the hopper and start to make the sausage: Take the meat from the freezer one last time and put them into the hopper, pushing down with the plunger and adding more as you go.
10. Let the sausage come out in one long coil, then tie-off: When the meat starts to come out, use one hand to stuff the meat through and one hand to guide the filled casings. Fill firmly but do not overstuff, especially if making sausage links. Take care not to let big gaps of air into the tube. Remember to leave 6 inches of casing at the other end of the casing then start with the new sausage casing.
11. Pinch twist and spin the links: Pinch, twist and spin to make small sausage links. Tie off the ends or tie with kitchen string if desired.
12. Hang the sausages and dry: After that, hang your sausages on the rack so they don’t touch (too much), and find yourself a needle. Prick them with the needle, and in most cases the casing will flatten itself against the link. Then dry them for an hour
13. Chill the sausage: After dry, put them in a large container in the fridge overnight, take out some and eat them the next day. For those which is not eaten right now, put them into your food saver bags and freeze it.
