My Older Sausage making Experience

I found the photos of the first sausage I ever made, in January 2008, using venison, pork and pork fat, stuffed in collagen casings. I thought I'd post the photos just for kicks. Actually, I'm posting this because the difference between what I did in 2008 and what I'm doing now reminds me a little of comparing slice and bake cookies to made from scratch cookies.

My family ended up removing the casings of most of this batch and making patties when we cooked them; none of us liked the tougher collagen casings when we cooked the sausage in the casings.

First, I ground all the meat and fats separately (not shown), mixed them together by hand, and re-ground as shown above.

Next, I added the spices and put the whole shebang in the mixer to get even distribution; this mixing is also important to get the sausage to bind together in the casings.

I threaded the collagen casings over the large stuffing nozzle... and stuffed my sausage mix into the casings. Piece of cake.

Voila! Sausage Links!

The recipe I used was from Field and Stream. I did not emulsify a third of the mix in a food processor as the chef does, simply because I didn't have a food processor. His notes say you can add more fat, which I will certainly do when using this recipe again; they were a little dry whether poached first or split open and fried as patties.

I used this same recipe (with more pork fat added) for the venison links I made here. Next time I'll add some fresh thyme or sage, and perhaps his suggestion of adding some chopped dried cranberries.