Sausage Making

In this case, literally!

I’ve been eating a lot of breakfast sausage of late because of a diet change, and I finally decided to give it a go making my own. Having only a basic idea of how to go about it (slice up some pork, season it then send it through a grinder), I googled it and up turned an Alton Brown recipe. I’ve found that, by and large, an Alton Brown recipe is a good place to start when venturing into uncharted cooking waters.

The only modification I made to the recipe was the amounts and I didn’t use any salt because the fatback was coated in it. I basically scaled everything up by a factor of 4 because I had a, roughly, 9 pound butt to slice up. Alright, enough with the snickering…

I went with one-and-a-half pounds of fatback. I’m not sure if what I got was salt pork, or fatback. It was labeled fatback, but was heavily coated in salt and seemed like it was alternately called salt pork. Perhaps I got something that was like bride-of-salt-pork-and-fatback.

Anyway, it was a long process turning all that meat and fat into sausage. I’d say I had about 3 hours worth of work into it. The three sticking points were cutting up the pork butt, sending the mixture through the grinder, and finally turning it all into patties. A lot of work making sausage. The patty making had me wondering about where I could get me some intestine. I suppose a sock might work as well. Or stockings…

Anyway, I’m happy to report that it’s a good recipe. I cooked up a patty and scarfed it down with gusto. The boy got to sample a bite as well and even he enjoyed it. The Wife will be the real test though- she not much of a sausage fan, but this doesn’t taste like store bought sausage, so perhaps it stands a chance.

At any rate, if you’re looking for something different, here’s your ticket.