Making Sausage—Geo goes Italian!

Despite its large and very active Italian community, Montréal evidently doesn't have a decent Italian sausage for sale...anywhere! so far as I've been able to find. Methinks that there's tooo much of the Francophone cultural influence bearing down upon the locals, even the Italians, to allow a decent fresh Italian sausage to be viable at the market. So what's a pore lad to do? Ahhhh, make his own! So that's just what I did today, make my own.

Fresh picnics were on sale today for 1.69CAN$, which is a very good buy, so I bought a couple. After some knife work, I ended up with almost exactly 5# of ready-to-grind meat. Let the process begin.

First, sharpen/steel my knives, what I call my "Desert Island Knife Set", knives I couldn't do without.




The little runty guy is a Sabatier [yes, really!] I bought 35 yrs ago BHV in Paris. You can make it razor-sharp... for a couple cuts, anyway. I use it for close in work. Next is the Henkel utility, the Victorinox chef's, and then, finally, the Old Chicago, which is a really fine fine knife.

Next, start the skins soaking:





Meanwhile, everything is outside, in the giant-size, Québec freezer, chillin'.





Chop, chop, chop. Note the Bible, back right—recipe is straight from there; back left are the bones from the picnics, which I browned under the grill, and threw into some split peas to make soup.






Mid-way through seasoning. Ruhlman et al wants lots and lots of paprika, as you can see; I used Penzey's sweet Hungarian.






Here's the set up. Note the frost on the bowl! Also note that I continue to rely upon Ruhlman et al.






Here's what it looks like, in progress. This is an excellent grinder—*nothing* slows it down. 1000 watts gives you all the power you'll ever need. Northern Tool #12, c. U$125.







Final grind result.







And here's the finished sausage. (Pot o' pea soup just starting in the rear.)







I ended up with a little over 7" of very tasty sausage, certainly better than anything else available 'round here. Plus I had a lot of fun.

Geo

looks great. i have the same chicago knife.
it is one of my favorites

philw wrote:looks great. i have the same chicago knife.
it is one of my favorites

As do I.

stevez wrote:

philw wrote:looks great. i have the same chicago knife.
it is one of my favorites

As do I.

I have that Chicago Cutlery knife as well, but I just fell in love with Geo's beat-to-death Sabatier.

Thanks for the tutorial, great pictures, sausage looks terrific!

Love the post, Geo!

I've made a fair share of sausage but honestly find it to be a PITA. Occasionally a worthwhile PITA but a PITA nonetheless...

Somehow, you make it look fun!

Thanks for taking the time to inspire us.

Did you use the fat that came on the picnic, or did you cut it away and buy some fatback? You have inspired me.

lougord, you asked the magic question!

Yes, I used the fat from the picnics, which wasn't that much, actually. But the recipe calls for another half pound of fat, which I just happened to be saving from a Very Special Pig. Last year I got half of a free-range, pastured, Large Black Swine over in Ontario. [I reported about the adventure in these very pages, but I'll be darned if I can find the thread... Search isn't working for me today, for some reason.] It has the most glorious meat and fat. Naturally, I've saved every gram of fat possible off that pig. Half a pound of it went into the sausage. Definitely a Secret Ingredient!

Gary, I'm pleased that you lust for my old beat-up knife. I looked for another one, last time I was in Paris, and found a pretty good ringer at Dehillerin over near where Les Halles used to be. It stays in KC, while the original stays up here. A really useful knife.

Interesting to see that Gary, Steve and Phil all have the Chicago blade.

Bridgestone, I'd bet you can get such good sausage in Stockholm that you don't *need* to make your own! But you're right, it is a bit of a PITA. As I told The Other Dr. Gale last night, "For all the effort involved, I shoulda made ten pounds instead of only five." Next time.

Thank heaven for dishwashers... !!

Geo

I'm a novice sausage maker. My wife and I made a batch of bratwurst (from Charcuterie) last fall. The guys at Paulina Meat Market told me that they find the amount of fat in a pork shoulder to be the perfect amount for brats, so they don't add any more. Anyone else find the same, or do most add fat?

(If I recall, we added a little bit of fat back to that batch of brats.)

With all due (and deserved) respect to the guys at Paulina, I think they're thinking of Yesterday's Pig and not Today's Pig. Today's pig has been leaned down via diet AND genetics to the point where it really can qualify as 'the other white meat'. Even the butt/picnic doesn't have enough fat on its lonesome for a juicy wurßt. I added, like I said, half a pound of fat to 4.5 lbs of picnic—and the results were exactly what I wanted. Obviously, tho', YMMV: maybe you like a leaner wurst!

Geo

Hi,

Is it possible also those shoulders are trimmed more in the retail case? When I buy at Peoria Packing House (PPH), I select out for the fatter cap. Paulina certainly has sources who trim meat to their specs, which may mean they keep a larger fat cap.

At a Mexican grocer, the fat caps on their shoulder were leaner than those I get a PPH. In this case, one man's garbage is another man's treasure.

Regards,

Paulina may do some (or all) of the trimming themselves. I seem to remember asking them how large the fat cap on their brisket (or pork shoulder - don't remember) is; their reply was that they could trim as much or little as I wanted.

i all ways pick out the shoulder or butt with more fat on it .

Someday, somewhere, a deer is going to go down where I can get a haunch, and I'm doin' this to it! Lookin' good, Geo!

I made venison brats one time, Michele, using a mix of beef and pork fat for the fat. They were really fabulous! Most folks in MO/KS just make a boring summer sausage out of venison, which most certainly is NOT its Highest and Best Use.

Surely the Hunting Gods & Goddesses will favor you someday!

Geo

Geo,

Thanks for a very inspirational post. Since I have the Charcuterie Bilble, I may try it myself one of these days.

Jyoti

Geo wrote:...using a mix of beef and pork fat for the fat. They were really fabulous! ...

Good to know - it never would have occurred to me to use beef fat; I was planning (with my non-existant venison haunch and the grinder I also don't have as yet) to use all pork.

BTW, for those interested in the issue, here's the new version of the beat-up Sabatier:



It's just about the same size, and has the same feel to it. Available from the company on its label.

And here's the view along the knife bins at Dehillerin:



Simply amazing!



Geo

Geo -- I'm late to the party but I just wanted to say, great looking sausage, great post!

A

Geo,
I was thrilled by your posting on your home-made sausage, but also very jealous of your know-how in charcuterie, since I am a Frenchman who loves to cook but never had the guts to make myself any kind of sausage or terrines. I also loved the photo of that fabulous store rue Coquillere, that I have not visited for quite a while. Many of the old stores that supplied professional cookware, knives, pots and utensils in the Halles district in the 1st arrondissement of Paris are now bygones.
Also I wanted to mention that nowadays, unfortunately, there is no more just one single knife manufacturer called Sabatier as it was the case 5 decades ago. Various knife manufacturers use that trade name , some of them even sub-contract in Asia, even though their knives bear the "Made in France" inscription on the blade.
Personally, I have only one 40 year-old Sabatier. All my knives are Wusthoffs, except for my two favorites that I use to cut "saucisson", Cantal or Tomme cheese, open walnuts shells, etc. and they are good old fairly large OPINEL with carbon steel blades.

I want to echo Alain40 re Sabatier knives. There is no one maker and one knife may be wonderful the next good for garbage and you have no way of knowing which is which. Geo hold onto your knife you might never be able to replace it.