This is not a Saveloy

1.5 Kg twice fine minced pork shoulder
25g salt
5g white pepper
2g ground cardamom
1g ground mace
10g ground paprika
10g beetroot powder
Hog casings

This turned out to be my first sausage-making failure. Although the end product was both edible and wonderfully spiced, these sausages had a dry texture and were nothing like Saveloys. It was my fault for not following the recipe properly.

My sister came to stay and brought my electric mincer back. I have never used it since I bought it, about 8 years ago, and then lent it to her. I got distracted by the novelty of using it and forgot that the recipe instructed the meat be twice fine-minced. For some reason, I chose to coarse mince the meat just once. It's weird that I should have made this mistake as I had already noted that a Saveloy is an emulsified-type sausage and would need a fine texture. A Saveloy is essentially an English version of the Frankfurter.

Still, I was very pleased with the way the electric mincer performed. Much better than tiring my shoulder with the manual mincer. And the mincing done in a quarter of the time.

So I ended up with some weird looking, lumpy-bumpy and quite dry sausages. The poaching shrunk the skin tight to the coarse meat and emphasised the rugged texture. No 'Sav' should look like this!

The beetroot powder hardly gave the promised colour to the sausage. Next time I will double the quantity.

I had another taste-changing experience using the spices. When I first made these sausages I cooked and ate one. Although I was dismayed with the texture, shape and colour, I was delighted with the taste. The spices were very vibrant and exciting. A few days later, when I tried them again, the spices were much more subtle and the flavour of the pork dominated. It's interesting to track the change of the taste of sausages by eating them over the coarse of a week. It takes a while for the flavours to balance which can mean they become stronger or, as in this case, dilute. Another thing I notice is that freezing dulls the taste a little. The defrosted sausages still taste great, but they lack the vibrancy of the pre-frozen part of the batch.

Venison and Port 2

2.2 kg venison
750g hard pork fat
45g salt
8g black pepper
5g rosemary
3g juniper
15g garlic
225ml port wine
hog and sheep casings

For this second batch of venison and port sausages I used hard pork fat rather than pork belly. Visually the finished sausages have a better mottled effect as they have a greater colour contrast between the venison and the fat.

I also used less juniper in this batch as I had worried that I had over spiced the first lot. However, the juniper in the first batch turned out fine after a day or two when the flavours had balanced. I don't think this batch was any the worse for cutting it back a little. So I am pleased with both batches. I'm not sure that the port adds that much to the taste. Maybe a bit of sweetness. Next time I will try something else like a red wine.

I ran out of hog casings while stuffing and had finish them off in sheep casings. The thinner skins of the sheep casings show much more of the deep colour of the venison and port.

Having tasted both batches side by side, I am very happy with both of them. When I make venison sausages again, I will consider increase the fat content to make them a bit more succulent. While the flavourings are great, maybe reducing the quantity a little will let the taste of the venison shine more.

Venison and Port 1

1.3 kg venison
1.0 kg pork belly
35g salt
6g black pepper
4g juniper berries
6g rosemary
125cl Port
hog casings

The meat man came round and dropped off a  haunch of venison. My Lycra-clad cycle-courier left me with a lovely piece of 21 day-old meat to process into sausages. He knows someone that shoots and I had suggested that we try making some venison sausages.

It was a synch to get the meat off the bone. All the meat came away very cleanly and easily. I was left with 2.5kg of venison, a small thigh bone and a table spoon of fat. I processed this into sausages in two batches on different nights.

Because there is no fat on the haunch, the recipe requires some to be added. For this first batch I used pork belly at about 50/50 pork to venison. I minced the venison by hand using my baby little mincer. It flowed through the machine with ease, like mincing liver.

I've never cooked with juniper berries before. When I tasted the freshly made sausage, my initial reaction was that I had used too many. The next day when I tried it again, the balance was just right. This dramatic taste change over time is something I have noticed since I began making sausages. It can be quite a radical transformation and it's not limited to the first 24 hours as some articles suggest. I have read advice to cook and eat some sausage pate before stuffing to check the seasoning. While this sounds like a good idea, the balance of everything changes so much as the sausage matures that it could pick up only extreme cases like forgetting to add the salt.

There is also a similar change in texture as the sausage dries, The freshly made texture of these venison sausages seemed quite burger-like, possibly because it was so moist from the port. But two days later and the sausage is quite firm and dark. I think I would add a greater fat content the next time to make them a bit juicier. I would also reduce the salt content a little.

Alsation Christmas Sausage

2.0kg pork belly
30g salt
5g ground black pepper
5g sugar
12 cloves
1g (1/4 teaspoon) ground ginger
1g (1/4 teaspoon) ground cinnamon
0.5g (3/8 teaspoon) ground nutmeg:
sheep casings

Because I am just starting out making sausages, I'm still very keen to try new techniques and new recipes. The possibilities seem endless. The chance to explore and experiment is an exciting aspect of food and cooking that I enjoy. I saw this Christmas sausage recipe at Sausage Mania and it caught my imagination. I like the notion of a Christmas sausage, especially as it is only the end of April. When winter comes, I love to drink mulled wine and this recipe uses much the same spices.

I fine minced the pork belly for this sausage. This is the first time I have used the fine mesh on my mincer. I figure it is in keeping with the smaller diameter of the sheep casing.

I got some more lovely pork belly from Gog Magog Hills butchers and this time I asked them not to score the skin. It makes taking it off the belly much easier. One sausage-making friend made his first batch of sausages without first removing the skin from the pork belly. He wasn't impressed with the result.

Once the skin is off, it's ready for scoring and making into some bonus crackling. I prepared this piece and put it in the freezer for another day when I will take it to share with my girlfriend. It has been noted that I had selfishly eaten the previous one all by myself.

There's no garlic in this sausage and, along with the Christmas spices, the result is a very un-meaty sausage. The spice and fine mincing gives this sausage a light taste and texture. It's quite un-sausage-like, which is a bit weird but very good. I imagine that children or recovering vegetarians would like this sausage. I'd like to do something like this again, but with fewer and heavier spices. Maybe full-on fresh ginger and clove? 12 cloves for this amount of meat is about right, though maybe it could be taken back a little. I think I will soon be experimenting with chilli as a sausage spice. And why no go the whole hog and make a Vindaloo sausage? It's easy to get carried away dreaming up exotic spices, but I think I need to remember that the primary intention should be to enhance the meat rather than distract from it.