| Ingredient | Grams | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| pork belly | 2780 | 96.29 |
| salt | 45 | 1.56 |
| Chipotle | 85 | 2.15 |
Casing: beef runners, sheep casings
Chipotle is a smoke-dried Jalapeño chilli pepper. It's not crazy hot to eat, but it has a long smoky-hot after-taste. I was given two packets of Chipotle last year as a birthday present and as an 'I saw this and thought of you' present. It's a good gift for someone like me who likes both chillies and smoked foods. Making Chipotle sausages seemed like a good choice of how to use them. I looked back at the Fresh Chorizo recipe that I had made before and substituted the amount of Pimento that I had used with roughly the same proportion of Chipotle. I left out the garlic as I thought it would be a distraction from the Chipotle. I might revisit this decision the next time.
I made two sizes of sausage: thick beef runners and thin sheep casings. The beef runners make a very wide diameter sausage. I like BIG sausage - the extra thickness emphasises the meatiness of the sausage and they look impressive. My girlfriend, on the other hand, likes thin sausage. Since I started making sausages, she has moved from 'not eating sausages' to 'eating thin sausages' so I am keen to encourage this. It was the Marmite sausages that first piqued her interest to try them.
I ground the Chipotle in the spice grinder, but only to a flaky consistency as I wanted to keep some of the texture of these large chillies. The result was quite rusk-like and I wonder if the recipe could take just a little water to plump the sausage a little more. The flaky texture of the Chipotle also adds visual interest to the sausage and the red colour comes out in the skin after 24 hours and gives them a wonderful smoked colour.
I think I got the Chipotle balance right. The sausages are quite hot and smoky when you eat them and this intensifies afterwards to a very satisfying warmth as they digest. I will definitely make these sausages again.
