Cured Lincolnshire Sausage Again

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Meat and Fat	gm
Cure #2	gm
Salt	gm
Sugar	gm
Sage (dried)	gm
Black Pepper	gm

This was a re-run of the Cured Lincolnshire Sausage that I made in March. I was dissatisfied with the strength of the sage in that batch so this time I both upped the proportion of sage and switched to dried sage over the fresh for a stronger taste. It was a good move because I am delighted with the results of this saucisson. It is the first recipe that I have used that I think needs no alteration.

The Linconshires Secs are shown in the foreground of the curing cabinet. I only got three and a bit saucisson from my 1Kg of pork. I will be sure to make these again and to make a good sized batch next time.

Caraway Sauscisson

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Meat and Fat	gm
Cure #2	gm
Salt	gm
Sugar	gm
Caraway Seed	gm
Garlic	gm
Black Pepper	gm

I have been fermenting lots of vegetables recently. In all of these mixed vegetable dishes there is cabbage and when I started it was by making Sauerkraut. The traditional spice for Sauerkraut is caraway and recently I have been getting quite a taste for it. It seems natural that the next thing to do is make a cured sausage with caraway seed. I used as my basis the Cured Fennel Sausage that I made in April and substituted the fennel for caraway.

I accidentally put in a greater proportion of spice than I intended. The reason for this is that I made these sausages as a combined batch with the Lincolnshire sausages and forgot that I had taken 1Kg of meat out when working out the spices. Luckily the basic mix had been made correctly. If I had got the quantity of cure wrong in the mix I would have had to ditch the lot.

As it turned out, even with what I thought was twice the amount of caraway that I was aiming for the spice was still too low. The caraway flavour is good, but it is too much in the background.

Spices and Herbs

It seems that this spice and herbs reference will be pretty useful, at least to myself! Although I can't capture the interaction between spices mixtures, it will serve as a good starting point for creating new combinations.

This is a spice and herbs reference for cured sausage. This reference is of no use if you are making fresh sausages. The curing process greatly reduces the strength of the flavourings. If you were to use this reference to make fresh sausages then the end result would pack a much bigger punch than intended.

I shall updating and extending this table as I continue to experiment.

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	Meat and Fat	gm
Fresh Garlic, minced	Mild	gm
Fresh Garlic, minced	Medium	gm
Fresh Garlic, minced	Strong	gm
Paprika	Mild	gm
Paprika	Medium	gm
Paprika	Strong	gm
Sage, Fresh	Mild	gm

Marmite Cured Sausage

Ingredient	Grams
Meat/fat	2450
Salt	35
Cure #2	6.125
Sugar	16
Marmite	95
Black pepper	20
Casing	Beef runners

The salt in the base mix was reduced to account for the high salt content in the Marmite.

Considering the large amount of Marmite that I used in this recipe I'm amazed at how little of the Marmite taste comes through in the finished sausage. I will try this again some time and I will increase the Marmite by 50%. It's still a great tasting sausage and the Marmite has given it a lovely dark exterior.

The curing cabinet photo shows the curved Marmite sausages on the right. To the left are the still-curing fennel salami which are straight as they use larger beef middles as a casing.

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Meat and Fat	gm
Cure #2	gm
Salt	gm
Sugar	gm
Marmite	gm
Black Pepper	gm
Casing Sheep Hog Beef Runners Beef Middles	m

Fennel Salami

Ingredient	Grams
Base Mix	2600
Black Pepper	10
Fennel	4
Corriander	2
Garlic	22
Casing	Beef middles

This a cured version of the fresh Italian sausage I made a few years ago. From my experience, I associate fennel in cured sausages with Kabonos, which are smoked, unlike those I have produced here.

The spices are a good blend here, but the fennel is just too subtle. It is another case where the amount of spice used in a fresh sausage needs to be increased for a cured sausage. I wonder if this is due to the fermenting bacteria reducing the impact of the spice.

The black pepper is just right and the half-crushed texture works well giving small pockets of strong pepper to crunch on.

This is the first time that I have used beef middles to get a good salami-sized width. Previously I had only used hog casings and beef runners.

Curing Cabinet Update: A New Type Of Fan

I've made a modification to my curing cabinet to keep the air moving in a more sustainable and reliable way. The fan that I was using previously was a cheap USB fan, shown orange in the picture. These fans are designed for occasional use and the motors burn out very quickly. I got through three of them in a couple of weeks even though I was only using them in 30 minute bursts.

Now I have switched to using PC cooling fans, shown black in the picture. They are also very cheap and come with USB connectors. I have bought two sizes at 40mm and 60mm. These fans are designed for continuous use so I am hoping to get longer than a few days use out of them. I've started with using the 40mm fan. I notice that it is quieter and that it makes a much smaller air movement than the previous fan. I think will be a good thing as I want a gentle circulation around my curing sausages rather than keeping them in a wind tunnel.

Cured Lincolnshire Sausage

Ingredient	Grams
Basic Mix	2000
Sage (fresh)	20
Black Pepper	8

This was my first experiment taking a traditional English fresh sausage recipe and turning it in to a cured sausage. The key ingredient is sage and I used the same amount that I would use for making fresh sausages.

While the finished item is good to eat, the flavour of the sage does not come through strongly enough. I wonder if I should use a higher proportion of fresh sage or switch to using dried sage which has a stronger flavour? I guess I will have to make more to see which will produce the best results. My hunch is that the dried sage will work better.

I also notice that the fresh sage turns form green to black after the sausage has fermented. It's a shame because the bright green sage seen through the translucent skin of a fresh Lincolnshire sausage is much more appealing.

Cured Curry Sausage

Ingredient	Grams
Basic cured sausage mix	1800
Garlic	28
Sainsbury's Hot curry powder	18
Turmeric	10

I tried making a fresh curried sausage previously but the spices were quite stark as they do not get the required amount of time to cook as the sausage cooks. I figured that the fermentation of the spices in a cured version would work better and I was right. It's delicious. The spices are rounded and compliment the tang of the cured meat.

Although I wanted to use Sharwood's curry mix as it is a classic English curry flavour, when I got to the supermarket all they had were their own brand version. I took the easy option and bought what was available at the time. It worked well but as I am sure that this is one to make again I will use Sharwood's next time. Although the curry powder was advertised as Hot this did not really come through in the finished item. And although I enjoy a hot curry, I think that this is fine as it is, without the heat.

I added extra turmeric to the recipe as I wanted to get a distinguished yellow colour to the finished sausage that was similar to the red of a Chorizo.

Curing Cabinet

After three years of research and failed attempts, I have at last built myself a working curing cabinet. I didn't really build it so much as put a few things together to get the controllable environment required. I had previously been put off building a cabinet by the complicated designs that I had found on the internet. I do not want to drill holes into fridges and wire-up temperature and humidity controls to mains electricity.

This is a much simpler design. I bought a second-hand wine-chiller to use as the cabinet rather than a fridge. The beauty of this is that it has a working temperature range of 4 to 18 degrees C. Inside I put a battery-operated digital thermometer/hygrometer so I can monitor the environment. I removed all the wire racking shelves except for the top one onto which I hang the meat. A nice thing about this wine chiller is that it has a glass door and an interior light. It looks great! I keep it out of sunlight with the light off, except for show.

Air circulation is handled by a small USB fan designed for plugging into a PC. I have also ordered some USB processor fans which I will experiment with. The fan is on a plug-socket timer so it does not run constantly and burn out. The USB power cable is flat so that it can fit nicely in the wine-chiller door seal.

Humidity is controlled by a bowl of water near the fan. There are many ways to get a stable desired humidity. I can adjust the size of the water bowl, the closeness and/or orientation of the bowl to the fan, the time operations of the fan. Because the wine chiller is a relatively small space it is incredibly easy to get a high humidity.

The two saucisson hanging in there at the moment are curry and Lincolnshire (sage) experiments. These are nearly ready and I'll blogging about them soon.

Alsace Saucisson Sec

I was thinking back to the delicious, light and fun fresh Alsace sausages that I made in 2012 and I wondered what a cured version would be like. A quick search around the Web and I realised that this was already standard fare in the Alsace. I made my own version and shared them with friends to get their reactions. It took a while to get used to the taste, kind of a mix between saucisson and vin chaud. I'm not sure that the light Alsace spices go with the deeper flavours that curing brings, but it was an interesting experiment.

I'm drawn to the idea of taking standard fresh sausage recipes and seeing how they work after a cure. As far as I am aware there are no traditional cured English sausage so I will have a play with some of these first.

Sadly I have no photos of these cured Alsace sausages. All were eaten before I thought to take a picture.

Ingredient	Grams
Pork shoulder	2170
Back fat	230
Salt	40
Cure #2	6
Sugar	15
Cloves	1.0
Cinnamon	2.0
Ginger	2.0
Nutmeg	0.9

Base Mix For Cured Sausage

Now that I have made cured sausages a number of times I notice that there is a basic meat/salt/cure base on to which I add the herbs and spices that give the sausage it's character. The recipe here makes 3 Kg of base mix which is a good quantity to make for the effort involved. It makes enough sausages to enjoy myself and to give to friends.

Essentially the lean meat/fat proportions are 90/10. Or use pork belly for 'ready mix'.
The Cure is 2.5 g per kilo meat mix.
The Salt is 18 g per kilo meat mix.
The Sugar is 7.5 g per kilo meat mix.

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Meat and Fat	gm
Cure #2	gm
Salt	gm
Sugar	gm

Chorizo

Ingredient	Grams
Pork shoulder	2170
Back fat	230
Salt	44
Cure #2	6
Sugar	15
garlic	20
Pimenton de la Vera	60

The basic recipe is very similar to the saucisson that I made previously. But the substitution of the black pepper for a large quantity of Pimenton changes the taste and texture completely. The sausages cured very differently as well with the appearance of different colonies of mould cultures, which I put down to the different spice. After the chorizo I went back to making another batch of saucisson and reproduced the results of that first batch, so I am quite confident that it is the change of ingredients which change the cure, rather than the environment.

The taste and texture of the finished product was very familiar as chorizo. Which is to say, delicious!

Saucisson Sec

Ingredient	Grams
Pork shoulder	2000
Back fat	230
Salt	40
Cure #2	6
Sugar	15
Black Pepper	10
Garlic	20

In the winter months, the cupboard under the stairs of my home has the right temperature and humidity to cure meat. My first experiment was to to make saucisson, a long time favourite from trips to France and more recently the local supermarket.

The sausages take about 3 weeks to cure. After the first week, the area is filled with an amazing aroma of garlic and the microbes busy working their magic. It's a delight to open the curing cupboard and see the characteristic white fuzz growing on the sausages, helping to cure the meat and work out the moisture.

The finished saucisson is a delight on the eye, to slice and to eat.

More Merguez

Ingredient	Grams	Percentage
lamb	1756	95.66
salt	30	0.98
merguez spice mix	40	0.49
harissa	8	0.98
fresh coriander leaf, chopped	8	0.98

Casing: sheep casings

It's been a long time since I first made merguez sausages and I think these have turned out a lot better. The spices are more punchy and I like the stronger colour.

I went to see a friend who keeps pigs to see if there would be any meat available form them for me. The pigs won't be ready for another couple of weeks but he said that the he had just got hold of some lambs so it was an easy call to say that I would make some merguez for him to try. He had never tried them before and I felt confident that he would like these spicy and interesting sausages.

There was plenty of lamb breast, but even after cutting off most of the fat it was still too fatty to use by itself and so I added a small amount of leg to get the right balance of meat to fat.

Having noticed that the green sage looked so good when I made the last batch of sage sausages, I only rough-chopped the fresh coriander leaf to get a similar effect and I'm very happy with the result. Most of the orange colour comes from the paprika and the rose harissa and acts as a great visual cue that these sausages pack a bit of spice.

I have a good amount of spice mix left over which I could seal and save for the next time. But spices taste sweeter when fresh ground so I'm more likely to combine this with something else, just to see what comes out. The colour reminds me of the fresh chorizo sausage I made previously so I may try a combination of the two ideas.

Merguez spice mix

Ingredient	Grams
sweet paprika	60
fennel seed, ground	30
cumin, ground	30
coriander, ground	15
cinnamon, ground	5
chilli, ground	5
black pepper	5
sugar (optional)	20

Experimental Sausage #1

Ingredient	Amount
pork belly	some
salt	about 1%
black pepper	1 tablespoon
Rose harissa	1 tablespoon

Casing: hog casing

I had some meat and casing left over from making the sage sausages yesterday, so I decided to fling a few things together and see what came out. I didn't really have a plan of what I was going to make and I didn't measure out and record what I used, which I now regret. At the least I should have measured the salt, but it was late and I was feeling 'creative'.

I have been researching how to make Mortadella and with that in mind I made an emulsified, poached sausage, similar to the boudin blanc I have made before. I combined that with some cubed, hard fat which I blanched in boiling water before adding it to the mixture.

For flavouring, I opened the fridge and grabbed the first thing that caught my eye - some rose harissa. I picked the harissa because I it's got an interesting but not overpowering taste and because I like the bright red colour.

I was reasonably pleased with the results, considering the haphazard way in which I had put this thing together. The harissa was not really suitable for a poached sausage. Firstly it had a slightly gritty texture that did not go too well with the smooth emulsified meat and secondly it pooled a little while it poached so that instead of an even red colour as I was hoping, I got a few streaks of orange along the outside of the sausage.

The cubed fat came out well. This was the first time I had separated the fat from the meat in pork belly and it's a technique that I will use again. Another thing I have discovered is that it's much easier to remove the skin from the pork belly by cutting it into strips first.

This experiment came about because I had a few bits left over from what I had originally planned to make, but I now think that I will make sure that I have enough spare for experiments when I plan things in the future. I also think I will make more emulsified sausages I am a big fan of their smooth texture. I guess I should have a crack at making some Mortadella too.

Sage 2

Ingredient	Grams	Percentage
pork belly	2000	93.76
salt	33	1.55
black pepper	20	0.94
Sage, rough cut	80	3.75

Casing: hog casings

Last year, when I made sausages with sage I was convinced that I hadn't used enough sage and that the recipe could take more. So this year I nearly doubled the amount and I'm much happier with the results. The green herb looks great under the skin and the taste is more punchy when they sausages are cooked. I think the recipe can take even more, say up 5%, even though it looks like it will be too dominant before it goes into the mix.

I used fresh sage again, straight from the garden though this time it was the regular green variety rather than the purple sage which is past its best at this time of year. The bright green leaves look better under the skin than the duller purple. The sausages were made without rusk as I forgot that I wanted to compare the two styles of making sausage. Now I'm also wondering how letting the sage dry for a few days would affect the texture. Maybe that will be an experiment for next year.

Truffle Sausage

Ingredient	Grams	Percentage
pork belly	2000	95.66
salt	20	0.98
black pepper, crushed	10	0.49
summer truffle, grated	20	0.98

Casing: sheep casings

I was given a small jar of summer truffles for my birthday and decided to turn them into sausages. It's a simple recipe with nothing more than meat, salt pepper and the truffle for flavour.

The sausages do not look anything special. The black truffle is a visually small ingredient and only a few black spots can be seen under the skin. By sight, it's not that easy to tell the truffle apart from the black pepper.

For these sausages I used some Kampot black pepper from Cambodia, that I bought on a recent trip. It is super fresh and strong and over powers the truffle a little. Having said that, the sausages are quite delicious.

The next time I make this, I will knock back the amount of pepper and increase the amount of truffle, though the truffle is quite expensive and that will make quite a pricey sausage.

Sage Sausage

Ingredient	Grams	Percentage
pork belly	2580	95.66
salt	41	1.52
black pepper	20	0.74
Sage, rough cut	56	2.08

Casing: beef runners, sheep casings

Sage goes fantastically well with pork as the good folks in Lincolnshire know and so I thought I would have a go at making my own Lincolnshire-style sausages using the purple sage that grows in my garden. I had no recipe to follow so I guessed at the quantities of sage and black pepper to use. The salt, as usual, I kept to 1.5%.

I diverged form a Lincolnshire sausage recipe in that I don't use binder (rusk) so the sausage doesn't have the 'traditional' British sausage texture. I think this is one of the occasions where some binder would work well as what I like about sage is how well it goes with stuffing/meat loaf and this is the direction given by adding rusk to sausages. Normally I prefer the meaty texture of a non-binded sausage over the rather spongy texture that (too much) rusk gives. But I wonder if this is an occasion where some rusk would go well.

I'm reasonably happy with the result, but I will be changing a few things the next time I make these. I will use more sage and less black pepper. I might even double the amount of sage. This could also change the texture of the sausage, for the better I hope. The sage shows up well through the casing and gives the sausage an interesting appearance. I would have liked to have used hog casings, but I am out of them at the moment and instead I am using up what I have to hand. I would like to try adding some rusk. It would be good to make some with and some without rusk to I can better judge the differences.

Chipotle Sausage

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.

Pataks Madras curry paste

Ingredient	Grams	Percentage
pork belly	1000	91.32
salt	10 (+ paste)	1.18
Pataks Madras curry paste	85	7.76

Casing: beef runners

I made these sausages as a second batch of the evening. First up, I made a couple of kilos of the Alsation Christmas sausages (again) to take to a friend's 50th birthday party. I made them as mini-chipolata style sausages, the kind normally found on the end of cocktail sticks. I was right in thinking that the light and spicy taste goes well as party food.

Then I made a kilo of curry sausage, as an experiment. I'd wanted to make these curry sausages, using a shop-bought curry paste to provide the spice, for quite a while. If nothing else, I'm glad to have got it out of my system, The jar of Pataks curry paste has sat in my cupboard for the last three months and I'm glad it has finally been used.

I took a guess with the amount of salt to use. This was because the curry paste contained 4.1% salt and so I'd have had to work out a little sum to get the right amount to add. I guess because I was tired, I took a short cut and judged the amount 'by eye' rather than calculate the correct weight. I cook most meals like this and usually it works out. But when I checked later, the sausages were a few grams light on my target 1.5% and I think this came through in the taste. I have now updated my proportion spread sheet to account for added salt in products. A valuable lesson learned and an improved tool. I'll have no excuses for making this mistake again.

By chance, these sausages were stuffed into beef runners, rather than the hog casings as I had intended. I have been buying casings from a number of places and my fridge is full of many unmarked packages of casings. Usually I can tell 'by eye' which is which but this time I was caught out. Maybe it's time to get my eyes tested. I shall make sure that all casings are properly labelled in future so I won't make this mistake again. I had bought the beef runners when I was making Morcilla but I think these worked out really well in a larger casing so I shall be ordering some more and using them more often as a general purpose casing for larger and meatier sausage flavours.

The turmeric in the curry paste gave these sausages a wonderful colour, making them look as though they have been smoked.

These sausages have an interesting flavour, but it's not amazing, as I had hoped. They suffer most from a crumbly texture, which I guess is from the non-spice ingredients in the curry paste. The paste is, after all, designed to make a sauce rather than as a sausage flavouring. So I will be making curry sausages again, but next time I will be using raw spices rather than a ready-made paste.