Why make your own sausage? Commercially-made sausage generally has a high-fat content, as well as sugar and salt, and you never know what the manufacturer will put into their sausage mix.
Making Sausage At Home
By making your own sausage at home, you determine the quality of the meat and spices, with the added benefit that you control the fat content. Krowd.Darden Manager home access is useful for the associates to check their work schedules online and paystubs.
If you have never made sausage before, it may seem daunting at first but is actually quite easy. With some time and effort, along with some basic equipment, you can make homemade sausage that tastes so much better than store-bought it will be worth the work.
What is in sausage?
Sausage is defined as ground meat mixed with fat, salt, and other seasonings, preservatives, and sometimes fillers.
Sausage can be made into a bulk form or stuffed into casings to form links. Although the most common type of sausage uses pork or pork blends, virtually any type of meat can be used in sausage.
Reduce the fat in your sausage. While making your own sausage, you can control the ingredients, spices, and fillers.
If you are watching your diet, you can make a low-fat diet sausage, but remember the fat adds moisture to your sausage.
The lower fat content will mean a more dry sausage, however, by adding fruits, such as chopped apple or raisins, or onions, mushrooms, and other moisture-rich veggies or even tofu, you can add moisture back into your sausage.
You are only limited by your own imagination so have fun and experiment until you find what is right for you. Browse the catalog of the Red lobster menu online.
Another quick way to reduce the fat content of fresh sausage by up to 20 percent is to drain the fat from the cooked sausage, and then pat it dry with paper towels to absorb even more fat.
Equipment for Making sausage
- Mortor and pestle: This is the best way to grind your spices: salt, fennel, sugar, hot pepper, caraway, and coriander are commonly used. This can also be done in a spice grinder or coffee grinder if you prefer.
- Meat grinder: There are a variety of these from traditional hand-crank machines to electric meat grinders. There is also a meat grinder attachment for Kitchen Aid mixers that works great. You can also use a food processor though they are not as efficient.
- Sausage Stuffer: These are sold individually or as an attachment to the meat grinder and KitchenAid has an inexpensive attachment for their meat grinder. If you prefer not to use casings, you can make patties or bulk sausage for cooking.
- Casings: Traditionally, link sausage is stuffed into natural casings made from the intestines of animals, but artificial (usually collagen) casings are now available on the market. Today most commercial sausages use synthetic casings.
Keep in mind some artificial casings require soaking in hot tap water before use and need to be punctured with knifepoint before stuffing to eliminate air pockets.
Hog casings are available at Italian specialty stores. Darden Krowd Employee portal can be accessed at krowdweb.darden.com
The store owner will give you the right amount if you tell him how much meat you are using. If the casings are too long, you won’t be able to work with them.
Tips for Sausage Making
The most important thing to remember is to keep everything cold.
This means the meat, fat, and the bowl.
- If you are grinding the meat yourself – grind the meat and the fat separately and keep one chilled in the refrigerator while you grind the other. This will keep the fat from melting in the grinder as it heats up during the grinding process.
- If you are using a meat grinder, make sure you thoroughly clean and sanitize it after each use. Dried herbs are usually used for sausages because they do provide a stronger flavor, however, you can use fresh herbs if you prefer. Just make sure you use more fresh herbs than the recipe calls for in dried as you would in cooking with herbs.
- Have all of your spices, garlic, and any other ingredients ready before you start grinding the meat and fat so that everything is ready to be mixed in once you have finished grinding.
- You can use an electric hand mixer to mix the meat, fat, and other ingredients in a large metal bowl that has been chilled. Mix just until you have incorporated all of the ingredients and blended the meat and fat. Be careful not to over mix the meat and fat.
- If you don’t have a meat grinder you can still make homemade sausage. Just buy a good quality ground pork which will already include fat, therefore just follow the recipe and stuff it into casings or make patties or bulk sausage.
- You can’t control the fat content but pre-ground pork will save you much time and work, while you can still control all of the other ingredients. This is the easiest way to get started making your own sausage.
- The most difficult part of sausage making is stuffing the casings. You will need some sausage stuffing equipment for this and a little practice before you get it just right.
- You need to stuff the casings completely and avoid trapping air bubbles while you also want to avoid overstuffing them.