It's a Sausage Reunion!

As the picture suggests, the Brothers in Sausage recently reunited for some old-fashioned intestine-stuffing in Copenhagen. The older sausage-brother was visiting during his short break between teaching science fiction to French Canadians and comics to art students in Toronto, and the younger intestine-stuffer took a much-deserved day off work.

You might suspect that such an occasion might require striving for nothing less than the Ultimate Sausage of Many and Exotic Ingredients, but instead we decided to see what we could do with few but distinctive ingredients. Here's what we used:

1 kg pork
Onion
Garlic
A lot of sage
Star anise

Balsamic vinegar

Salt 

Pepper

The star ingredients here, obviously, were the sage, the star anise, and the vinegar, which we reduced in a pot until it was nice and syrupy.

After grinding the meat, we ran the sage through the meat grinder along with the onion and garlic, and mixed everything together. The vinegar darkened everything in a nice way.

Skipping slightly ahead (because how many pictures of sausage being stuffed does one blog need, even if it's only updated sporadically?), the result was pure sausage victory.

After making the links, the results were mouthwateringly beautiful, and ready to hit the pan.

Served with bread and a cold noodle-melon salad made by the younger stuffer's wife, it made for a great meal. The sage worked really well with the star anise, and the vinegar—probably our most experimental ingredient—added a nice tart sweetness. A very successful reunion!

As a bonus, here's a picture of the family's youngest member, Wilfred, who likes sausage but somehow hasn't inherited his dad's fondness for intestine.

Medisterpølse: Danish Christmas Sausage

It's been a busy time over here at the North American headquarters of Brothers in Sausage, which admittedly only somewhat explains the lack of updates on the blog. Another reason is that I seemingly developed the misconception that sausages are more complicated to make than they really are—and therefore just made a lot of risotto or things like that instead.

But no more of this. Sausages are easy, delicious, and second only to spinach when it comes to building brute strength, and I'm back on the wagon.

To start things off, I thought I would make some medisterpølse, a traditional Danish sausage that is often eaten around Christmas in a special holiday-spiced variation. The word appears for the first time in a cookbook from the 1500s, and is a compound of "met" (pork) and "ister" (suet, which is the fat around the loins and kidneys). So, a sausage made from pork and intestinal fat—what could be more Danish?

Most modern recipes call for pork shoulder and simple, unspecific fat, which is also what my butcher was able to provide (along with the intestine, of course):

I found a recipe by the Danish television chef James Price online, which called for the following ingredients:

1 kg pork
200 g fat
2 onions
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp allspice
salt
pepper
2 egg whites
3 tbsp flour
3-4 dl soup
2 m pork intestine

I gound the meat and fat twice, along with the onions. This is what it looked like after the first and second grinding:

I then added the spices, egg whites, and flour. I cheated by using some chicken soup from the freezer, which I made a few weeks ago. Mix until soft but also a bit firm. Don't use too much soup.

Just for kicks, here's a picture of my KitchenAid getting ready to be loaded up with intestine:

One peculiarity of medisterpølse is that you don't make individual sausage links, but simply just stuff and cook one long sausage. Like this:

Another unusual thing is that you blanch it slightly before frying, so I covered it in water and brought it to the point just before boiling for just under 10 minutes. If it boils, the intestine's integrity can be compromised, and it might break when frying. It should look like this:

I then fried it for maybe ten minutes, until brown:

Medisterpølse is traditionally eaten with any number of things, but usually some combination of potatoes and cabbage or beets, along with plenty of mustard. I stewed some red cabbage in butter, balsamic vinegar, red wine, and star anise, and added salt and pepper along with some maple syrup to sweeten it a little, and served with mashed potatoes:

It was delicious, and Melissa (who is absolutely grossed out by the whole process) even declared it the best sausage she had ever had. That's a recommendation, folks!

Anyway, thanks for reading, and hopefully my sausage-phobia will have been cured enough that another blog post is not too far in the future.

Merry Christmas!

Hot Dog Day Afternoon

This morning I had to go to the eye doctor to get my eyes checked. This resulted in me having my pupils dilated, which meant that I had to stay indoors the next couple of hours to avoid the very bright sunlight of today. But instead of just squinting the day away I took out my sausage maker (something that can't help but cheer you up).

Here's what I used in both sausages and ketchup (from a recipe by Claus Meyer):

Sausage
– Potato
– Onion
– Garlic
– Pork/Veal
– Rosemary
– Fennel seeds
– Allspice
– Milk
– Eggs
– Entestines

Ketchup
– Onion
– Garlic
– Sugar
– Aniseed
– Curry
– Salt and pepper
– Tomatoes
– Apple vinegar

First thing I did was to boil me a potato, an onion and a clover of garlic:

Then I poured out the water and mashed the whole damn thing before I blended it with ground meat (pork and veal) and salt.

Then I poured in the remaining ingredients: Rosemary, fennel seeds, allspice, pepper, milk and eggs:

A few moments later they came out of my magic sausage making machine looking like this:

And then there was the ketchup.

First of I fried the onion and garlic very lightly before putting in the spices: Aniseed, curry, salt and pepper along with the sugar allowing the whole thing to get caramelized:

In go the tomatoes and the vinegar:

Let it boil quietly for about an hour:

Then blend and sieve it:

The old lady made some very nice bread to pour the whole thing into once it was done:

Done!

Merguez: The Sausage of Magical Realism

My friend Phil is a sausage-virgin who's never handled intestine, and the whole process seemed a bit mysterious to him. So last night he came over to see how it's done, bringing along many beers as well as his nice camera to document the process.

We decided to make merguez, which is the spicy lamb and/or beef sausage of North African cuisine, where it's usually served with couscous. According to Wikipedia, the word "merguez" might have developed from the Berber word "amergaz," meaning "sausage," which is interesting because it suggests that once they invented this baby, they thought they had reached perfection and named it after the contraption itself.

As we all know, however, there is no such thing as a perfect sausage, even if the quest for it is what animates us to keep loading up the KitchenAid. But a well-made and properly spiced Merguez is still a singular pleasure, and should be in every sausage-maker's repertoire.

In order to make it truly our own, we avoided buying pre-mixed spices such as harissa, and instead went to town on the spice cabinet. Here's what we put in there:

• – 1 kg mixed lamb and beef
• – ground coriander
• – cayenne pepper
• – ground ginger
• – nutmeg
• – cinnamon
• – cloves
• – cumin
• – ground and smoked red pepper
• – fresh cilantro, chopped
• – salt and pepper
• – AND, just because it was right there, next to the mix, some apricot beer

The result were delicious, with Phil proclaiming that it was his ideal merguez. We couldn't really taste the beer, but the different spices were all prominent and nicely balanced. We ate them with couscous flavored with onions, carrots, tomatoes, parsly, cilantro, and lemon balm.

Below are some pictures, complete with close-ups of important steps.

Intestine. It's cheap.

Meat and spices.

Adding the beer.

Action shot.

It looks more ominous than it is.

Finding the opening of the intestine. This is not the same as the asshole.

Loading the intestine.

3 meters of it, all in one hand.

Fun!

Ready to stuff.

The first little sausage. The knot should be tied after filling some intestine, in order to avoid too much air in there.

Stuffing.

In deep.

Always make a lot.

After stuffing it's time to twist, and then cut. 

Fry at medium heat.

A Sausage Blog!

How it all began: The legendary Fleischwolf.

Despite their infinite potential for deliciousness, sausages often seem to have a bad reputation. This is likely because most of them are made with whatever they happened to sweep off the floor at the butcher or slaughterhouse on any given day, and because their fat content is usually high enough to make your teeth fuzzy. Also, there's something called a hot dog, but let's never speak of that again.

A few years ago my brother Lasse and I decided to try making our own sausages, and bought a cheap hand-powered meat grinder and some intestine. We also only used high-quality ingredients, including some half-way fancy meat. It was surprisingly easy to stuff the filling into the intestine and make the links, and the results were delicious.

Soon we were hooked, and we have been making sausages regularly ever since, although we have upgraded our equipment. Lasse now uses a Tefal Le Hachoir meat grinder and Frederik a KitchenAid meat grinder attachment.

This blog is about our new adventures in sausage-making, and we will try to update it with recipes, descriptions and general reflections every time we bring out the intestine for a sausage party, either together or separately. We might also write about other people's sausages, if we find them sufficiently delicious. 

And yes, making sausages lends itself to many, many jokes. It's one of the best things about it.