As with most things on the planet, you only get out of a sausage what you put into it. The raw ingredients are fundemental and the choice of them will only dictate how seriously you want your sausages to be taken. This is a kind of neat lifestyle philosophy which can be applied to babies or investment banking.
Skins or 'casings' as they're known in the trade are one of the secrets to a good product. Keep away from synthetic or dried casings as they affect the final product. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A VEGETETARIAN CASING, or at least as insofar as I've been able to find. All synthetic casings will contain some animal. More of that later. By far and away the best casing is fresh 'hog' or 'sheep'. It comes prepared, covered in rock-salt and in lenghts of about 25 M. Any you don't use can be covered in salt and stored in the fridge for later. The sheep casing has a smaller diameter so make sure you have the right nozzel for that. In Madrid I get my casings (and spices) in 'Casa Pajuelo', C/Atocha 95, Metro Anton Martin, they also do excellent honey (bring your own jar) and herbal teas.
Meat. It's a good idea to get to know your butcher and aquaint him or her of your intentions. Even if they don't make sausages, they will know where you're coming from. The best pork cut is shoulder ('magro' in Spanish) as it contains a good ratio of fat to meat which is very important. Don't think that you can make a good lean sausage - it's a contradiction in terms. A good sausage must have between 5% and 10% of fat to make it 'cook'. If you are going to use beef as well (good bar-b-que saussies demand this) splash out and get steak.
Herb, spice, rusk and sex.
It's a good idea to expand your spice rack and get in special quantities of ground black pepper, ground nutmeg, ground clove, cayenne pepper, thyme, cumin, salt and whatever you think would look good wrapped in the aforementioned hog casing. Oh and the sex, apparently hog casing was, and maybe still is, used as a prophylactic to prevent the spread of nasty disease as opposed to birth-control or worse still, holding hands and watching the sun go down.
Don't be put off if your first attempt looks like this. It was delicious.
Is this Atocha place friendly? My wife gave me a mincer/stuffer this morning (and it's not even my birthday) and I went all round the local market and 2 or 3 butcher's shops looking for casings. What do you ask for? I'm assuming something like 'tripas para hacer salchichon', but they all look at me like I'm a Martian - which is not that unusual when I attempt to speak Spanish. Any help greatly appreciated and I might give you one of my pork pies.
ResponderEliminarOkay, belay previous comment: I'm now the proud (if a little confused) owner of 25 metres of tripas de cerdo en sal. I'll be attempting to sausagify it this afternoon, and no doubt blogging it at probablymadrid.blogspot.com. Wish me luck!
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