Some meat, some flavourings and some imagination - Janice Murphy learns how simple it is to make sausages at home.
Once upon a time in New Zealand there were three types of sausages: fat, thin and crumbed. All of them were the same colour - a sort of flesh pink - and all tasted the same, too. They were a barbecue staple, made a cheap family meal and everybody liked them - except perhaps when Mum "curried" them in a pale yellow gloop with sultanas.
Oh, how times have changed. Now there is a bewildering array of sausages in the smallgoods department of your local supermarket, from boerewors to lamb and mint, chorizo and venison. They come in many colours, textures and sizes and some cost almost as much as steak.
This sausage revolution has brightened up the Kiwi barbecue no end, as well as sparking interest in home sausage-making, especially among those of us who keep livestock or go hunting. And so I joined a group of three men at a course run by Bayleaf Cooking School's Rowan Holt at Karitane School.
These huntin' shootin' fishin' men were all keen cooks, too, and had given up their Saturday afternoon to learn how to make the most of the meat they had stashed in their freezers. After all, man cannot live by steak alone.
Rowan's classes are designed for the home cook, and her best advice for would-be sausage-makers is to learn a basic recipe that you can adapt to suit your own taste. The one she gave us seemed to be a good starting point, but she says you can experiment with whatever meat you have on hand.
The key, apparently, is to get the right proportion of fat and salt to lean meat. Keep everything cold, and have everything laid out and ready before you start. Seasonings we used included red wine, chili flakes, garlic and shallots, parsley, thyme, rosemary and cayenne pepper. You can buy sausage casings from a butcher.
After washing our hands thoroughly (the time it takes to sing "Happy Birthday" in your head is perfect, Rowan says), each of us started with a pile of meat chunks and fat, plus some liquid and seasonings of our choice. We used Rowan's food processor, which had a meat grinder and a sausage-stuffer attachment.
The meat is first ground, then spiced and flavoured. At this point you can take a little bit and fry it like a patty to taste whether you like the flavour and texture. Make adjustments until you like the mixture.
Then the sausage skins are threaded on to the funnel and stuffed. We twisted them into links at the end.
Under Rowan's cheerful tutelage, we ground and spiced, stuffed and twisted, and each went home with an assortment of tasty snags to try out on the family. Everyone at my house certainly enjoyed theirs.
Learn how
Bayleaf Cooking School runs classes approximately monthly or on demand. They are mostly at Karitane School but can be held elsewhere on request.
Email Rowan Holt on info@bayleaf.co.nz
Website: www.bayleaf.co.nz
