Xtreme Buddha's Non Vegan Delight in a Skin Tube

Always wanted to make sausage but were discouraged by the specialized equipment involved? In this Sausage 101 I'll walk you through the basics using standard kitchen tools. Follow along as I (and the Xtreme Buddha) prepare Thanksgiving Harvest Sausage.

Step 1 Get your meat:

This recipe was originally developed with wild boar in mind, unfortunately I'm not a wild boar hunter, I don't know any wild boar hunters, and I'm too chicken to go hunt wild boar by myself.

Meat tends to taste better and be better for you (your soul at least) when it is locally farmed. If I could afford it I would always buy my meat at Prather Ranch Meat Company: www.prmeatco.com
located in the San Francisco Ferry Building. When you are cooking nice cuts of meat, try to find a place like this.

However, we are making sausage. I bought my meat at Safeway.

Sausage makers around the world are going to cringe at my meat choice, Pork & Lamb chops. That's because sausage is traditionally made with the little bits and scraps and fat and "parts that won't sell" left over after butchering. Unless you're a butcher or hunter traditional sausage scrap is hard to find.

The ratio I'm using is 3 parts Pork to 1 part Lamb. I tried to pick the fattiest cuts of meat I could find shrinkwrapped in Safeway. Honestly, really, go for the fattiest you can find. Production Pork in the U.S. has become so lean it's hard to even find Pork that has any untrimmed fat. In a traditional sausage half the scrap that went into it would be fat.

Comments

[canida]

Wow, this is a fantastic Instructable- spectacular documentation. I've been meaning to try sausage-making but just never got around to it; you've suitably inspired me. Now I've just got to find some wild boar.

[canida]

OK, we've found some wild boar and are in the process of sausage-making! Using our KitchenAid and attachments; preliminary results point to deliciousness. More details shortly.

[Cyrus]

Do you freeze your wild boar before use? I've read that many boar carry a parasite (can't remember which) that cooking won't kill. I've been thinking of hunting some wild boar but was unsure if i should freeze it for a couple weeks before eating.

[canida]

Worms are the concern, and yes I did freeze the finished sausages for >2 weeks before eating. Easy enough to do, and can't hurt...

[Austinbwood]

Why might I email you? hmm? =)

[LasVegas]

OMG! That looks so good! It's too bad this Instructable may well put some off of sausage for good! Definitely, not myself! Love that sausage stuffer! Where does one find that gem?

[MrMunki]

Thanks, my sausage stuffer was a gift from my grandfather. I think he found it at a garage sale. Keep an eye out, the old cast iron stuffers clean up pretty well.

[ferdinandojoseph]

DearMr.Munki, I shall be pleased if you read any book on Lord Buddha. If you cannot find any book from where you are please e-mail me your address I will send one from Sri Lanka. Joe

[Captain Pedantic]

I've seen sausage stuffers and other sausage stuff at a hunters' type outdoor store; Gander Mountain. Excellent instructable! Keep 'em coming.

[bluGill]

This is the cheap way. Personally I went to Cabellas and bought their meat grinder and sausage stuffer, for $250 each. While that sounds like a lot of money, we cut up 11 deer this year, and 8 last year. The butcher would charge us more than $100 each to do the work. We can now cut up a deer for about $15 (We could get by for a lot less but we buy sausage kits that have everything already measured) (I bought the grinder and stuffer in part because some friends of mine are poor, while they get by, money saved on food is money they can use for other bills)

[chilepepper27]

I've been a butcher for several years now. When you clean food surfaces, the best way to do it is to wash with soap and hot water, rinse with hot water and bleach. Let the surface air dry. Bleached surfaces that air dry are food safe.

[snoyes]

Step 15 makes me wonder if there's any demand for making balloon animals out of sausage.

[TheCheese9921]

now I'm really hungary

[lemonie]

And I'm really Austria... L

[TheCheese9921]

ooops lol, I never noticed that aahahahaa

[fancykika]

Hey, don't use pork chops! Go to a Latin-American grocery (I know you got 'em in SF) or supermarket in an L-A neighborhood, and buy fresh (raw) carnitas, which is basically the fat sliced off the pork shoulder with a bit of meat attached (this also makes great carnitas, go figure). Sometimes they have just "pork fat", too in case you want to make your own lard. Yay, fat! I'm eating at your house next Thanksgiving...

[jongscx]

If you want to get semi-serious about the whole thing, get one of those huge kitchenaid mixers, and make sure it has the slot for the meat grinder attachment. It's nothing like a real meat grinder, but it will let you grind the meat, mix the meat with whatever you're putting in the sausage (without needing you to immerse your hands in anything to kneed anything), then, you take the blade off and replace the cover a sausage-stuffer-pipe-thingy... we didn't do sausage, but something close... and I tell you, it's a labor saver for the casual stuffer.

[spinach_dip]

yum!