- Preparation time: 3 days.
- Quantity: 4 loaves of 300 g.
Required Ingredients
To make your own delicious sausage at home, you only need a few ingredients:
- pork neck – 1.5 kg;
- fresh garlic - 2 cloves;
- bay leaf – 1 large or 2 small;
- table salt – 30 g (for 1 kg of pork you need 20 g of salt);
- spices optional (black pepper, coriander).
Necessary equipment
If you are making sausage for the first time and think that it is very difficult, you are mistaken. To prepare it you will need the simplest equipment:
- wooden board for cutting meat;
- large sharp knife;
- a bowl with a volume of at least 2 liters;
- cling film;
- sleeve for baking;
- blender (or meat grinder);
- scissors;
- small saucepan;
- baking tray;
- aluminium foil.
Step-by-step cooking process
When choosing meat for homemade sausage, it is better to take not a lean piece, but one with fatty layers. Then it will come out juicy and tasty.Before cooking, wash the meat well under cold water and dry it. Then cut into plates 1 cm thick.
Each plate is cut into thin strips. Moreover, we will not cut the strips into cubes in the future. Let's leave it exactly like this. During the formation of the sausage, they will intertwine with each other, giving a characteristic pattern.
When all the meat is cut into strips, it is placed in a bowl for marinating. To do this, you need to measure out the salt and spices, and finely chop the garlic. So that it imparts all its flavor to the meat, it is crushed with the flat side of a knife and then chopped.
All components of the marinade, including bay leaf, are distributed on top of the sliced meat. Mix thoroughly with your hands until the salt and spices are distributed throughout the entire volume.
Cover the bowl with cling film and put it in the refrigerator to marinate. If time permits, it is better to spend about two days for this procedure. If you don’t have that much time, then 12 hours is enough.
After removing the film from the bowl, mix the meat again. In this case, parts of the bay leaf are removed. They should not get into the sausage during shaping. The third part of the minced meat is separated, transferred to a blender or meat grinder and chopped. Then add to the meat and mix well. The combination of strips and fine minced meat will achieve a uniform, dense texture.
The minced meat, kneaded until smooth, is visually divided into 4 parts. A loaf is formed from each. Simply molding minced meat into the shape of a sausage is not enough. Each part must be beaten on the board, spanked with your palms to compress all the pieces and expel air bubbles.
You will need a regular baking sleeve as a shell. It is cut to the size of the loaves with an allowance for curling. You should get 4 pieces 20–25 cm long.The ties can be cut from the same sleeve.
The spanked loaf is placed in a section of the baking sleeve. Place it on one side, moving it with the edge of your palm so that the workpiece fits tightly to the polyethylene. Roll it up like a candy and tie the ends tightly.
When all the loaves are tightly packed into the baking sleeve, the pieces are put back into the refrigerator. They must continue the fermentation process for another 24 hours.
You can prepare sausage in several ways: boil or bake in the oven. It's better to try two methods as the taste is slightly different. The semi-finished product needs to be cooked for two and a half hours at low temperature (not higher than 80 degrees).
When the cooking time has come to an end, you need to prepare a container of ice water. As soon as the sausage is removed from the oven or hot (brought to a boil, but not bubbling) water, it is immediately dipped into water. This way the heat treatment process is quickly completed, and the sausage becomes not gray, but a beautiful pink color.
When the loaves have cooled in water, remove the PVC film from them, put them on a plate and put them in the refrigerator for several hours until completely compacted. Then cut with a sharp knife and serve.
