I have always been mesmerized by the Italian Delicatessen. There is something magical about the sights, sounds and smells of what we Italians call "tutta roba buona" or all the good stuff. The good stuff of course being cured meats, aged cheeses, fresh bread, fresh pasta and of course fresh Italian Sausage. Almost every deli offers a variety of Italian Sausage in the traditional categories of Mild, Sweet and Spicy each purported to hail from a recipe dating back generations.
A big part of my food journey is to learn and perfect traditional artisan methods of preparing foods such as Italian Sausage. I started making sausage a few years ago and have several iterations of fine tuning the recipe that I will share below. If after reading this you do decide to embark on this noble journey of sausage making do yourself a favor and take good tasting notes on each batch. Use these notes (Not spicy enough, too salty, not enough fennel etc) to tweak the recipe until it suits your taste. Once you have a couple batches under your belt, you will have the skills to venture into other types of sausage making (Bratwurst, Knockwurst, Linguisa, Chorizo, Andouille)
The Gear:
In addition to standard kitchen tools, you will need a meat grinder and a sausage stuffer. There are many options out there that range from hand crank to standalone machines. What I use is a attachment to my kitchen aid mixer. Its inexpensive (around $40.00) and gets the job done.
If you don't already have a kitchen aid mixer, an alternative would be this Cabela's entry level grinder stuffer. They run about $179.00
Sanitization and Food Safety
Needless to say, you will be working with raw meat. Keep the meat cold as you work on it. Pull it out of the fridge in small batches and rotate freshly ground batches or freshly stuffed coils / links back into the fridge. Once the coils or links are stuffed, freeze anything that you don't plan on using in the next couple of days. (Wrap tightly in plastic coated freezer paper)
Wash anything that touches the meat thoroughly with hot soapy water. This includes the machine parts as well as any bowls, spoons, knifes, cookie sheets that will come in contact with the meat. Clean everything between batches, don't let ground meat sit in the grinder / stuffer for more than 15 minutes. If you do, don't panic, just disassemble the grinder / stuffer discard the standing meat, and clean the machine parts. (This takes less than 5 minutes).
Wear food grade gloves when handling the meat and when handling the sausage casings, links / coils. Be careful not to cross - contaminate by touching unsanitized areas and then touching the meat. Gloves are cheap, if you need to take a quick break to grab a beer out of the cooler, throw the gloves away, get your beer, then put on a fresh set.
Meat Selection
Italian Sausage is made from pork. While any cuts of pork can be used, I typically use a pork roast known as pork butt (which comes from the shoulder of the pig). If you have ever had a pulled pork sandwich, you have had pork butt. Pork butts typically range in size from 6 to 10 pounds. Try to get them boneless if possible, that speeds up your sausage making time. I find that the pork butt has the right fat to meat ratio that makes a consistently juicy link. Using leaner cuts of pork will yield dry sausage unless you supplement the grind with additional pork fat. (You can buy pork fat from your local butcher)
The Casings
I use natural hog casings, there are other alternatives including collagen casings but I have not used them. I get the casings from Amazon, they come vacuum packed in salt.
Twelve Spices
Yes, you read that one right. This recipe uses ten spices for the Sweet recipe and twelve spices for the spicy recipe. you can get everything at your local grocery store but consider buying some of the more expensive ingredients in bulk. (Fennel See, Anise Seed, Dried Basil)
Ingredients
I list two sets of ingredients below, one for "Sweet" Italian Sausage, the other for "Spicy" Italian Sausage. The ingredients are PER POUND of ground meat. If you are doing 5 pounds, multiply each ingredient by 5.
Instructions
Clean and sanitize work surfaces, utensils, grinder and anything that will touch the meat.
Cube pork roast into small enough pieces to fit into your grinder chute.
Install the course grind blade and grind up all of the pork.
Spices come next, if you are making multiple batches (spicy, hot etc) refrigerate the ground pork for the second batch until you are ready to add spices. The common theme here is to keep the meat as cold as possible to avoid any bacteria and contamination.
Remove casings from packaging and soak in a bowl of fresh water while you are performing the next step.
Pour ground pork into a large cookie sheet or baking dish and evenly sprinkle the spices on the ground pork. With gloved hands (See food safety above) gently work in all the spices until spices are distributed uniformly. Give yourself about 10 minutes to work the spices through the meat.
We are ready to stuff the sausages !!!
Clean and sanitize your grinder / stuffer and switch out the grinding attachments for the stuffing attachments. Stuffers usually come with two stuffing pipes. The smaller one is for small links (breakfast sausages) you will want to use the bigger pipe.
Carefully remove a casing from the water bowl / plastic ring and run clean cold water through it for 30 seconds. Gently squeeze any water out of the casing.
Wet the stuffing pipe with water and gently feed the casing over the pipe. Tie a knot in the end of the casing and poke a small hole in the end with a pin or needle to allow air to escape during the stuffing process.
Feed the seasoned ground pork into the stuffer, and gently guide the stuffed casings down to a sanitized cookie sheet as they come out of the stuffer. You might need to experiment with different speed settings to make sure they are not filling too fast (which makes them difficult to handle). Also consider a helper for this part of the process. One to fill the stuffer, one to guide the stuffed sausage.
Once the coil is almost stuffed (about 5 inches remaining) turn off the stuffer, remove the casing from the stuffer and tie a knot in the end and trim the excess beyond the knot.
At this point you can leave the sausage in coils or gently twist the coils into uniform links.
Refrigerate what you will use in the next 2 or 3 days, freeze the rest wrapped in freezer paper.