Well, you might think that bratwurst would be the most badly behaved of sausages, but in this instance it has proved to be neither bratty nor the worst, by any means. After struggling, rather, with some of the other Charcutepalooza assignments, the brave Niamh and I had a lot more fun with the emulsified sausage exercise.
Perhaps I had a less fibrous cut of meat; perhaps I chilled it better. Perhaps I simply assembled the stuffer properly. For whatever reason, this time we had no great difficulty using the Waring Pro to stuff the casings. Here was our method: soak the casings for half an hour. Chop the meat into small cubes and pop it into the freezer with spices. Grind twice with the old-fashioned iron hand grinder. Emulsify in a KitchenAid stand mixer (rather against my normal predilections, but we were at Niamh's place, and her cohabitant CJ has attended culinary school).
I also found a different rhythm for feeding the meat into the stuffer (smaller bits at a time, and less plunging down the tube with the pushing tool), while Niamh said she was concentrating more on the meat that was entering the casing than on the casing that was leaving the funnel (if that makes sense). In any case it worked, and if the last Harry Potter movie weren't starting in 26 minutes, I would write more. As it is, I'll simply leave you with Niamh's lovely pictures.
Our hope is to BBQ some tomorrow at the first of the summer family birthdays...
PS: As you will see from the top photo, even Niamh's fridge is stuffed with my jams and pickles. Oh dear. - ed.
Photos by Niamh Malcolm (top) and CJ Cushieri (bottom).
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You sound like you have this technique down pat. Wish you had been around to witness the carnage in my kitchen this round - it was brutal! Your workspace looks so neat!!
ReplyDeleteYes – this time we managed not to end up with the kitchen looking like a crime scene with us as the perps. :)
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