Charcuterie_ The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing - Michael Ruhlman [48]
• DEXTROSE: A type of refined corn sugar. Its flavor is not overly sweet and, in fermented sausages, it’s the perfect food for lactic bacteria to feed on (for more on this, see page 179).
• STARTER CULTURES: Starter cultures, such as Bactoferm F-RM-52 (see Sources, page 301), are a live bacteria that feeds on sugar and produces acid, sometimes added to dry-cured sausages to lower the pH by generating acid. This reaction results in an environment in the sausage that prevents the growth of unwanted microorganisms and gives the finished sausage a delicious tanginess found in Old World–style dried sausages.
• FERMENTO: A dairy-based flavoring, used to imitate a fermented flavor (see Sources, page 301).
Fresh Sausage
Fresh sausage means meat ground with seasonings, cooked, and eaten hot. It’s not much more complicated than that, but even with fresh sausage, a few issues of technique must be respected in order to achieve a superlative sausage.
Basic Fresh Sausage Technique
SPECIAL TOOLS
Having the right tools makes the work easier. These help considerably:
Scale
Meat grinder (we use a 5- or 6-quart KitchenAid mixer with a meat grinder attachment, as well as the paddle attachment)
Sausage stuffer
Sausage casings
Instant-read thermometer
SEASONING
Use fresh ingredients. That applies to dried herbs too when a recipe calls for them: the marjoram that’s in the spice rack you got as a wedding gift ten years ago will taste like what it is, old dried leaves.
As a rule, it’s best to cut your meat and fat into cubes (a dice small enough to fall through the feed tube of your grinder—you shouldn’t need to mash the pieces through) and combine them with your seasonings a few hours, or as much as a day, before grinding. Seasoning any meat in advance almost always improves it, and salting early also encourages a uniform distribution of the seasonings. Salting pork ahead of time is especially effective, no matter what cut or what you’re using it for.
Kosher salt is the most important seasoning in your kitchen, and in any sausage. As a rule, Brian and I use 1⁄3 ounce/10 grams of kosher salt per 1 pound/450 grams of meat and fat. Most of the recipes in this chapter are for five pounds of meat, requiring 11⁄2 ounces/40 grams of salt (about 3 tablespoons Morton’s kosher salt, see page 38). But salt tolerances differ. Start with this ratio, and add or scale back according to your tastes. (Remember, too, that different brands of salt have different densities, so be careful if you’re measuring salt by volume—that is, with a measuring spoon—rather than by weight; see page 28.)
After salt, other seasonings are a matter of taste. Just about anything goes, which is another reason sausage making is fun. If you like an aromatic sausage, add a generous amount of fresh herbs. Cooked diced vegetables, such as onion or roasted red pepper, can be another excellent addition. If you like heat and spice, add dried ground chile peppers and ground toasted coriander seed.
If you’re inventing your own sausage, stick to pairings you know work no matter what the form. You wouldn’t season a leg of lamb with fresh dill; likewise, you wouldn’t make a lamb and dill sausage. But rosemary and garlic go great with leg of lamb; they’ll do the same with a lamb sausage. Want to make an Asian-flavored sausage? Season it with garlic, scallions, and ginger. You could stuff that mixture into a casing for a sausage or wrap dough around it for a potsticker. You like the flavors associated with the Southwest? Try adding minced chipotle chiles and lime zest and, just before mixing, kernels of fresh corn. In fresh sausage making, once you understand the ratios, you’re limited only by your imagination.
KEEPING YOUR MEAT COLD
It’s very important to keep your meat as cold as possible during the sausage-making process. Sausage that gets too warm can “break,” meaning the