Sausages

[Dene]

Anyone have a recipe for beef, pork or lamb sausages?
Dene

[cathy79]

Dene, these are on my list of things to try from a new cookbook I bought recently (non TMX). 

500g beef mince
1/4 cup grated zucchini
1/4 cup grated sweet potato or pumpkin
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons tomato sauce
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 180deg and line a large baking tray with non-stick baking paper.
Combine all ingredients in a bolw, then divide the mixture into desired portions and roll into sausage shapes.
Place the saugsages onto the prepared tray and bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked through.

To freeze, roll the mixture into sausage shapes as directed, and then separate the sausages with some baking paper so that you can just defrost one or two sausages at a time as you need them.

Makes 20 small or 10 medium sausages.

From Feeding Fussy Kids by Julie Maree Wood
There's also a chicken sausage recipe.

Please let me know what you think of them.  Look forward to your conversion.

[judydawn]

I look forward to it too Cathy and more importantly, how they taste.  DH does like his sausage but I stand there looking at all the different sausages, reading the fat content and end up buying the lowest fat ones (pork) every time.  Not the tastiest sausage in the world so would love a nice tasty, home- made sausage that I know exactly what is in it. The fat content of chicken sausages means I never buy them.

[achookwoman]

JD,  most of the sausages from the butcher and supermarket are made with a premix which the butcher mixes in with the meat that he minces.  A good sausage must have a fair bit of fat as this provides a fair bit of the flavor.   A friend and I make sausages about once a year,  it takes us a full day as we mince the meat in a mincer and add whatever flavor we like.We use cleaned pig gut for the skins.   The mix that the butcher buys has preservative in it , I have a reaction to this so can't eat bought sausages.  I wouldn't make sausages in the TMX as the texture wouldn't be right.  ( I'm a bit fussy about this kind of thing.)  I have kept my Kenwood because it takes the sausage making attachment.  I suspect that the chicken sausages are fatty because they mince the skin in with the meat.
Cathy79 recipe looks pretty good and would be worth a try.  I think the zucchini would keep them moist. You could add an egg to the mix.

[judydawn]

Chookie, what a clever lady you are.  I am such a fusspot about fat on my meat, any meat yet I will eat a BBQ sausage at someone elses place and thoroughly enjoy it. That is until I come across a piece of gristle.  I did buy some low fat beef sausages once but they were so hard I never did that again.  DH was a butcher in his working days and tells me I wouldn't eat sausages or fritz (think you Victorians call it devon?) if I saw it being made.

[achookwoman]

JD my dad was a butcher and he would agree with your DH.  He was very fussy about what he bought and sold.  Top quality and top price.

[Thermomixer]

Hi Dene - are you planning on stuffing sausages ?  I have recipes, but not converted as yet.

For me, the texture from mincing with the Kitchen Aid attachment is preferable to TMX - but it works in TMX.

[cookie1]

Judy you sound like me with sausages. I hardly ever buy them because of the fat, and then when I find some nice ones they have gristle in and that puts me off. DH says I am too fussy.

[judydawn]

Nice to know I am not alone on this issue Cookie   

[DizzyGirl]

My lovely local butcher makes preservative and gluten free sausages. We have been eating these for over a year now and the are much lower in fat.

Last weekend we went to a BBQ at a friends place and took our own sausages, but they were eaten up quickly and DH missed out and had to eat the sausages the host had. The next morning he commented on how terrible they were, full of fat and gristle, and told me to keep buying the preservative gluten free ones and they are a lot nicer. Only problem is they have no binding mix in them so fall apart easily and turned my curried sausages into curried mince. Still tasted good though. I think I will have to add the steamed sausages at last moment just to stir them in the curry mixture.

A good sausage is worth more than ten bad ones.

DG 

[andiesenji]

I make sausage for patties with oatmeal as a binder.    (I don't use a binder if the sausage is going into a casing.)
I don't use rolled oats as these are usually processed on machines that also process wheat so there can be residual gluten.

Pinhead or steel cut oats are processed on machinery dedicated to these products and are less likely to have even trace amounts of wheat.  You can grind these dry in the TMX - I use my Vita Mix.

Some people use barley but it does contain gluten so is to be avoided.

I've also used millet - it is not quite as sticky as the oatmeal but it will work as a binder.

I can't give specific amounts because it varies because of the different percentages of fat in the meats and if anything else is included.

I grind the meat, mix in the seasonings  and then gradually add in the binder - whether oatmeal or millet - mix well and add more if needed.
Sometimes it adds up to about 1/6 the volume of the meat, sometimes less.  If the meat is especially fatty, it takes more or if other ingredients contain moisture.  (I make a turkey/cranberry/applle sausage that takes a lot of binder.)

I will then make a patty and fry it to see how well it hangs together.