Sausage, Friends, and American Independance

They say one of the things you never want to see is making sausage. I can't understand why. I have made sausage twice now and when you control what you put into it; It is nothing but meat you'd regularly eat. It's easy once you get the hang of it and learn what you are doing, and you can easily add any spices you want and make sausage to your tastes. 

Sure I made mistakes, the first time the meat wasn't nearly frozen enough and so it basically made meat paste it instead of grinding it and the the sausages didn't have the right texture. I also underestimated the spiciness from chili powder and kinda made uncomfortably spicy sausages for some members of my family, I liked it. I have invited Kyle up for American Independence Day to make and eat sausage. Two types of sausages will be eaten: Italian (pictured above), and Gyro.

(please read more after the break.)

General thoughts:

Things I learned; the meat needs to be pretty frosty to grind properly. Taken from my refrigerator and put in my freezer it took 2 hours to get it to grind, and I think that I could have even waited another half hour. I learned not to get it all out at once, it took 10-20 minutes to grind 4 pounds of meat. In 20 minutes the once frosty meat began to soften, so I had to put it back in the freezer. Only getting half out at a time would have been smart. Don't tie the sausage, just leave a tail, this is so that you can fart the sausage later if need be. Don't over stuff it. otherwise when you try to twist it into links you'll pop the sausages.

Italian Sausage:

4 Lbs Pork Shoulder Marinated in Red Wine

1 Tbsp Fennel Seeds

2 Tsp Anise Seeds

1 Tsp Hungarian Paprika

1 Tsp Salt

1 Tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper

10 feet of Sausage Casing

Served with spaghetti and crushed red tomato sauce.

Gyro Sausage:

2 Lbs Ground Lamb

1 Medium Onion

1 Tbsp Minced Garlic

1 Tbsp Dried Marjoram

1 Tbsp Dried Rosemary

2 Tsp Salt

1/2 Tsp Freshly Ground Black Pepper
5 feet of Sausage Casing

Served on pitas w/ dressings and a side of pan fries.

Results:
I liked both sausages and I loved the gyros. Kyle liked the Italian Sausage and no one enjoyed the Gyros. I am not reading into it because they didn't seem to like Gyros in the first place. The gyros sausages were like gyro meat I would make and the sauce was dynamite. The Italian Sausage was fennely and I liked it.