Flavoured Butters are one of the easiest ways of putting flavour onto a dish. I simply can’t think of anything else you can that make that will transform your cooking so quickly and efficiently. Imagine a simple jacket potato lifted by adding cheesy bacon butter. Boring cooked rice given a punch with lime, ginger, chilli, and coriander butter. Or a grilled chicken breast topped with harissa flavoured butter, amazing!
One of my favourite Scottish dishes, Cullen Skink is a rich fish soup with leek and potatoes. The name originates from Cullen a small fishing village on the Northeast coast of Scotland. And the term ‘Skink is derived from the Gaelic for ‘essence’ a good description of the aroma of fishy peat smoke coming from the haddock.
How to Become a Garlic Expert, every time you cook is often a mystery to the British. While other cultures across the world utilise garlic in many forms, we simply push a clove of garlic into a crude metal press and squeeze the life out of the clove into whatever we think will benefit from a hit of flavour. Leaning how to use garlic properly will open up avenue in your cooking.
Have a look at our post, Fantastic garlic and chefs secret, oils for tips on growing your own garlic and how to make herb oils. And if you are looking for a source of garlic try The Garlic Farm on the Isle of White who grow some of the best garlic in Britain.
For centuries garlic has been valued for its culinary and medicinal attributes. There are Biblical references to garlic and in many cultures, garlic was given to provide strength. Garlic was given to the original Olympic athletes in Greece, as perhaps one of the earliest performance enhancing tricks. Can you imagine working out in the gym munching on garlic? You might have the place to yourself.
The romans referred to it as ‘The Stinking Rose’ recognising both its value and pungent smell. But there is far more to garlic and learning how to get the best and most subtle.
Most of the small heads of garlic we get in supermarkets is imported Chinese garlic. Most of it is dried out and has lost its freshness. My advice is to grow your own, its easy and lets you try new varieties. You don’t even need a garden, I grown mine in pots in the polytunnel, but a large window ledge or balcony would be ideal. Plant out the garlic in the winter or early spring to have a crop in spring or early autumn.
There are two types of garlic. Soft neck which is what you will find in the supermarkets and Hard neck, which has a better flavour and if you grow at home provides you with the stem and flower, known as ‘scapes’, to use in addition to the bulb. These are popular in Chinese food stores.
Most chefs will peel garlic by using a cook’s knife. Lay the garlic clove onto the chopping board and place the cook’s knife flat on top of the garlic so it site roughly halfway down the blade. Give the knife a firm tap with the heel of your hand. This will loosen the skin enough, so it almost falls of the clove.
This takes a little practice and some care. If you are not confident working with a large knife, try the same technique using a flat scraper or fish slice instead.
There is a gadget on the market that peels the garlic clove via friction. It is basically rubber tube in which the garlic sits. You then roll the tube across the counter pressing down with the flat of your hand. I have never tried it, but it may be worth a look.
You might think garlic is a bit of a one trick pony but that’s not the case, it has a number of different personalities according to its variety and most important of all how you use it.
When a clove of garlic is crushed in a press or by hand an enzyme in the bulb changes the chemicals in the garlic to produce the pungent aroma, we all know. These enzymes react with oxygen in the air to intensify the flavour. Leaving crushed garlic to stand a few minutes will enhance the flavour to its full potential.
You can of course use a garlic press but it won’t give you the full flavour. It has become very popular to grate garlic into a dish using a very fine microplane grater. I think this is a better option than the press, and a lot easier to clean!
Using your cooks knife peel and chop the garlic. Move the garlic into a small pile towards the front of the chopping board and put a good pinch of sea salt on top of the pile.
Hold the cook’s knife flat on the board and place two fingers of the left hand (assuming you are right-handed) just below the tip of the knife. Place the knife, still held flat onto the garlic using the top third of the knife where the curve is.
Now press down with the two fingers and draw the blade across the pile with a clockwise twisting motion. The pressure of the knife and the grinding of the salt should after a number of passes across the garlic beginning to crush it to a paste. When the process is complete you will have a slightly sticky garlic paste. Not only does the salt help with the crushing, but it also draws the moisture for the garlic developing the flavour.
Black garlic is manufactured by storing heads or cloves of garlic in carefully controlled conditions of temperature and humidity. the pungency of the garlic almost disappears, and the garlic develops flavours of Liquorice and caramel with a sharp finish. Its quite morish and great on sourdough bread as well as been an interesting ingredient. Its well worth trying, the only downside is that it’s too complicated to make at home.
This is a great way of adding a mild, rich flavour of garlic to soups and stews. Its really good on toast as well!
Trim off the tops of the garlic heads to reveal the cloves below Place the cold milk into a pan and add the heads of garlic. Bring the pan to the simmer and allow to cook for one minute., then remove from the heat and let the pan stand for five minutes This will remove some of the strong flavour from the garlic and make it more mellow.
Remove the pan form the heat and drain off the milk them cool the garlic under running water. As the garlic is cooling wash off any scum or fat in the bulbs.
Take some tinfoil and make some double thickness squares of foil, large enough to completely enclose a head of garlic. Place a head of garlic on each square cut side up. Add a pinch of sea salt, then pour a teaspoon of olive oil over the garlic. TIP. If you set the foil into a small bowl, it makes the process a lot less messy.
Wrap each head of garlic in a square of foil, insuring it is well sealed. Then place the garlic parcels on a tray, (cupcake trays work well) and roast in the oven for 45 minutes at 180˚c.
When ready remove from the tray and let cool.
If you want to roast a large volume of garlic, set the blanched heads in an ovenproof casserole.
Add the oil and salt as before, you will need less oil this method. Place a sheet of tinfoil on the pan followed by the lid. This will help seal in the moisture. Cook for roughly 75minutes at 180˚c.
When cooked let the garlic cool in the pot. Remove and store in the fridge. The garlic will keep for a week or so dependent on your fridge.
Confit garlic is a method of cooking and preserving garlic for later use. The long slow cooking mellows the astringency of the garlic. This makes it great for using in hummus, making garlic mash or using in salad dressings.
Pull apart the heads of garlic to produce individual cloves. These is no need to peel the cloves, but you can if you wish. The skin comes off easily once the garlic is cooked.
Place the garlic into a small pan and cover with the olive oil. Don’t use your best quality oil, a mid-range version is fine. Ensure the garlic is covered but don’t swamp the pan, it’s just a waste of oil.
Place the pan over a really low heat. We need to cook the garlic but without letting the pan boil. Ideally You want the oil to be at 90°c and stay there. I think this is best done without a lid on the pan as you can see exactly what’s happening. A probe thermometer is also very useful to be sure the garlic is cooking.
Leave to cook for 30-40 minutes or until the garlic cloves are soft. If the pan starts to simmer remove it from the heat for a while and then return it to keep on cooking.
When the garlic is ready have your sterilised jars on hand then transfer the contents of the pan to the jars. Ensure the garlic is completely covered in oil then secure the lid.
Let the jars cool until you can handle them, then stand them in iced water to cool quickly.
If you are unsure on how to sterilise preserving jars look up our post, Home Preserving, The Golden Rules.
Store the jars in the fridge, where they should be fine for a month, unopened. Always use clean spoons to remove the garlic from the jars to avoid contamination. Do not use and jars which have bubbles of gas forming within them. If you want to store the garlic for longer, Keep in in the freezer for up to six months
And finally. Never put raw garlic into oil to make flavoured oils. Bacteria can form within the oil from the raw garlic, resulting in food poisoning from Botulism Toxins.
Fry sliced garlic with coriander seeds or leaves then spoon over rice.
Fry garlic stems with bacon.
Making garlic mashed potato with new season garlic stems (scapes)
Slicing the garlic without crushing produces a milder more refined flavour great with pasta and olive oil.
Use the garlic whole and cook long and slow and it melt into your stew wrapping the dish with a sweet mellow richness.
Adding an unpeeled clove of garlic to the pan when cooking meats, fish or vegetables will add a scent of garlic to the food been cooked.
Enjoy Life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
Join The ‘Westcoaster Newsletter.
Sign up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at ‘The Westcoaster.’
© Copywrite, John Webber. 2024
One of life’s guilty pleasures has to be a bowl of hot mashed potato. And it is one of the most versatile products that we can use to create a great plate of food. They can be used to form a foundation for the presentation, provide a contrasting texture on the plate, and become ‘a vehicle of flavour’. That is, they become a method of adding a complimentary flavour to a plate. Such as horseradish mash with beef, or saffron mash with fish. In a similar way, they can absorb flavour on a plate such as the gravy of a stew or braise.
These Italian delicate almond cookies with a melt in the mouth centre are usually enjoyed during Christmas time in Tuscany. Try them out as an alternative to or in addition to mince pies when entertaining guest over the holiday.
This Simple Duck Confit is both rustic and refined. The process of curing and cooking the meat in fat produces a flavour unobtainable buy any other method. And I love it! I’m serving the confit with a Lentil, Bacon, and Chestnuts Stew, a great winter warmer.
This method of cooking meat originated with the need to preserve meat before the days of refrigeration. The general method of cooking the meat is similar to Rillettes but in this case the meat is cured then cooked slowly in fat. The cooked meat would have then been stored in jars covered with the cooking fat to exclude the air. This would have allowed the meat to be kept for several months. Of course the whole portioned bird would have been cooked but to day as we have no need to store the meat its generally the legs which are cooked. The breast been fried or roasted. Cooking the meat in this way produces a flavour unobtainable by any other method. And the gentle cooking renders a tender moist meat falling off the bone.
Chop the juniper berries and garlic cloves and add to the salt. Coarsely crush the peppercorns and stir into the salt along with the thyme leaves.
Using a sharp knife, make a cut down to the bone around the ‘ankle’ of each leg and trim off any excess fat. Don’t throw the fat away we will add it to the cooking fat to gain flavour.
Place the legs skin side down in a glass or stainless steel shallow dish and sprinkle with the salt cure. Rub the slat well into the meat using all the cure. Cover the dish and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours and a maximum of 12 hours for the flavours to penetrate the flesh.
Have a look at our Food Files page Astonishing Salt to get a better understanding on how salt works and how to use it.
Remove the legs from the dish, (some brine will have developed around the duck). Brush off the excess cure and rise under running water for 5 seconds, do not leave the legs sitting in water. Dab with a clean towel to remove any traces of moisture.
Set the legs into the casserole and pour the fat over, enough to cover the meat.
Add the thyme and bay leaf, then bruise the garlic with the back of a knife and add to the pan (do not season).
Bring the mixture up to almost a simmer, if the fat gets too hot the meat will start to fry and dry out. Place on the lid and cook in a very low oven for 2 to 3 hours. It’s very difficult to give an exact cooking time according to the thickness of the legs.
When the legs are cooked allow them to cool in the fat. When cool carefully lift the legs from the casserole onto a clean tray. Once completely cold cover and refrigerate until needed, )they should be good for about three to five days in the fridge.
Be sure to keep the cooking fat. Strain it into a heatproof bowl and cool completely. The fat can now be lifted from the meat jelly below and frozen until needed again. its also great for making the best roast potatoes possible. The jelly can also be frozen and used in making stews and sauces. Use it with care as it will be a little salty,
Heat the pan and add the oil. Tip the lardons into the pan and begin to fry. Don’t allow the pan to become too hot and burn the bacon. After 3 – 4 minutes reduce the heat slightly and add the shallots. Peel and slice the garlic and add to the shallots with the diced celery and carrot.
Cook carefully for another 3 minutes or so. Watch out you don’t burn the garlic as it’s a flavour that can’t be masked and will spoil the dish. If you are unlucky enough to burn it – start again, its not worth carrying on! Mix in the tomato puree followed by the stock, and sage, then bring to the simmer.
Rinse the lentils under running water checking from small stones. Add the lentils to the pan mixing well, don’t season yet. Bring the pan to a bear simmer, pop on the lid and cook for 40 minutes. Check the pan every 15 minutes stirring to avoid the lentils sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Turn on the oven and set it at 200˚c – 180˚c fan then remove the cooked duck from the fridge. The knuckle end of the leg should pull off easily due to the cut we made before cooking. This gives a clean end of bone which presents well.
Lay the legs skin side up on a tinfoil lined baking tray with a gap between them. Pop the legs into the oven and cook until heated through (83˚c if you’re using your probe thermometer) and the skin is golden and crispy. When ready brush with runny honey and keep warm
On your last check of the pan, slice the mushrooms and stir into the lentils with half the chopped parsley. When the lentils are cooked pull the pan to one side and heat four deep plates.
Remove the rosemary then ladle the stew between the plates. Place a duck leg on each plate and garnish with chopped parsley.
Enjoy life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
If you enjoyed your visit with us, please subscribe up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at The Westcoaster. Subscribe Here
©John Webber. 2023
These Chocolate Custard Cookies are so easy to make, which is a good job as they don’t last long when people start tucking in. They are great just served as a cookie adults and children both love them.
If you are a lover of long cool drinks, then this is for you. They are easy to make and all you really need is some space to store the gin while it is steeping and the patience not to get stuck in too quickly. I always fill hold of some 250ml bottles to use as Christmas presents, always welcome gifts.
Astonishing Salt, no other ingredient I know has had a greater effect on cooking and the kitchen. We need it to live, but an excess is bad for us and may even kill us!
So why do we have a love affair with salt? And what does it actually do? Read on and I’ll do my best to explain.
Salt has a profound effect on flavour, or what we perceive as flavour.
How may times have you seen somebody receive their food and immediately sprinkle salt over the plate? The perceived wisdom been it will taste better by adding salt. Years ago, this practice led to some restaurants removing the salt and pepper from the tables.
Adding salt during a cooking process allows it to blend and react with the food. Adding salt at the table will allow it to become the dominant flavour. It doesn’t bind the flavours together and can leave a salty aftertaste in the mouth.
As we are programmed to like salt (as we need it to live) salty snacks are addictive. But not that’s not the affect we want from our cooking. Salt can make food taste better. It has the effect of reducing bitterness and enhances both sweet and savoury notes. Let’s have a look at that.
Surprisingly salt also lifts the aroma of food by drawing out more volatile substances into the air. And somehow enhances our sense of smell.
That trick alone is highly valuable to a chef as the aroma of food is one of the greatest assets in a customer’s flavour perception of a dish. Think of the smell of roasting coffee, cooking bacon or the memory of the markets on your last foreign holiday.
Ever wondered why your told to bake bread if you’re trying to sell your house? Or why supermarkets have on site bakeries? Aromas affect our mood and how we feel, and our enjoyment of the world around us.
One of the most useful ways of seasoning with salt is using it to reduce bitterness.
For this to work the salt needs to be taken together with the food. The salt and bitter need to be in contact with your flavour receptors on the tongue at the same time. There are many examples of this.
Some coffee perfectionists will add a tiny amount to the ground coffee before brewing.
The salted rim of a margarita cocktail has the effect of dampening bitter tastes. The rim helps to counteract any bitterness from the orange liqueur or the tequila, which, in turn, enhances both the drink’s sweet and sour notes.
In conjunction with reducing bitterness, salt can increase our perception of sweetness.
If we eat a food that has both bitter and sweet notes our brain will tend to cancel the two out against each other. By adding a little salt (not enough to become dominant) the bitter notes will be held back making the food taste sweeter to our brain.
Try this out on a grapefruit segment or tomato wedge. Add a few grains of salt and they will appear sweeter that they were.
Also known as “iodized salt,” table salt has very fine grains and contains potassium iodide and an anti-caking agent that helps prevent it from clumping. Because the anti-caking agent can give off a metallic taste when used in large quantities, table salt shouldn’t be used in savoury recipes. It can be used when baking, though, because these types of recipes typically only call for small quantities of salt.
Used only for pickling, this coarse salt contains no iodine, minerals, or caking agent.
Curing Salt is also known as Prague Powder, or Pink Salt by butchers. It is a salt used to cure meats while help preserve them and prevent the meat from turning brown. Sodium Nitrate is added to the salt and given a pink colour to identify it from normal salts.
Curing salt is used in the manufacture of hams, bacon and sausages. A variation of curing salt is used in dried meats like Salami.
My personal favourite, and immensely diverse.
Harvested from evaporated sea water, sea salt can be either very or lightly salty tasting, depending on where it’s harvested, so make sure to taste it before using it. Sea salt also contains loads of minerals so it can have an intricate flavour, but since it’s fine or medium grained, it can be used in either savoury or sweet recipes.
These are varieties of salt that have ether additional or added flavours. They are used to compliment or finish a dish by sprinkling on top.
Like U.K. Sea salt this is produced from Atlantic Sea water evaporated from tidal pods on the coast of France.
Often sold as Sel Gris it has a grey colour from the minerals deposited with the salt. Best used as a finishing salt, sprinkled on food.
Red Hawaiian salt is sea salt that is mixed with iron oxide-rich volcanic clay. Its flavour is described as nutty. Its striking red colour makes it perfect for garnishing finished dished.
This salt has a strong earthy flavour produced adding activated charcoal to the natural sea salt.
Smoked salt is made by literally smoking sea salt over hard woods. The longer the smoking process takes, the stronger the flavour and colour will be. Best used to impart a smoky flavour to sauces or just sprinkled on top of the food.
This is a very distinctive salt with the mild sulphurous taste and aroma of cooked eggs. Rock salt is cooked with charcoal, herbs, and seeds for a day.
Can be used in some spice blends and sometimes used in vegan cookery to add the flavour of egg.
This is a very interesting salt. It originates from the Himalayan Mountains in Pakistan where it is mined. It can be used as a seasoning salt, been one of the purest salt available, but is also available in a versatile block form.
A butcher friend of mine lined his cold store with blocks of pink salt. The blocks had the effect of drying out the air in the store to improve the texture of the meat and the salt imparted a subtle flavour into the meat as the exchange took place.
Now that’s not an option at home but its quite possible to cook food directly on a hot block of Himalayan salt. This is a great way of providing entertainment for your guest while creating a unique flavour. If you have a suitable heatproof stand for your salt block this can be done at the table. Letting your guests cook their own food themselves. This is best suited to quick cooking foods such as thinly sliced beef, fish, or shellfish. Avoid meats like chicken and pork for fears of undercooking. And watch out for your smoke alarm!
The first thing to do is heat the salt block. This needs to be slowly done to avoid the block from cracking. Pop the block into a cold oven and set the temperature to about 120˚c.
Turn on the oven and once the temperature is reached keep heating the block for 10minutes. Increase the temperature to 150˚c again for 10 minutes. Finally bring the temperature to 200-220. For a final 10 minutes.
It is possible to heat the block over a gas burner set to a low flame. The block will take a good 20 to 30 minutes to reach a cooking temperature. This can be tricky and needs care not to break the block moving it off the stove. Alternatively try the process on the BBQ were there’s no need to move the salt around.
The food to be cooked needs a light dusting of oil before been placed on the block, DON’T season it!
Shake off any excess oil then lay the food onto the hot block. Don’t move it around, let a crust form and it will not stick to the surface of the block. When watching somebody on a BBQ its common to see them constantly moving the food around. That’s a sure-fire way of making it stick. Leave it alone, watch the heat climb up through the food then turn it once and leave it until its ready.
The block will impart a pleasant salty slightly smoky flavour to the food. Remember the salt block will retain the heat a lot longer than a pan. Let the block cool naturally, before storing.
When working with stews and sauces add a little salt at the start of cooking. This gives time for the salt to interreact with the flavours in the food.
Add salt to the cooking water of green vegetables apart from peas and beans. The salt will increase the boiling point of the water helping keep the colour. But in the case of peas and broad beans the salt will toughen the sin of the vegetable.
Always, always, taste the food before finishing with salt.
When cooking pasta add a generous pinch of salt to the water as it boils. The salt in the water will season the pasta. Remember to use the cooking water in your pasta sauce if its needs thinning out.
Cake batters, biscuits and doughs benefit from a pinch of salt added to them.
Salt is essential for making bread but remember to keep it away from the yeast. Direct contact with salt will kill the yeast.
Never expose the surface of raw meat or fish to salt for any length of time unless you intend to cure the product. The salt will toughen the surface of the protein and begin to remove natural juices from the food.
The desiccating effect of salt can be useful in removing the bitterness from vegetables like aubergine and courgettes. Light sprinkle the cut surface of the vegetables with salt and leave for 10 minutes. Rinse off the salt and dry the vegetables before cooking.
TIP. A mixture of salt and sugar is very effective for this procedure.
Use a pinch of salt to crush garlic. This is the chef’s way of crushing garlic. Chop the garlic add a good pinch of salt then use the side of the knife to grind the garlic in the salt. Not only does this make a smooth paste of the garlic but also extracts more flavour out of the bulb.
Enjoy Life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
If you enjoyed your visit with us, please subscribe up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at The Westcoaster. Subscribe Here
©John Webber. 2023
Baking your own Bread at home can be a puzzle, let us help you answer your questions. All you need to know to bake great bread at home is here.
These Buttermilk Bread Rolls will really impress your dinner party guests. They go well with most starters that don’t require crispy rolls served alongside.
Learning How to Make Your Own Pork Sausages at Home is great fun. Sausages are one of the most flexible foods we have available to us. Whether it’s a comforting plate of bangers and mash, fending off the cold weather. A quick buttered sausage roll as a snack, or the compulsory BBQ sausage, it’s a year – round, go to treat.
Most people will have a favourite sausage, British or continental. I’ve lost track on how many different types and flavours are available to us today. However, variety is one thing, quality is another, so read on!
Well apart from any flavourings you want to add, Meat! The problem can be deciding on what is meat. Meat in its natural form has fat, and fat is important to the eating quality of our sausage. Just enough will provide flavour and moisture. Too much and a greasy feel will be left in the mouth. Too little and the sausage will be dry and tough.
Fat also adds flavour. In fact, it adds flavour to most things. As the fat dissolves on your tongue, it transmits the flavour of your food to the tastebuds. This enhances the experience of eating the food and something we are hard-wired into enjoying.
Whatever meat you are using Beef, Pork, lamb, Venison etc the fat is important. For beef sausages suet fat is ideal. For all the others I would stick to pork fat.
Don’t be afraid of fat but do control it. Perhaps one rainy afternoon ill draft out a Food Files page on fats to help everybody understand how they work.
There is one rule I like to apply here. Never Trust a Straight Sausage!
There are basically two main types of casing, natural and synthetic.
Natural casings are from the intestines of animals. They will be irregular in diameter according to how far down the gut then are obtained from. This provides sized from a chipolata right up to a salami size. The animal they are taken from will dictate the thickness and strength of the casing. Pork casings are relatively strong and a good size for most uses. lamb casing are more fragile and are smaller in diameter.
Commonly the casings are preserved in salt and need to be soaked and washed before filling. If your local butcher makes their own sausages, they can help you or have a look online. As you will know the intestines are coiled around inside the carcase. This gives the sausage its curved appearance. A sure sign it’s a natural sausage.
Synthetic casings for edible sausages are manufactured from animal collagen. Personally, I don’t like the feel of them in the mouth. Some smoked and cured sausages intended as charcutier have plastic cases which are not edible.
If all else fails, you can from the meat into patties coat them in four and fry. To go one stage further egg and breadcrumb the patties. Cook slowly in butter so the meat cooks though without the coating burning.
You don’t need fancy, expensive equipment to make your own sausages. A tabletop hand mincer is fine (although hard work) and I filled my first sausages using a cut off plastic funnel and piping bag.
A mincer attachment for your food mixer is a good choice. If you really get into it a small electric mincer can be bought for not too much money.
The key thing is to ensure the blade is sharp and you have the right size of mincer plate fitted.
It’s best not to use frozen meat if you can as it doesn’t bind together as well as fresh, Cut the meat and fat into cubes no larger than 2cm and keep the meat in the fridge before mincing.
Chefs will often put the mincer in the fridge or freezer before use to stop the meat from heating up due to friction in the mincer. This also helps with the shelf life of the sausages’.
Its not a bad idea to fry a small patty of the filling before filling the casings. This allows you to check the seasoning before committing to moving on to the filling stage.
Put the mustard seeds in a small dish and pour over the white wine. Cover and leave overnight for the seeds to soften.
Pour the milk onto a small bowl and add the bread. Leave to soak for five minutes.
Take the meats and remove any sinew. Cut the meats and fat into roughly 2cm cubes and mix together in a bowl.
Lift the bread from the milk and squeeze out the excess liquid to form a wet ball. Add the bread to the meat and discard the milk.
Add the mustard seeds and wine together with the rest of the seasonings and mix well.
Fit a 6mm sized plate to the mincer then pass all the mixture through the mincer back into the bowl.
Return half of the mix to the mincer and re-mince once more back into the bowl.
Take a sturdy spoon and begin the mix the coarse and fine mixtures together. Don’t be afraid to give the mixture a good basing about as this helps the meats bind together.
Butchers commonly add water into the filling while mixing. This arguably adds moisture to the filling making the sausage juicer. Ever noticed all that gunk coming out of shop-bought sausages as you cook them? And I’m sure all that free weight helps with the profits. If you do want to try for a moister filling just add two or three tablespoons of water in as you beat the mix.
That it! You’re all ready to go to the filling stage.
Take some of the casings out of the container and shake off any excess salt. Wash the casings under running water for a moment then place in a bowl of cold water to soak for twenty minutes.
To fill the sausage casings with a piping bag, spoon the sausage meat into a large piping bag fitted with the widest plain plastic nozzle. I have used the cut off tube of a plastic funnel in the past, with some success.
Rinse the casings in cold water and roll the open end over the nozzle, like putting on a stocking! Hold the first 2 inches of the casing closed and squeeze the filling into the casing to form the first sausage, easing the casing from the nozzle as it fills. Stop when the sausage is big enough and twist gently before filling the next one. Tie the loose end of the casing on the first sausage. Continue until all the filling is used up. If you like, tie the sausages at intervals between the links with fine string then cut into individual sausages.
If you are lucky enough to have a sausage filling attachment for your mincer it’s the same idea. Roll the washed casing onto the filling tube Then load the hopper with the sausage meat. Pull about 8cm of casing down the tube so it’s hanging off the end then slowly start the mincer until the filling appears at the end of the tube.
Stop the mincer then tie off the loose casing tight to the filling. This method will stop air been forced into the casing as the filling begins. Restart the mincer slowly keeping a steady flow of filling coming down the tube been careful not to over fill the casing. A little slack on the skins if fine. Stop filling well before the casing runs out as you will need spare casing available to form the sausages.
Decide how long you want your sausages to be, then starting at the knotted end pinch the casing at the desired length to force the meat back down the casing then twist the casing together to form a seal. Again, just as when we filed the sausages make sure the casing is not too stretched or it may break when cooked. Keep going until you have formed all the sausages and repeat the process until all the filling is used.
There will still be an amount of good meat trapped in the body of the mincer. To avoid wasting this put a slice of bread through the mincer at the end and the meat will be pushed through. Any bread can be pushed back out of the casing before the sausages are formed.
You can also obtain a sausage press which resembles a big syringe clamped to the table. You simply fill the body of the press with the sausage meat. Clamp on the front and proceed as described above.
If you are using a hand powered mincer or a press a second pair of hands is great help. Otherwise, it’s difficult to control the sausage casing and work the press/mincer at the same time.
The purpose of the sausage casings is not just to make a pleasing shape but also to holds in moisture. If you prick your sausages the moisture will escape leaving you with a dry shrivelled up result.
If you’re having problems with the sausages bursting. It’s possible you have over filled the casings putting too much stress on the skin. The most common cause of bursting is simply cooking too quickly.
Whether you’re grilling, frying, or barbequing your sausages the process is the same.
Take the sausages out of the fridge before cooking to let them warm a little. Start the cooking briefly over a highish heat to set the skins then reduce the heat until cooked through. If you’re not happy with the colour a quick blast over a higher heat will do the trick.
It takes time for the heat to penetrate through the meat. Unlike a steak the surface won’t caramelise and gain flavour. It just burns, think of the classic BBQ burnt sausages and you will know what I mean.
If you’re grilling or barbequing rub the skins with a little oil before cooking.
Some varieties of sausage are gently poached, then stored prior to grilling. But for our home-made sausage grill or fry directly from raw.
As sausages are a processed meat, they must be cooked all the way though before eating. I always recommend a probe thermometer when cooking. Ensure the centre of the sausage has reached 73ºc to be certain they are cooked.
One of the big differences between shop bought and home made is the lack of preservatives.
Use the freshest meat possible and don’t leave it hanging around at room temperature. Keep your equipment as cool as possible and wear disposable gloves when handling meat.
I would aim to use my fresh sausages on the day or the day after making. If that’s a problem, freeze the sausages as soon as they are made. Its best to freeze them separated on a paper lined tray, then transfer them to a bag when solid.
They should keep up to three months in a good freezer. But make sure they are thoroughly defrosted before cooking.
While I wouldn’t say definitely not, its not ideal. The mincer is not a violent as the processer and breaks the tissues down better. If a processer is your only possibility process the meat in small batches using the pulse control. Don’t overdo it remember the meat is meant to be chopped not pureed. The sharper the blade the better to result.
Curing Salt is also known as Prague Powder, or Pink Salt by butchers. It is a salt used to cure meats while help preserve them and prevent the meat from turning brown. Sodium Nitrate is added to the salt and given a pink colour to identify it from normal salts.
Curing salt is used in the manufacture of hams, bacon and sausages. A variation of curing salt is used in dried meats like Salami.
You can find the casings available online. However, if you want the fillings can be formed into sausage shapes using wet hands. Chill the shapes in the fridge to firm them up then coat then in flour, egg, and dry breadcrumbs. Fry the sausages gently in butter, insuring they are cooked through.
Enjoy Life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
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Homemade Focaccia bread is a joy and very versatile. It’s sure to become a family favourite, and a great accompaniment to a BBQ or picnic.
Rich, and delicious, Walnut Bread is a perfect bread to serve with cheese at a casual lunch. Or as part of a dinner party meal. Savoury yet sweet it’s very moreish and is just as good lightly toasted and served with butter.