In article >,
Bob Terwilliger > wrote:
>Charlotte wrote:
>
>> I have some sausages in the freezer (some that I made myself at the
>> Fatted Calf, some that I bought at Boccalone at the Ferry Building last
>> time I was in SF) that will probably be added to this before I'm finished
>> eating it.
>>
>> (The rest are going in sausage, white bean, and greens soup. I got kale
>> in my farm box.)
>
>That reminds me: On Sunday, I made a kind of pseudo-Vietnamese sausage using
>the meat from a bunch of boneless chicken thighs, Maggi sauce, red pepper
>flakes, garlic, and salt. Yesterday I made a big (about 10-inch) patty out
>of it, cooked it like a burger, then broke it up and cooked it with choy sum
>(a kind of flowering Chinese cabbage) and a julienned red bell pepper.
>Toward the end of cooking, I thickened the mixture with a cornstarch slurry.
>
>I was *very* happy with the way the sausage turned out, and I've still got a
>lot of it in the refrigerator. I think my next use for it will be on a
>toasted baguette with pickled kale, cherry peppers, and sliced tomato. (Lin
>bought some hothouse heirloom tomatoes which are ugly but tasty.)

Bahn mi! Bahn mi!!

Did you add any fat to it or just use what was in the thighs?

>Could you please amplify about the sausages you made at the Fatted Calf?

Sure.

It was a part of their Whole Hog butchery class. When we arrived there
were two halves of a roasting-size pig on the counters. IIRC Taylor said
that it had weighed about 100# and they usually bought bigger pigs for
Fatted Calf use, but this was a good size pig for training purposes.

We got the basic info on pig parts and then Taylor got out his saw and cut
it into head, shoulder, belly, and leg. He started with some of the
deboning of various parts and turned the rest over to the class (including
the second half of the pig).

The pork shoulder got cut into chunks and turned into sausage. We got
basic sausage info, such as "about a quarter fat is good", and best cuts
to use. Shoulder has about the right ratio to start.

And, of course, the importance of frying yourself up a test patty to check
seasonings.

At FC, they usually crank all the sausage out on one day of the week,
usually Thursdays; they have a lot of equipment and it all needs to be
cleaned, so they just run everything through, from mildest to spiciest.
Here's what we made:

1) Bangers (they had a panade ready for us)
2) Garlic sausage
3) Bordelaise - cooked-down red wine, garlic, spices*
4) Pimenton and olives

* this batch had been marinated in the walk-in, so the pig we cut up was
not a part of it.

They have an industrial strength meat grinder. It was a joy to see it
work. Several attendees recalled their grandpops who had hand-crank
grinders and strong upper arms, and I got to make my standard joke about
my vision of the Foodie Diet: you can eat ANYTHING you want as long as
you have produced it BY HAND (no motorized machines). (Why, yes, I
originally did make mayonnaise by whisking it. I should probably try it
again to work on my bingo wings.)

Once the bangers were ready to be cased, we got introduced to both casings
and the stuffing equipment. And once we had the first coil of sausage,
Taylor demonstrated how to make links by twirling the casing around in
alternate directions. (you need to leave slack in the casing)

The bangers simmered in the big pot as we dealt with the other sausages.
The pimenton-and-olive got made into crepinettes - we made patties and
then carefully stretched out caul fat to cover them.

We had an awesome porchetta for lunch (we learned that porchetta is the
midsection of the pig, completely deboned but with skin on, and rolled
around something - lunch was in the oven when we arrived, so it wasn't
from the pigs we deboned) and got bags containing bangers, garlic sausage,
and crepinettes, which the FC employees had wrapped up for us, when we
left.

All in all, a great day!

I'm seeing if I've got any room in my budget for the Self-Preservation
class so I can try my hand at Makin' Bacon.

Charlotte
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