Homemade Sausage Making

Hi all - I made some souse.

I started with half a pig head.

I boiled the head along with the other meats/organs till the meat fell off the bones, separated the meat and chilled the broth. Then I scraped the fat off the chilled, gelatinized broth, and added in:

Chopped head meat
Chopped heart
Sliced ear
Sliced stomach
A tail

As in the recipe, I added:
5% vinegar
Salt and coarsely ground pepper to taste
1/2 tsp caraway
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp marjoram
1/2 tsp granulated garlic

Poured hot into a glass bread pan, let cool on the counter, then chilled overnight.

It tastes fantastic! I like the vinegar taste, which is not too strong, combined with the bit of heat from the pepper flakes, and of course the caraway, which is there but not too pronounced. Next time, I will use half a head plus one trotter, so I can slice it more thinly.



Cheers,
Jeff

Looks delicious!

Hi Jeff,
Just the way I like it with the vinegar addition. I also put in a couple of Polish gherkins chopped up lenght wise and now I also add some chopped capsicum for colour.
These actually are in vinegar already and a nice addition.
A company just up the road from me makes them on a commercial scale, they also use the trotters, but reduce the broth and still add gelatin for a predictable consistency every time.
They even make a hot garlic variety by adding hot paprika powder to the gelatin.
It is sold over the counter there, sliced 1/16 to 3/16"thick.
I always buy the hot paprika variety when I go past, the car turns automatically in their parking area.
Thank you for posting these great pictures.
Cheers,
Jan

Jeff, that souce does look like it's packed with flavour and something that I sure could sink my teeth into! I'm currently in Colombia, a fascinating place but the food here is, for the most part, unimaginative and bland. Some sort of headcheese is way up there on my list of things to make when I get home in a couple of weeks.

That looks great.

Hey, hey, Cabonia! It looks terrific. Just like you, I have to put vinegar on mine. Keep up the good work. My ol' pappy would have liked a truckload of this stuff.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Oh and I forgot to add - can't beat it with some sweet mustard. The spice, vinegar, tart/sweet mustard, herbs and garlic together get all your taste buds singing.

Crusty - Nice idea about the gherkins and colored peppers - I will do that! I did put some stuffed green olives in this, but they don't show in the picture. It really is a kitchen sink kind of product. Couldn't be anything easier to make.

I had to freeze most of it before leaving on a trip. I hope it survives that treatment.

I'll say another thing about boiling a pig's head - you get the best broth you have ever tasted. There is always some left over after making what you're making.

Next up, I want to make some scrapple. I never knew what scrapple was, except that there was this Charlie Parker tune, "Scrapple from the Apple" that I liked. So one day I walked into an A&P in Chestertown, Maryland and there in the meat case was... scrapple! So I took some home and tried it, and found out what Mr. Parker was blowing his sax about.