Homemade Sausage Making

Yikes! That crafty ol' cat... err...uhhh.... Duck (El Duck-O) down in Texas, has kindly agreed to post his excellent information and recipes about chorizo sausage. The Duck is an expert with chorizo and instead of publishing his material as a book, he's agreed to post it right here on our site. Russ has been all over the globe gathering material for his book on chorizo and other recipes. We're going to call his project the "Chorizo Corner" and it can be found in the "Recipes Around The World" forum in the "sticky" section at the top of the page. It's going to be a "locked" topic, so you'll have to post your comments to him right here in Hyde Park. Russ is posting a chapter at a time. Just wait until you see the table of contents. His knowledge of this sausage is just incredible so be sure to check it out. Thanks Russ, for sharing with all your fellow members on Wedliny Domowe! Here's a quick link: http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.php?t=5873

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

Hey, Ducky aka Russ, This work that you are so generous to publish here is a grand addition the the collective knowledge in the world of sausage making. Your writing style is excellent and I will anticipate each new chapter with the enthusiasm of a child waiting for a party. Thank you for sharing this so freely.

(Blush) You folks are all too kind. (...or is it, "all kind of..." No! Wait!) But seriously, thanks for the kind remarks, and please wade through this stuff to catch errors, especially in recipe quantities or omissions. I look forward to your comments and the results of your own experiments. Whenever you find or, better, whenever you develop a new or better recipe, please share it.

I was a chemical engineer for forty-some-odd years (many of 'em pretty odd), and served several stints in research and development. I learned that you have to keep good notes above all, and that things have to make sense statistically, and that knowledge which is not shared is wasted. ...so, let's all share. (...and eat well in the process.)

Best regards, and keep up the delicious work.

"el Ducko"

Thank you. I've book marked this and will am anxiously awaiting the time when I have time to give it some serious study. Oh, and I do intend to perform some trials.

My dear sweet Nancy wants to know why when I have a half dozen sausage recipes that are pleasing do I want to try others. It must be a guy thing.

Butterbean wrote:...Oh, and I do intend to perform some trials.

Please do, and please share! I'm already learning some interesting things about how to handle fresh onion and garlic in sausage that didn't occur to me 'in the heat of battle.'

Maybe NASA needs a new motto for the future: "Sausage: The Final Final Frontier." Surely sausages will accompany the first folks who travel to [insert your favorite planet here]. ...and when they do, it'll be because of pioneer sausage makers like us, who already invented every wrong way to do it, leaving the path clear for future generations.

Kirk out.

el Ducko, I was looking over your recipes and was wondering if you could go over the two different recipe quantities, total vs. meat basis?

I've been wanting to make a chorizo recipe recently and a friend just asked me to make some for him so I'm finally going to get a chance to try it out (maybe with some of Ross' paprika).

And a personal thanks for taking the time to put this together and your willingness to share, it's greatly appreciated.

Jer, The total basis recipe makes one kilogram of mince, the meat basis starts with a kilogram of meat and adds everything and the result about 1.2 kilograms of total mince. The original recipe starts with 5 pounds of meat

Yup, Ross nailed it. Sometimes, you might want to know the ingredient percentages, so you can look at the total basis. (It's useful for comparing recipes.) Sometimes, you want to know, "What can I make with a kilo of meat?" That's the meat basis.

I dunno if that's better, but that's the way I look at things- - sometimes, I hit a sale and grind up a bunch of meat, then package and freeze it in 1 kilo or 1/2 kilo bags. Then, when I see something I wanna try, I shift a bag to the refrigerator overnight, weigh out the ingredients (or half the ingredients) the next morning, mix 'em up, and I'm all set.

Hope someone tries this stuff. Without chorizo, breakfast at my house would just be another one of the four or five meals... uh... (That didn't come out right.)

By the way, Ross, I can't find the link to your recent post on toasting chiles. Can you find it and post it here? Not the homemade paprika one, but the one before that. Thanks. (...post toasties???)

Thanks El Ducko and Ross. I would have sworn I'd read through the first part of the first post but see that I missed that one integral part. That's what I was thinking and appreciate the clarification!

No problem. Thanks for getting it clarified for everybody.
"Take two [sausages] and call me in the morning."
Dr. Duck

P.S. ...anybody know who might sell Aji peppers (capsicum baccatum) in the USA? Other than what I brought back from our trip to Chile (I could only bring commercially-prepared sauce into the country), I can't get my hands on 'em.

Looks like lots of people carry the seeds. When I did a quick check based on name only I learned that there are various chiles with the name Aji but using it's botanical name there's still quite a few sellers of seeds.

Aji Seeds

I have a brown thumb, not green. Even mint and bamboo won't grow when I plant the poor, unfortunate things.

Hmmm... maybe we could con Ross into raising a crop for us, and maybe even roasting 'em. Chorizo Corner is "a-fixin' ta" get into South American sausages, shortly. He'll be rich! (...or at least have some stories to share.)

From what little I have read about the Aji pepper I conclude that it is used because it grows there. Some sources call it very hot and others call it mild. All seem to agree that the taste is fruity and tends toward citrus.

I would only question the salt content. It seems to me to be low at 5 grams total including cure#1?
I have these peppers dried and can keep them separate and blend them as needed or I can blend them 1:1:1:1 with the four varieties that I have. Is there enough difference to suggest that four bottles would justify the space?
Either way is not a big concern my prescription meds are just as much shelf hogs.