Hi Dave, I've noticed that beginners, almost without exception, introduce too many varieties and excessive quantities of spices into their sausage. Attempting to improve grandpa`s old time "secret" recipe, most soon discover their own mixture just doesn`t taste anything at all as expected. Nor is there a constant flow of neighbors knocking at the door, hoping to get their mitts on the stuff. The sad truth is, most beginners usually toss out ten or more pounds of otherwise great pork, not to mention losing time and labor spent grinding and stuffing the meat. I did too in the beginning... but it was much more than just ten pounds thrown out. I was just too hard-headed to realize that for thousands of years, the best sausage recipes have been
the most simple and often contain merely a sprinkling of spices. Do you know who threw out more sausage than you and I could load on a truck?... Ol' Rytek Kutas! No kidding. He tossed a ton!
A vast number of sausage makers use only salt and pepper as seasoning. Others add a "signature spice" as fennel in Italian sausage, or marjoram in Polish kielbasa. Beginners quickly learn that even the slightest departure from an accepted and "tried" recipe may cause immense dissimilarity in a finished product. Experience usually teaches beginners that making good sausage depends more upon "how the sausage is made, rather that what it is made of". With experience, most come to realize that, if used at all, the spices and herbs best suited for sausage fit into a pretty tight group including:
Allspice
Anise
Bay leaf
Caraway
Cardamom
Celery Seed
Chili Powder
Cloves
Corainder
Cumin
Curry Powder
Fennel
Garlic
Ginger
Juniper
Mace
Marjoram
Mustard
Nutmeg
Onion
Paprika
Pepper (black)
Pepper (Cayenne)
Pepper (Red)
Pepper (White)
Peppercorns (green)
Peppercorns (pink)
Sage
Salt
Tarragon
Thyme
Stan's new book has a chapter on making your own recipes - and another on how to calculate nitrate and nitrite. Concentrate on "how" you make it and not so much on spices, and you'll be just fine. Keep the meat cold, cold, cold, and be sure to make your primary bind "sticky" - a meat "paste" as the protein myocin develops. And for goodness sake, if you smoke it, be sure to raise the smokehouse temp only a couple of degrees every half hour or so. Don't be in a hurry to cook the stuff! Keep in touch my friend. And always remember... a boiled egg is hard to beat!
P.S. As far as "secrets" of the Polish Gov't Sausages, Stan's book even covers that too! Be sure to pick up a copy.
Best wishes, Chuckwagon