September 9, 2013
Claire:
As my first personal project at Windward I endeavored to make sausage. I consider it a pretty decent success and I have everyone at Windward to thank for that. Especially Martin. So thanks, folks!
It was easy enough to find resources on the seasoning and stuffing of fresh sausage but much more difficult to find information on how to clean intestines. I ended up using information found at a forum on www.rivercottage.net. The user Cannuk was very helpful.
So, Process #1: Cleaning Intestines
I used sheep intestines from the recently slaughtered Tweedle-Dum, but you can really use any animal's. Pig and cow intestines are what is typically sold at stores.
Once I obtained the intestines from Tweedle-Dum, I brought them over to a water spigot in a wheelbarrow. (It's important to have some sort of platform to put the intestines on so that they don't get dirtier - it just makes them tougher to clean.) I then, with the generous help of Lindsay, found one of the ends and separated a few feet of intestines from the rest of the mass. We used a hose with a jet powered nozzle to spray water through the end. The water pressure pushes the gunk through the intestines. When the water would start leaking out of a hole in the intestines, we would cut it there, put it in a bag to freeze, and move on. Since this is not the most enjoyable process we only took about 15 feet of intestines and fed the rest to the pigs.
You can start the next cleaning process right away or freeze the intestines for later use.
I first rinsed the intestines off a bit more in the sink. Then I prepared a bowl of warm water and another bowl of warm water with a tablespoon of vinegar in it. (You will have to repeat this process several times. A tablespoon of salt will work as well.) I placed the intestines in the bowl without vinegar. I then took one of the pieces of intestines and ran it through my fingers to make sure all of the excess fat was off. You can use a sharp knife or your nails to take the fat off. As you feed the intestines through your fingers have the clean part drop into the bowl with vinegar.
If some mucus comes out of the inside during this process don't worry about it. Better than cleaning it out with your fingers later!
Once the intestines were cleaned on the outside I took them over to the water faucet to turn them inside out. The best method I found for this was to fold one of the ends of the intestines up like you do a pant leg and fill the pocket that you have just made with water from the faucet. If you continue to put water pressure on it you should be able to feed the remainder of the intestine through the pocket.
After the intestines had turned inside out, I had a bowl of clean warm water with vinegar ready to drop them into. I let them sit for about three minutes to loosen up the mucus while I filled the other bowl with warm vinegar water. I then took a metal spoon and began scraping the intestine on a cutting board. This helped get mucus off while also scraping the rest of the excess fat tissue off of what was the outside of the intestine. Then I placed them in the other bowl.
The final step in cleaning the intestines was to slosh them around in the bowl for a while and then rinse them off in the sink. If you want to use the intestines right away, place them in a bowl of warm water with a tablespoon of salt. If not, pack them with salt and freeze them for later. A well-salted, frozen intestine will keep for at least a year.
Process #2: Grinding and Mixing the Meats
The sausage that we made was a mixture of Dora (goat), Sombrita (sheep), and Tweedle-Dum (sheep). So, yes, I stuffed an animal's intestines full of its own muscle. Yep. Sure did.
Martin and I ground the sheep and goat meat with animal fat as well. From what I've read, the best sausage is about 25-30% fat.
Once the meat was ground, I took about 10 lbs to use for the link sausage. (We ground about 60 lbs altogether and seasoned half of it.) I seasoned the link sausage with 4 tbsp salt, 2 tbsp black pepper, 2 tbsp garlic powder, and about 1 tbsp cumin. Then I mixed well!
Process #3: Stuffing Sausage
For this process make sure that everything you are using is cold. (With the exception of the intestines.) Put bowls and the sausage stuffer in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before using. Also make sure that the sausage you just ground is quite cold. Ours was already cold but it may be useful to put it in the freezer for an hour or so. Sausage is similar to pie dough in the sense that you want to make sure the fat stays separate from the pastry.
We got the sausage stuffer out of the refrigerator and began putting the sausage mix into it. When I tried to place the intestine on the nozzle, it was a bit too small. We used the small intestine of the sheep and we only had a 3/4" nozzle. We survived. Phew!
Basically, we put the intestine on the end of the nozzle as far as we could. It is ideal to slip the intestine onto the nozzle until you have about 6 inches left. Martin then started pushing the sausage through the stuffer. It took us awhile to set the right pace and since we couldn't get the entire intestine on I had to massage it through instead. If we made a hole, we would cut the intestine there and tie the sausage off. You can either use string or just twist the intestine for this.
There's nothing phallic about this process at all.
Once we had the intestines stuffed we twisted them every 6 inches to separate them into links. We froze a few and used some for the delicious dirty rice Pat made the next day.
