This is the everyday Pork Sausage that I make for Pauline. She prefers thin sausage in sheep’s casings. Sheep’s casings are harder to use than hogs as they split more easily but the extra care needed is worth it as the delicate casings make for great eating.
Sausage Bulk Seasoning Mix
60g Salt
10g Pepper White
8g Pepper Black
2g Nutmeg
1g Mace
2g Ginger
Mix together well. This will make more than one lot of the sausage below
For 1kg of sausage
770g Locally Produced Pork Shoulder (about 20% visible fat)
80g Rusk or 105gm dried breadcrumbs
130g Water or 105gm if using breadcrumbs
20g Bulk Seasoning Mix
Method
1. Mince the meats through the blade of your choice (coarse or fine). I mince twice through a 6mm mincer plate.
2. Add meats to the bowl and add the seasoning, mix well.
3. Put rusk on top of the meat.
4. Pour the chilled water on top of the rusk so that the rusk gets thoroughly wet.
5. Mix vigorously until the meat mixture looks sticky. I really work it at this stage.
(this is myosin developing, the protein that sticks the sausage together & gives texture, rather like the gluten in bread).
7. If the mixture is wet or soft let it stand for a few minutes for the rusk/breadcrumb to re-hydrate.
8. Fill into casings.
9. Put into the fridge for 6 – 8 hours to Bloom for flavour development.
Cook and Enjoy
i have been trying to calculate the amount of ingredients needed to make sausages, but the calculator is not working
Thank you for letting me know this. I have corrected it and it is now working. You may have to clear your cache and temporary files before you can see the changes. I hope that you enjoy these peppery sausages.
thank you the best sausage calculator i have ever used thanks again
Mrs P Emokpaire
Thank you – Very nice recipe and calculator – many others add a bit of herbs like sage, thyme, rosemary. Which do you prefer? And how much?
Some use white pepper only – I prefer your mix of black and white
Tip for DIY butchers like me. If you want to vigorously mix a large batch of 10kg or more. Get a 50 liter food friendly plastic drum (stainless steel if you have lots of money). Add the final mix inside. Then simply attach your wife’s (Kenwood or other) food processor’s K paddle into a strong electric drill. (800 W or stronger)
With both hands holding the drill and attachment, start mixing at low speed and gradually increase your drill’s speed. You can push the drill down to touch the bottom if you want. Keep speed low then increase a bit. Within 3 or 4 minutes the mix will be ready. Check if mix is sticky – if not mix again for a minute.
Hi …we used to have E.A.Birds sausages until the shop closed in mansfield. I’m constantly trying replicate their flavour. Cant begin to tell you how lovely they were. Without doubt,the best sausages in the world. They were full of pork, and peppery. I’m wondering if your recipe could be similar? But you put ginger in ? Can you taste the ginger or does it just add flavour?
Hi. I wonder if there’s a ‘Spotted Mansfield’ group on Facebook, or similar, where you could ask for any information. In the meantime have a play around with this recipe – the ginger just adds to the overall flavour rather than predominate. Maybe add a little sage as it’s often in butchers’ mixes. Please let me know how you get on.
Here is another variation that works well and is much more healthy.
Instead of rusk or breadcrumbs, use good old breakfast oats as a binder – not the instant variety. Also use much less than the 80g mentioned above.
Choose your own percentage – I use around 40g – 50g oats per 770g kilo pork meat.
I find the rusk that you buy from spice stores not good at all. Breadcrumbs are better but bread contains yeast whereas oats does not not. I have been making ordinary beef and other sausages for 30 years using oats as binder and never had a bad lot. Also if you are gluten intolerant you can use gluten free oats.
There are a number of alternatives to the rusk in the recipe – scalded rice as used in this recipe is another one that is also gluten-free. You could also make your own rusk.
However, as you’ve been using oats for 30 years, that seems to be the way to go.
Hi, Phil
Thanks for the recipe. I tried these and really liked them. The texture is very smooth and tends to burst out of the ends of the casing when cooking in the pan (I don’t know if this is normal or not but that’s ok). The flavor was very subtle, is that what you’d expect? I thought they might be more peppery given the amount of black & white pepper in the recipe. The next time I make them I’d like to strengthen the flavor a bit. I added seasoning at the rate of 2.6% of the total meat weight – that is, 30 grams of seasoning to 1135 grams of meat as in your recipe. What might the upper limit on the level of seasoning in the recipe before spoiling the flavor ?
Thank you
By all means increase the amount to a level that suits you. You may want to juggle things a bit though and just increase the spices, not the salt, as this sausage already has a fairy high (by modern standards) salt level of 1.4%. Mincing/grinding twice through a #6 plate wouldn’t normally give a smooth texture. Are you also using the mincer to stuff the sausage? If so, you may need to adjust the size of plate to give the texture you want. The issue of sausage-meat bursting from the end of the casings is usually caused by over-stuffing or cooking on too high a heat. Hope this helps.