When I wrote about my first attempt to make hot dog sausages I posted the link to the original recipe that I adapted. It’s by forum member Big Guy at the sausagemaking.org forum. I’ve just realised that some of the ingredients he mentions aren’t available in the UK. Here’s my anglicised version.

This recipe has cure #1 in it, a chemical that needs treating with great respect The recipe may seem to have unnecessarily accurate measurements; the reason for this is that it allows me to maintain consistency between ‘batches’, and also because of the conversion from spoon & cup measurements. In the case of cure #1 it is necessary to ensure a safe product. Digital scales to weigh to a tenth (or even a hundredth) of a gram are usually available for a tenner or so on ebay.

Ingredients

1000gm Fatty Pork (Pork belly’s good)
1000gm Beef
72gm Milk Powder
210gm Iced Water
2.5gm Garlic Powder
5gm Onion Powder
19.8gm Salt
5.7gm White pepper
5.7gm Smoked Paprika
1gm Mace
3.5gm Mustard powder
1.8gm Ground coriander
0.5gm Marjoram
4.4gm Cure #1

You can use this calculator to work out the amount of ingredients needed:

Method – See also my Hot Dog Tutorial

The important thing when making these sausages is to keep everything cold, so put the meat in the freezer until semi-frozen, and the water until it forms an icy ‘slush’.

Grind the meat through the coarse plate of your mincer, and then the fine plate. Mix in everything but the water and mince it through the fine plate again. Put it back into the freezer.

Using a food processor, process small quantities of the mix adding iced water, until emulsified. Check the temperature as you do this because the mixture heats up very quickly. You must keep it below 15°C.

Stuff into casings – cellulose or sheep’s are fine, cellulose gives a nice straight hot dog. I used the sheep’s as I had them to hand.

Smoke over your chosen wood for about an hour at a low temperature (50 to 60°C) before cooking in water heated to 75°C – 80°C for 10 minutes. Check the internal temperature – 68°C is perfectly safe for this sausage but many will wish to take it to 72°C. Place in iced water for 10 minutes then drain and dry.

In the original recipe, the cellulose casings are removed, I didn’t remove the sheep’s casings and they were fine.

When using, ensure that the sausage is hot right through. The internal temperature should be 72°C or above.

These sausages can be made without smoking by adding 1.5gm of Hickory Smoke Powder or liquid smoke (Used according to bottle instructions) which can be bought online. In this case, change the smoked paprika for unsmoked and omit cure #1.