My Sausage Addiction
It was an innocent thing - a few hot dogs in the summer, a taste for keilbasa and brats, a fondness for bangers and beer. My taste for ground seasoned meat was no big thing until my beloved “brother” Scott Wellsandt, got me hooked on the rough stuff - the kind of rustic sausages you can only get from private sources- the goods made in garages, back porches and kitchen sinks. He became my dealer. Every February he would drive across Washington State to spend a long weekend with his cousins in Ritzville. And then he would return home with the cargo – a cooler stuffed full of the most wonderful homemade smoked German style sausage. At first it was just innocent fun – no big deal. He’d fry up a few pieces for Sunday brunch or a family gathering. A little mustard, a little kraut…where’s the harm? Then it got to be that we all needed the stuff for camping and rafting trips. Pretty soon, he was selling me full pounds. I would keep the paper wrapped parcels in my freezer, to have it when the mood struck. I thought I could go easy, just enjoy it once in a while, but it went just so damn fast. Finally, I was begging him. I could no longer rely on his annual sausage runs. I needed to get straight to the source.
That’s when I realized I had a problem. I had invited myself, a perfect stranger, to a longtime, family celebration. The Wellsandt clan couldn’t have been kinder or more welcoming, and I worked extra hard to pull my weight, but it was a moment of reckoning. I knew I couldn’t leech off these people any more. I had to become my own supplier.
Two years ago Scott and I managed to convince a few willing participants to start a meat tradition of our own. Mark Vinson and Arlene Levins kindly offered their space and resources in Buckley as a home base and then took on the project. SausageFest 2008 was barely controlled chaos. We naively determined to make our version of the real stuff, but we didn’t have the Wellsandt recipe, the sacred measuring hands or any proper smokers. Scott valiantly tried to recall memories and specifics from his beer soaked family weekends while I kept interrupting with my own take. About 20 of us hacked at meat, ground it in Kitchenaide mixers and seasoned and stirred it up in big bowls until the samples fried up tasty. Our links were sloppy. Our smoking was ineffective. We managed to make some edible bulk sausage. But our sausage was a mockery of the original. It was so bad that the following winter it was decided that Sausagefest should be every two years rather than annually, so those of us who had over-ordered had more time to choke down the residuals.
This past weekend we gathered for Sausagefest 2010. I took on the role of meat master and started making declarations. There would be no horrid imitations of the glorious Wellsandt original this year. Because the vacuum bag storage system worked so well before, we would focus on bulk sausages of a type we all liked to purchase. Links would be optional. Smoked sausage was not an option for purchase, but we would try some as a test run for future events. We would choose three or four varieties by consensus and then I would work out original recipes. If my sausages didn’t meet the mark, we would alter them as needed or I would, without hesitation, pass along my reign to someone else for the following fest.
And while there is definitely room for improvement in efficiency and precision – I think this years event was a resounding success. Eight families placed orders for sausage; Classic Breakfast with Fresh Herb, Spicy Italian with red wine and fennel, Mexican Chorizo with mole paste and a mild pork link with lemon zest and ale we called Buckley Manor House sausage. (We ended up with about 30 pounds of extra ground pork, so we also threw together some mild Italian and a few Maple links.) We started cooking at 10:00 am and by 5:00 Saturday evening we had packaged and distributed over 200 pounds of sausage, ate and drank to overfull and had some experiments puffing in a newly built smoker.
It’s been only two days, but I can already feel my old sausage yearnings flooding back in to relatively clean system. It is early afternoon and I have a pot of pasta sauce, thick with sausage, simmering on the stove. The top of my mouth is burned because I can’t manage the patience needed to even let the sauce cool before I taste it. Again, I’m hooked. But this time the stuff is cheap – about $2 a pound. And I know it’s made only with top quality stuff, so I won’t have to cringe when my beloved sausages are compared to politics. And boy, oh boy, this stuff is goooood!
Breakfast Links with Fresh Herbs
2 1/2 lb pork
2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp chopped fresh sage
2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon brown sugar (or 2 tablespoons maple syrup and less water)
½ teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ cup ice water (opt)
sheep casing for links
Makes 2 ½ pounds sausage
Mexican Chorizo
5 lbs pork butt
¼ cup cold tequila
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
5 tsp. Salt
2 Tablespoons ground ancho chili
2 tablespoons mole paste
1 tablespoon onion powder
2 tablespoon pimenton –smoked paprika
2 teaspons dried red chile flakes
1 teaspoon garlic powder ( or fresh garlic?)
½ teaspoon ground white pepper
1 teaspoon ground oregano
½ teaspoon ground cumin
Makes 5 lbs sausage
Hot Italian Sausage with Fennel
5 lbs pork butt
1 cup cold red wine
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
5 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon coarse black pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons fennel seeds – toasted and coarsely ground or pounded
2 teaspoons crushed chiles
2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon coriander
3 tablespoon paprika
Makes 5 lbs sausage
Buckley Manor House Sausage
5 lbs pork
1 cold bottle of ale
2 teaspoons sugar
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1 tablespoon ground sage
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground mace or nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon finely ground lemon zest
1 cup breadcrumbs
5 teaspoons salt
Makes 5 lbs sausage
