3.4/Wrap-up

The source Eat This…It’ll Make You Feel Better!

The recipe Homemade sausage Having previously waxed lyrical about my love of sausage, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try making my own for the first time ever when I found this recipe. Having said that, I’m sure what I did with it would be a violation of the rules of the Cookbook Challenge, if there were any. But since I made it up, there aren’t, so it isn’t. Because basically my version of homemade sausage bears no resemblance to the one in the cookbook, except that they both use ground pork. And fennel. Oh, and grated cheese. (Um, but other than that they are TOTALLY DIFFERENT.)

(Actually, this is a great demonstration of how elastic the whole concept of sausage really is. I started from the premise that I didn’t actually need six pounds of homemade sausage, and that frankly I’m not that keen on parsley…and then I just kind of blazed my own trail from there.)

The ingredients – Dom’s mother’s
6 lbs ground lean pork
2 Tbsp fennel
1 Tbsp pepper
4 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley
6 leaves fresh basil, chopped
1 tsp oregano
1 cup grated cheese (optional)
4 yards sausage casing
1 sausage funnel

(Makes 30-35)

The ingredients – RL’s
1 lb ground lean pork
2 tsp fennel
10-12 grinds fresh black pepper
4-6 large pinches salt
2-3 large pinches chili pepper flakes
½ tsp oregano
1 ice cube’s worth of pesto (thawed)
2-3 Tbsp grated pecorino romano cheese

(Makes 12 2-inch patties)

The method For either: pretty simple: put everything in a bowl and moosh it all together with your hands until it's all thoroughly mixed. Then you have two options:

1. If you want to make sausages with casing, put the casing on the funnel and make a knot in the end. Push meat through funnel until casing is filled, then twist into links. Repeat as necessary.

2. If, however, you are like me and can’t be bothered with all that rigamarole, form into patties. Either cook as desired immediately, or freeze for later use.

The verdict I would never have guessed making my own sausage was so straightforward. The whole process took about 30 minutes. I froze most of it for later, but I cooked two patties for dinner tonight: broke them apart and browned the meat in a frying pan, and deglazed the pan with some white wine towards the end. Mixed it into some tagliatelle with more pesto and this roasted broccoli. Wondering how soon I can get away with making it again.

Cookbook Challenge #3 verdict Keep or donate? I was fully expecting to clear some shelf space after this month, but I’m going to keep this book. There is definitely some dated stuff in here, but I found at least another five recipes that I’d like to try out. So Dom’s place in the RL cookbook lineup is secure for a while longer.

Cookbook Challenge #3 wrapup Don’t forget: if you’ve got any cookbook antics that you want to share—let me know!

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