Yesterday after work I walked over to Forger’s Market where Dickson’s has a butcher counter. Although it is only a few blocks from the studio where I work, sometimes, I had never stopped in before now. What brought me in was the promise of helping to make fresh sausages! So exciting!

The market is very small, not at all what I expected. Brian stood behind the counter waiting for me. We walked through the recipe, which consisted of 15lbs of pork shoulder, jowl and back fat. This chilled in the freezer while we prepped the rest of the ingredients. A lot of different spices went into the mix, but the main spice was mace. I had never smelled mace before. It’s has a pleasant, woodsy smell. To this we added garlic, chives, lemon zest and white wine.

The mix smelled amazing. I grinded the meat and fat together. Then we mixed everything else in by hand. The mixture has to stay very, very cold, otherwise you run the risk of the fat not incorporating with the meat. So we kept everything in the walk in fridge. I could only stand mixing in short bursts because it was so cold that I couldn’t feel my fingers at times.

Once the meat started holding together we were done with that and on to the next step. We filled the sausage stuffer cylinder with the meat mixture and put a hog casing on the tip. The mix is cranked out into coils of casing. Then the meat is sectioned off, pinched and twisted to form a sausage link. The links are hung in the walk in to dry out a little…and that is all there is to it.

I loved it! I have been wanting to do this for so long and finally I got the chance. Hopefully this will be an ongoing opportunity for me to help out with. And best of all…I got to take some home!!

sausages