Home-made snags: give it a go

Making sausages at home is a palaver, to be sure — but the results are so worth it. Here’s how.

Harder than it looks: but practice makes perfect

Like most omnivores I enjoy a sausage, be it from a good butcher or, preferably, home-made. Muscle, fat, salt, a few different flavourings and presto, you’re the Sausage King of Calabria. But one of the principal reasons I don’t frequently make them is that it means a visit to my local butcher. And this is a thoroughly depressing experience.

When people ask if I miss Melbourne – and they frequently do (West Australians have a special affinity with Victoria; perhaps it’s the football codes) – my standard answer is: Only when I’m food shopping. And then, it’s a yearning.

This week, because I decided out of nowhere it was time for a batch of my almost-famous, oddly shaped and random-length pork, fennel and chilli salsicce, it meant a trip to my local meat vendor here in WA’s southwest. Our conversation was typical of our past interactions.

Butcher: “Can I help you mate?” (My face, clearly, is forgettable.)

Me: “Hello again, I’d like two kilos of whatever fresh pork you recommend for mincing at home to make sausages, please; I’m aiming for 20 per cent fat by weight.” For that is what my recipe, adapted from one by Samin Nosrat (of Salt Fat Acid Heat fame), suggests.

Butcher: “So that’s about 1.8 kilos plus around 200 extra fat, yeah?”

Now, I only did fourth form (as we called it last century) maths for lack of choice; third form was hardly a springboard into what the school referred to as a “maths stream”. But even I knew the butcher’s calculation was wrong. In any case, I somehow managed to come home with 2.3kg in total, and the fat-to-flesh ratio was way out.

Moving forward, to make sausages you will of course need a mincer; I’ve proselytised on this before. And your mincer will inevitably come with what they call a “sausage stuffer” attachment. You will need sausage skins too; in my experience, if you go to a half-decent butcher (not my local) and buy a few things and ask them to sell you some sausage skins, there won’t be a problem.

Now, this is where YouTube comes in. All the sausage-making demonstrations in the world are on there, from getting your skins onto your stuffer, to filling them, to creating “links”. But, like most demonstrations on YouTube, it’s actually much harder than it looks.

First, ensure you’ve got your fat to muscle ratio right: 20 per cent fat to lean muscle is a good ratio but 20 per cent fat to already fatty muscle tissue is not.

Be warned, that delicious creamy fat has a very low melting point and what starts as firm and white can quickly turn to a mushy mess. So keep everything as cold as possible. Still, you should resign yourself to the inevitability that you will make an unholy, greasy mess.

For my version you’ll need 1kg of pork (20 per cent fat by weight); 4 teaspoons crystallised salt; 3 teaspoons fennel seed, coarsely ground; 2 tablespoons chilli flakes, or to taste; 2 teaspoons pureed garlic; and 1 tablespoon Pernod or other anise-flavoured spirit (dry white wine or vermouth will substitute).

Dice your meat. Blend your flavourings. Coarsely mince the meat and mix by hand with the rest of the ingredients. Test-fry a little. Season accordingly. Stuff the skins (see YouTube). Good luck. And if you’re fortunate enough to have a good butcher, be nice to him.