Juicy, homemade pork and fennel sausages with a spicy bite are the perfect addition to a hearty orc feast!
Join us as we return to JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth for another epic culinary adventure. This time, we must gather our courage as we venture to the depths of Mordor in search of our next feast.
The average orc may prefer to eat intestines raw and straight from the belly, but we can certainly think of a better way to consume them – sausages! These pork and fennel sausages pack a spicy bite and are the perfect addition to our Spice Braised Oxtails. While you can certainly use purchased sausage, it’s a lot more fun and much tastier to make your own.
Making sausage
While it may be daunting to make your own sausage, it can certainly be accomplished with a few necessary tools and techniques. You will need a meat grinder and a sausage stuffer. I use a Kitchen Aid grinder attachment and find it works well. While a meat grinder is preferred for grinding the correct type and ratio of meat, you can simply ask a butcher to do it for you.
In terms of technique, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is temperature control. Maintaining a cold temperature of ingredients and equipment throughout the procedure is essential to achieve the correct texture and create the perfect emulsion. The meat should be very well chilled, ideally half frozen, and the equipment should be refrigerated before using. Work quickly to prevent the meat from warming up too quickly.
Ingredients
Pork shoulder: To make pork sausage, ideally you want a ratio of about 80% meat to 20% fat. Fatty pork shoulder is ideal for sausage as it typically has enough fat to meet that ratio. No need to trim the fat, simply dice the pork shoulder into small pieces and keep very well chilled before grinding.
Natural pork casings: Both natural and synthetic casings are available, but I much prefer the taste and texture of natural pork casings. Casings are typically sold salted. To use, soak the casings in warm water for an hour. After soaking, run water through each casing to inflate them slightly before stuffing. I get my casings from a local supplier in the Fraser Valley.
Kosher salt: Sausage gets its distinctive cured flavour and texture from the addition of salt. Now is not the time to skimp on the salt! It’s typical to use 2 percent of the weight of meat in kosher salt. In this recipe 2% of 1800 g meat equals 36 g kosher salt.
Fennel seeds: Fennel is a common flavour in sausage and my personal favourite. Use a blender or spice grinder to coarsely grind the fennel seeds.
Dried chili flakes: The amount of chili flakes in this recipe creates sausages with a moderate amount of heat. Add more to make them really spicy or less to make them mild.
How to make Spicy Pork Sausages with Fennel
Grind the meat
Start by refrigerating the meat grinder equipment if possible. Do not trim the fat. Cut the pork shoulder into small 1/2 inch pieces. Chill the pork until very cold, freezing it partially if possible.
Fit the grinder with a medium sized plate. Once the meat is cold, grind according to manufacturing instructions. Return the ground meat to the fridge to keep cold.
Prep the spices
Use a blender or spice grinder to coarsely grind the fennel seeds. Add the fennel seeds to a bowl along with the pepper and chili flakes. Weigh out the kosher salt and add to the spices.
To make the sausage filling, add the ice cold water to the ground pork along with all of the spices. Use your hands to mix the water and spices into the ground pork. Spend a few minutes kneading the pork mixture until it starts to becomes sticky. Chill the mixture while preparing the sausage stuffer.
Prepare the casings
Soak the natural pork casings in warm water for an hour. After soaking, run water through each of the casings. Stretch the casing around the faucet and run warm water to inflate the casing.
Assemble the sausage stuffer according to package instructions. Lightly grease the stuffing tube. Take a single casing and begin to slide it onto the stuffing tube, scrunching it up so that the whole casing is threaded onto the tube.
Stuff the sausages
Pull a few inches of casing off the tube before beginning to stuff the casings. Use your hand to slowly guide the sausage out of the tube. Try to keep the sausage even in thickness while stuffing and do not overstuff the casings or they might burst while cooking. Continue to stuff the sausages until you run out of casing. Repeat with new casings until all of the meat is used.
Use a pin to evenly poke holes in the sausage and remove any air bubbles. Twist the sausage to create links. To ensure the links don’t unravel I like to tie a piece of twine between each link. The twine can be removed after cooking. The sausages are now ready to be cooked and can be frozen if desired.
