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I put in an order for Bruce Aidells "Complete Sausage Book" yesterday in Waterstones mainly on the strenghth of his other work "Complete Book of Pork". Hopefully this will make a satisfactory crimbo read and be a fine addition to the bookcase to boot.

Anybody out there read any of his work, opinions good or bad appreciated

Hi Jiggy_Piggy
Welcome to the forum
Here's an earlier thread on the book, which I happen to like.

http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopic.php?t=947

Thanks TJ Buffalo, I'll have a good browse of the forum next time. Thanks for the link.

This thread's pretty old, but as a new member to the forum, I thought I could weigh in.

When I first got Bruce Aidell's Complete Sausage Book, I was a little disappointed. As another poster mentioned on the other thread, it's far from complete, when it comes to the techniques of sausagemaking. In trying to make the subject user-friendly, he doesn't stress the importance of keeping ingredients really cold, tells you that the sausage-stuffing attachment for the KitchenAid mixer is just fine (when, in fact, you will never make great sausage this way), etc. He also assumes that you'll be working with the nasty pork that's available in the supermarket, which is also disappointing. Finally, all the quantities of the flavorings in his recipes are by measurement and not by weight, which makes it very hard to be precise.

But as I've started making his recipes, I've been delighted by the flavor. Aidell is very adventurous in his ingredients, and the results are delicious. I just made his merguez sausage, which uses chicken and turkey instead of lamb, and he flavors it with onions, garlic, cumin, fennel, paprika, cayenne, turmeric, allspice, as well as mint, parsley, lemon juice, and lemon zest. All the flavors came together and complemented the poultry perfectly.

There are some traditional recipes in the book, but his innovative and unorthodox recipes are where this book really shines.