Unfortunately, the sausages of your childhood may be just that - gone forever. Health regulations now state that fillers such as breadcrumbs may no longer be used in NZ or Australian sausages. This means that the butcher has to resort to a milled cereal meal such as flour. Most butchers nowadays solve this problem by using a commercially produced meal from one of the big companies. This tends to give their sausages a bit of a sameness of taste apart from any extra seasonings they may add top the sausage meal.
However, you will find a few butchers who make their own from scratch. I spent two days helping out with sausage making in a Wellington butchery to get some much needed experience and advice. Their basic sausages were made this way but all the speciality ones they did were made from scratch. One thing that gave their sausages some consistency was the mincer process. This butcher put his mince and ingredients through his mincer three times ending up with a very smooth mixture.
His ability to carefully choose what ingredients to add to the basic meal is what made his sausages stand out and why many people avoided the supermarkets and bought directly from him.
He gave me a recipe for his saveloys but asked me not to distribute it. I live in Australia so it's not an issue if I use his recipe for my own purposes.
Off the top of my head, the basic ingredients he used in his snags were
Nutmeg, mace, ginger, white pepper, salt, coriander (optional), Sage (optional)
As NZ sausages were originally made by the English who settled the country that are very similar to them. Off the top of my head here is a recipe I picked up from the Wgtn butcher that should get you going.
5Kgs (10lb)of Beef/Pork or a mixture.
2 cups of breadcrumbs or rusk
500 - 700 mls (3 cups) of water
Salt at about 1.3% of the total - between 50-60 gms but you can decide.
20 gms (9 - 10 tsp) of finely ground white pepper
3 gms (2-3 tsp) of ground ginger
3 gms (2 teaspoons) of mace
3 gms (2 teaspoons) of nutmeg
1 gm (2tsp) of rubbed sage
I assume that you know how to do the mixing etc so I won't insult your intelligence.
Notes; (you may know this already so I apologise in advance for this but here goes.
a) You will have to vary the fat content slightly to account for the dryness of beef as opposed to pork. If using a combination then make sure that the beef is quite lean so that the fat content is basically pork fat. It binds much better than beef. If you use beef only and want the same binding qualities then use point end brisket as the fat from this part of the cow is more like the consistency of pork back fat. Your butcher will be able to get this for you but it may have another name for it in the US.
b) Rusk gives a better taste than breadcrumbs IMO and you can make it yourself. There is a recipe on this site (which someone may add in a later post)
c) Water is a variable and you'll only know after you mix it in how much you should use. I add it in stages. Replace some of the water with beef or pork stock (broth) but make sure you lower the salt quantity. This really adds to the flavour.
d) Salt - I always worry about adding to much.
e) One of the things I remember about the good old NZ butcher's bangers was the slightly peppery after taste that you don't get here in Australia. You may want to increase the pepper content. White pepper is far more savoury than black pepper.
f) Ground ginger tends to lose its zing after exposure to air so the fresher the better.
g) Others may disagree but the mace/nutmeg combination is a major flavour determinant. If making beef sausages put a little bit more emphasis on the mace and vice-versa for pork.
h) I view the sage as optional but it does add something slightly different to the flavour mix.
I do have a simpler recipe that I created myself that I believe comes very close. It's posted on this site and it's for a very small batch to allow for experimentation. You can use pork/beef or a or a combination.
http://forum.sausagemaking.org/viewtopi ... highlight=
1 Kg Beef 25/75 fat to meat (minimum)
100 gms breadcrumbs (a bit less for rusk)
150 mls of iced water (no more)
Seasoning
60 gms of salt (or less)
15 - 20 gms white pepper or 10 gms each white/black
2gms nutmeg
2gms mace
2 gms of ginger
Mix dry ingredients together, then add water until mixture is slightly sticky. You might even be able to go to 200 mls but I wouldn't as water should be no more than 15%. 12% is good I've found - 120 mls.
I place this in the freezer until the freezing process is just about to begin. 2-3 hours should do this
I then put in about 200 gms of the mix at a time into a food processor (to create an emulsion). If you don't want to do this so you should remince through a smaller blade instead until smooth.
Stuff into Hogs.
This sausage has a sweetish taste thanks to the mace, and nutmeg but a good savoury bite because of the pepper and salt. If you want it less/more sweet adjust the mace and nutmeg. Ditto the pepper for the peppery bite.
This is the first beef sausage that I've made that has had the texture, moistness and taste that I like. In the past, one of those criteria has always been missing. Despite wanting a lower fat sausage, with beef you have no choice but to rely on fat to get those three. I'm going to experiment with the use of gelatine/agar to see if I can get a lower fat sausage this way.
