average amounts of sage, fennel, rosemary, parsley and orega

[cashmkr2001]

Guys,
I'm interested in creating my own recipes (and writing about them). For many spices there are 'guidelines' as to the amount that is commonly used in sausages. For example: chilles 0,5 g/kg, peper 2-3 g/kg. Of course, each recipe is different, and it's a personal preferencething as well but I am looking for the average usage p/kg of a number of spices.

what would you say are the average amounts of these herbs per kg (little over 2 pounds) of meat?

My guess:

Sage <1 gram
Fennel 2 grams
rosemary 1 gram
parsley 1 gram
oregano 1-2 grams

Am I correct?

[grisell]

I don't understand the question.

[cashmkr2001]

okay, I refrased the question. Hope its more clear now.

[captain wassname]

as a rough guide most commercial herb and spice mixes make up about 2.5% of the sausage (not the meat) Of this usually at least half is salt.
This should give you a starting point for your experiments.
It maybe a good plan to make up some sausage meat and add different mixes to small amounts and make patties to test.There is no ideal amount for any ingredient depends how many you use in a mix.

Jim

[Ryan C]

Dried or fresh?

[captain wassname]

Sorry mostly in commercial mixes its dried

Jim

[wheels]

Guys,
I'm interested in creating my own recipes (and writing about them). For many spices there are 'guidelines' as to the amount that is commonly used in sausages. For example: chilles 0,5 g/kg, peper 2-3 g/kg. Of course, each recipe is different, and it's a personal preferencething as well but I am looking for the average usage p/kg of a number of spices.

what would you say are the average amounts of these herbs per kg (little over 2 pounds) of meat?

My guess:

Sage <1 gram
Fennel 2 grams
rosemary 1 gram
parsley 1 gram
oregano 1-2 grams

Am I correct?

OK, I know that there'll be people that complain about a moderator posting this. But hey-ho

I wish you well creating you own recipes cashmkr2001 - I genuinely do. But if you have to ask this question, maybe you're not quite ready to write about it?

Sorry, but it had to be said.

Phil

[NCPaul]

cashmkr2001 I think what wheels is asking is do you have all of the techniques of making a great sausage mastered? No spice combination will save a poorly made sausage. A sausage is after all mostly meat and fat; are you good at handling the grinding and the binding of these main ingredients? When I started out, I tried all sorts of exotic combinations but now focus far more on my process and rely on it to make a good sausage. Wheels is a nice guy, don't take his question as criticism.

[wheels]

cashmkr2001

Oops, I fired from the hip there!

To answer the question posed, there are wildly different amounts of herbs (usually dried) and spices used in different sausages. From loads of sage in Lincolnshire sausage where it is the dominant flavouring, to the more subtle milder blends.

To help in your wish to develop your own recipes I hope you will find these tips helpful:

1. First decide what type of sausage you want. Do you want to imitate a commercial one? Make a particular regional style? Or just something you fancy?

2. Research the sausage, looking at other's recipes if appropriate and (for commercial types) get the ingredient listings from the product.

3. Use very accurate scales to weigh your spices herbs starting with a total spice mix/salt of around 2.5% of the total sausage. The salt is likely to be between 1% and 2% in a fresh sausage (I favour around 1.2%)

4. Make up small amounts of test sausage (say 100gm lots - hence the accurate scales) and only change one thing at a time.

5. Write everything down. You may think that you'll remember - but you won't.

Here's the starting process for a Polony sausage that I'm still working on:

Ingredients label 1 from supermarket:
Pork (42%), Water, Bacon (11%), Potato Starch, Rusk, Pork Fat, Salt, Milk Protein, Onion Powder, Stabiliser (Diphosph:Flavourings, Antioxidant (Sodium Ascorbate), Preservative(Nitrite).
CONTAINS GLUTEN, MILK AND WHEAT.
Carbs 11.1%
Fat 14.7
salt 2.1
Protein 9.9


Ingredients label 2 from supermarket:
Pork (65%), Water, Potato Starch, Milk Proteins, Salt, Spices, Dextrose, Antioxidant (Sodium Ascorbate), Hydrolysed Soya Protein, Preservative (Sodium Nitrite) Spices contains: Pepper, Mace, Coriander, Nutmeg, Ginger, Marjoram, Capsicum, Garlic Powder, Thyme, Laurel

Nutrition
Name Per 100g
Energy 1020kJ (245kcal)
Protein 11.6g
Carbohydrate 5.5g
sugars 2.6g
Fat 19.6g
saturates 7.3g
mono unsaturates 8.4g
polyunsaturates 2.8g
Sodium* 0.8g
*Salt Equivalent 1.9g


From these I could see that:

(Rough notes)

Meat/Fat content >+53% to 62%

Water - more than 11%

Salt 1.9 to 2.1%

Potato starch less than 11% (both) 3%?

Milk Protein (around same as salt?) (both) 2%?

Rusk less than potato starch 2%?

Soya Protein less than ascorbate (supermarket 2)

Spices less than salt (say less than 2%)
(supermarket 2) Pepper, Mace, Coriander, Nutmeg, Ginger, Marjoram, Capsicum, Garlic Powder, Thyme, Laurel

Dextrose Less than spices (supermarket 2)

Both have Ascorbate (must be less than legal limit - 550PPM?) 0.055%

Both have Nitrite - must be less than legal limit

Fat 15-19%

Many other recipes were looked at for the characteristics of the spice blend, all had White pepper, Coriander, Mace, Nutmeg and Cinnamon. Cloves, Cayenne and Ginger were also common.

With this information I could go forward and design my own recipe. It's a work in progress and if/when I'm happy with it I'll put it on a thread here. At present it has:

Pork 80/20 65%
Water 16%
Potato Starch 9%
Rusk 4%
NFM 2.5%
Onion Powder .3%
Salt 1.3%
Seasoning Mix 1.2%
Sodium Ascorbate .3%
Cure #1 1.7%

My latest note just says - 'Lose NFM'!

At present the spice mix has 8 spices, no herbs and individual spices vary from 0.048% to 0.48% of the mix.

I hope that his gives some (albeit little) insight into developing a recipe.

Phil

[vagreys]

...what would you say are the average amounts of these herbs per kg (little over 2 pounds) of meat?

My guess:

Sage <1 gram
Fennel 2 grams
rosemary 1 gram
parsley 1 gram
oregano 1-2 grams

Am I correct?

Frankly, I'm a little surprised at the lecturing your OP triggered. I can honestly say, without embarrassment, that I have no idea what the guidelines or suggested 'average' amounts are for various individual herbs in sausages. I've been making and formulating excellent sausages, for myself and others, for years, now. Yours seems a perfectly reasonable question. I was making my own formulations for some time before I was even aware that there were guidelines on how much of a given individual spice or herb to start with, other than salt and nitrite/nitrate cures.

Of the sources I have at home, the only one that gives general guidelines for any individual seasonings is Marianski, Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages. It doesn't list but a very few herbs among the spices, though, and of the ones you asked after, only fennel appears on the list at 2g/kg.

Marianski suggests averages of 1g/kg for (dried) Thyme and 3g/kg for (dried) Marjoram. I'd suggest somewhere in that range for dried oregano. Maybe 2g/kg? To my palate, oregano is stronger than thyme and about on par with marjoram, but is distinctive enough to alter the character of the sausage in unexpected directions if you allow it to dominate, going decidedly Greek, Italian or Mexican, depending on what else is in the sausage.

Of the others, I'd be hesitant to proffer a guess. I have no idea what the averages might be. As you acknowledge, it really is a matter of personal preference.

Dr. Herbert Ockerman's book, Sausage and Processed Meat Formulations, is rather like a survey of the common formulas for many commercial sausages. The formulas are cited in 100-pound batches, so the individual ingredients, including herbs, can be read as percentages. While these are commercial formulations, Ockerman may be a good resource for you to consider. A link to a free pdf of the book may be found in my recent post about this book in the Book section of the forum. Do not plan on buying a used copy of this book, unless you are willing to shell out a significant amount of money. If you are even considering that, then think about obtaining a set of Cottenceau, instead.

[vagreys]

...as a rough guide most commercial herb and spice mixes make up about 2.5% of the sausage (not the meat)...

Emphasis mine. Jim, thanks for that. So often, we throw around percentages and don't specify whether we mean % of meat block, % of fat, or % of final product, and it does make a difference.

For my exploration of Spanish sausages, I've been working on a formula analyzer/converter and batch calculator in Excel, to help me evaluate some of the formulas I've found or derived. Of necessity, I've become very aware of how significant the difference between % of meat block and % of final product can mean, particularly when looking at seasonings.

[NCPaul]

There is a table in the Marianskis' Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages on page 195 that gives some ranges to use.







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