lamb sausage & new stuffer

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lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby badjak » Sat Jan 11, 2014 5:21 am

I made some lamb sausages the other day, inspired by the recipe for Merquez ( I found quite a lot of different recipes).
I used lamb, as pork is not available at the moment (we have swine fever in the country), and I needed to try out my sausage stuffer (LEM 5 lbs vertical sausage stuffer, stainless steel stuffing tubes)
It was also the first time to use sheep casings.

I used the following “recipe”
Lamb mince: 1.2 kg (lamb meat and lamb fat, roughly 30% fat, maybe a bit more)
Garlic, chopped finely: 18 gr
Salt: 12 gr
Harissa paste (store bought): 40 gr
Frozen and chopped coriander leaves/stems: 10 gr (that's what I got left in the freezer :lol: )
Paprika powder: 5 gr
Pimento (all spice): 1 gr
Cumin, roasted and ground: 1 gr
Coriander, roasted and ground: 1 gr
Cold water: 100 ml
Sheep casings (soaked for about 1 hour before using)

I toasted 4 gram whole coriander and 4 gram whole cumin together, wait for them to cool down and ground in my coffee grinder and then weighed off 2 gram in total

All the spices & water got mixed in with the mince.
The amount of salt was a bit on the low side on purpose, as there is salt in the ready made harissa paste already.
The mince got worked till it got sticky and easily formed a ball. I took off a bit to fry and put the rest of the mixture in the fridge.
While frying I put a (cleaned) sheep casing on the small stuffer tube. Not easy, but easier once I let the water run through the casing via the tube.

Note to self: put only 1 casing per bowl as they like to get tangled up properly.

The test batch of mince tasted fine, so put the mince in the assembled stuffer and went ahead.
It is a heck of a lot easier than stuffing straight from a hand mincer! I could actually operate the machine by myself.
Stuffing was not much of a problem either, but those sheep casings get filled up very quickly. I managed to get the next ones on the stuffer with the mince still in the tube

Next note to self: do a trial with putting more casings on the stuffing tube before starting to fill them. Should be a lot less messy!

The sausages that came out were quite wet. I may have put too much water in the mix (it should actually have been 75 instead of 100 ml), or maybe the casings were just very wet?
Should I dry out the casings a bit before putting them on the stuffing tube?

When the sausages were finished I put them uncovered in the fridge for an hour or 2, after that I decided to wrap them in tea towel to dry them out a bit more, which seemed to work OK.

I fried one up to use for bar snacks and it everyone here seemed to like it.

I still got to get used to the stuffer, but it definitely is a lot easier and faster than stuffing with my hand mincer!
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby Thewitt » Sun Jan 12, 2014 1:56 am

Sounds great!

Don't dry the casings. They are best used slippery and wet.

Sounds like too much water in your mix. We use just enough to get to the consistency we are after when mixing, and that can vary by by 20% depending on the moisture in the meat as well as the humidity.
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby badjak » Sun Jan 12, 2014 7:17 am

Thanks for the advice!

The mix itself didn't feel very wet, but I will reduce the amount of liquid somewhat when I make them next.
After a couple of hours in the fridge (wrapped in tea towel) they seemed pretty OK.
They taste good and that's the most important thing :D
Plenty room for improvement though (esp on the looks. Will post a picture later on, once I remember where I hid my camera)

Those sheep casings take a bit of getting used to, they are so small and finicky!

What would be the best way to cook them?
I sort of poach/fried the first one, but am just wondering what anyone else is doing with this size sausage.
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby crustyo44 » Sun Jan 12, 2014 9:41 am

Hi Anne-Marie,
Mix some baking soda in the water you soak your sausages casings in, they will slide on the stuffing tubes real easy, even the smaller lamb casings. Also let some rounded-off meat stick out of the stuffer tube.
You will be amazed how easy and quick it all is.
Good Luck,
Jan.
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby Thewitt » Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:24 am

For lamb cased sausages, I simply pan fry. No poaching necessary.
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby badjak » Tue Jan 14, 2014 4:26 am

Yeah, that would make sense as they are thin enough to cook easily.
I put some on the bbq yesterday on a not too hot fire and that worked a dream, also for the sausages in hogs casing.
So far that seems my preferred way to go
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby badjak » Fri Jan 17, 2014 9:33 am

Found my camera, so here is the pic (better late than never)
Image
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby yotmon » Fri Jan 17, 2014 9:57 am

That looks very good indeed. I can see that you are well pleased with your new stuffer. I'm still waiting to try mine that I got for Christmas - hopefully it will be very soon.

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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby vagreys » Fri Jan 17, 2014 2:09 pm

I find that about 70-80ml water per kg meat - just enough to dissolve and distribute the salt, works well. On the low side if the meat is freshly slaughtered. Towards the higher side if the meat is more than two days past slaughter. Lamb can absorb a lot of water, and while you added a little more than I would, it wasn't that much more, so it sounds to me like your lamb was fresh and had a fair amount of moisture to begin with. If that's the case, then 75ml or even a little less makes sense.
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Re: lamb sausage & new stuffer

Postby badjak » Sat Jan 18, 2014 4:38 am

The lamb was slaughtered less than a week before I cut it up in pieces and turned all off-cuts into mince. Seemed like a bit of a waste to make it intomince, but it turned out very nice :lol:
The mince was frozen for a while before Inturned into sausages. I incorporated the "melting liquid" back into the mince.
When I fried a test batch, it didn't seem very wet. I think one of the main reasons all looked very wet was because I didn't shake any water of the casings. The casing came of the spout very easily, but whether that is due to a lot of moisture or me using stainless steel tubes for the first time, I can't say (the previous attempts at making sausages were done by hand mincer with a plastic stuffing tube).

Best bet is to order another lamb and make another batch.......
I will first have to finish the shoulders and legs though..

Just a bit extra about the lamb/sheep. I got it from my neighbours and the beasts roam free around their banana farm. They are a fairly small type, maybe because they got to be able to cope with the heat here. They eat a fairly tough grass and whatever else they can find.
The slaughtered weight of mine was 14 kg, if I remember correct
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