prep
45 minutes
cook
20 minutes
difficulty
Ace
preparation
45
minutes
cooking
20
minutes
difficulty
Ace
level
Ingredients
- 350 g pork belly, rind removed, cut into 1.5 cm pieces, refrigerated
- 1 kg pork shoulder, trimmed, cut into 1.5 cm pieces, refrigerated
- ½ tsp ground allspice
- 3 tsp white sugar
- 350 g pork fat, cut into 1 cm pieces, frozen
- 1.5 m (size 28, about 3 cm wide) pork casing (see Note)
It is important to refrigerate your hand-chopped meat for at least 1 hour for ease of mincing. If you’re not planning to use the pork casing on the day you buy it, store in salt, then rinse well and soak in lukewarm water for 15 minutes to help soften it before using. Most commercially bought sausages contain a small amount of nitrate which helps preserve the pink hue of meat and kill bacteria. While salt does not kill bacteria, it does arrest its growth. Cook prepared sausage within 2 days of making, and refrigerate covered with a damp tea towel until needed. If you don’t have access to a sausage stuffer, roll the mixture into patties and barbecue as you would rissoles.
Makes 1 metre-long sausage
Instructions
Combine pork belly, shoulder, allspice, sugar, 1½ tbsp salt and 1½ tsp ground white pepper in a large bowl. Crumble in frozen chopped pork fat and mix until combined.
Using a mince grinder or an electric mixer fitted with a grinding attachment, grind meat, 1 cup at a time, on the 8–10 mm grinding disc.
Using an electric mixer fitted with a sausage stuffer attachment, place majority of pork casing onto attached sausage stuffer allowing 5 cm to overhang at the end. Adding as much mince as your sausage stuffer will take at one time, feed mince through into casing, ensuring mince is firmly packed but not too tightly or the sausage skin will burst during cooking.
Continue until you have used all your mince mixture, allowing sausage to coil onto an oven tray lined with plastic wrap as you go. Twist both ends and tie into a knot to secure filling. Reshape into a coil, cover with a damp tea towel and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or up to 2 days to allow flavours to develop.
Heat a large frying pan or flameproof baking dish on a barbecue over medium heat. Thread 2 long skewers through the sausage at right angles to hold its coiled shape. Trim skewer ends to allow sausage to fit in pan if necessary. Grease preheated pan and cook the sausage, turning halfway, for 20 minutes or until browned and cooked through.
Note
• Natural pork casings are from selected butchers. Unlike artificial sausage casings made from collagen or cellulose, natural pork casings are the intestinal tracts of pigs.
Photography by Brett Stevens.
Cook's Notes
Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.
