Home made pork sausages by my Italian family

[17hornet 188]

Hi guys,

I wonder if anyone is interested how we make our Italian pork sausages ?

I will duplicate some posts here that I put together in an Australian forum of my family producing our once a year small goods from a good sized pig half.

The pics are interesting and it was a well received write up, so if anyone is interested and I have the correct section, I'll pop it up tomorrow, but warning, pic heavy and big post, so it may be done in a couple of posts.

[Mister Gain 1,759]

Yep, post it up, I do like to see different methods and uses for the pig. I've made Italian sausages and Sardinian but they were from commercially available mixes so possibly not authentic, also made salami a few times.

[Billy b 724]

Get it up mate ?

[forest of dean redneck 11,183]

Yeah get it up 

i got 13 lb of pork mince to work out what to do with ?

[17hornet 188]

Only 13lbs, we are often around the 300lb mark for the family day.

I'll get it together and post, the recipes are VERY basic, nothing fancy but small village home recipes for long life storage.

I need to get up some pics of Ducks and a feeder first, back soon.

[forest of dean redneck 11,183]

19 minutes ago, 17hornet said:

Only 13lbs, we are often around the 300lb mark for the family day.

I'll get it together and post, the recipes are VERY basic, nothing fancy but small village home recipes for long life storage.

I need to get up some pics of Ducks and a feeder first, back soon.

I only had 1 pig ?

[17hornet 188]

We go to a grower that grows out the beast for us and we do the slaughtering and cleaning then we split it with a family friend, nose to tail literally.

Average weight of gutted carcass is 240kg over the years, we pay for it, but we even try to use the squeal.

[forest of dean redneck 11,183]

4 hours ago, 17hornet said:

We go to a grower that grows out the beast for us and we do the slaughtering and cleaning then we split it with a family friend, nose to tail literally.

Average weight of gutted carcass is 240kg over the years, we pay for it, but we even try to use the squeal.

240? Feck me what you eating hogzilla? Only thing I didn't have was the head ,tail an blood .

[Mister Gain 1,759]

16 hours ago, forest of dean redneck said:

240? Feck me what you eating hogzilla? Only thing I didn't have was the head ,tail an blood .

Head and tail are both worth using. I watch Diners, Drive Ins and Dives a fair bit and the other week Guy Fieri had a bowl of pig feet and pig tail stew, and it looked really nice.

Head is good to use for brawn/head cheese, bath chaps and braised pig cheeks, have a look on youtube at Scott Rea's site. Alternatively you can grind it in with your sausage mince. Slowly roast the ears as a treat for the dogs. 

 

 

[forest of dean redneck 11,183]

Got the cheeks in the freezer

Ive watched that diners drive ins an dives on Netflix good show 

[17hornet 188]

This is a very long write up with pics, luckily I am just bringing it over from my Posting on another site,

please read and enjoy it even if it is a bit long.

I will be happy to answer any questions as best as I can, and remember it is a Family activity not a commercial processing,

but everything is very clean and we have never had anything go off or bad in storage.

 

Just some light reading guys...

 

 

 

That time of year again - making the piggy into smallgoods. Every family has their own way of doing these things and sharing info is great.

 

I cant believe that an entire year had passed under the bridge, and we were already back to that time of year
where my extended family gets together and we get a pig to process into yummy small goods that get consumed
over the next year.

My family loves the food, the kids adore Nonno's sausage, some like it fried, and one loves it in her sandwiches raw out of the skin.
(shh... secretly I reckon Nonno is proud of his grand kids smallgoods pleasures)

So this year, I have taken plenty of pics to show what we do and keep a record of in several parts because
there is so much to cover.
BUT, Sorry No pics for the killing and cleaning, its all a bit messy anyway.

"This little piggy" came from a small farmer where Nonno has been going for many years, we choose the pig and it is split from the others,
put in a cage and transported to the killing / cleaning area.
Porky is then dispatched with a .22lr and this is where the fun REALLY starts.

Porky is bled out with a knife stab to a neck artery and as much blood as possible is collected for product later,
usually 2x 6L tubs, you have to stir it very quickly to prevent it coagulating, and the other tub is allowed to set.
Porky is lying on a low bench, and we pour scalding hot water over him from a pot, the water is in a copper heated by wood,
the copper sits in an old washing machine shell.
When the skin is scalded the hair follicles seem to be destroyed and it is tested by pulling on the hair with the fingers, if it plucks out
then it is ready for the next step of hair removal.
Knifes are used to 'scrape' the hair off of the body along with a fine layer of scalded skin.
Pliers are used to pull off the toe nails after soaking the entire foot in the boiling water, and a knife is used to scrape the skin
of hair and debris - toe nails are tossed out.
Much scraping and boiling hot water, cleaning in and around the ears, mouth, face and anywhere else.
After the scraping comes the burner to singe any missed small hairs.
Then the rubbing down the entire animal with lots of lemons for the citric acid, and salt - I guess it is to clean and sterilise the skin.
After all this attention Porky does smell very clean, the skin is a clean white and firm after washing off with fresh water.

Time to clean him inside......... it is also the time where we look for any parasites or issues

So now the head is removed and the throat tube tied off with string so no juices come out, the bum ring is cut around and tied off too.
The tummy wall sliced open and internal guts pulled out and including the chest items like stomach, lungs and heart etc.
Intestines are separated, poo pushed out and washed thru, then turned inside out and cleaned again several times - these are kept
for the sausages and other meat skins.
Heart, lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys all kept.
Porky is hung up on hooks by the back legs after being washed out. Then washed out again, checked for any extra bits to clean out and
cut vertical in half thru the spine. The head is cut in half, all the organs if the parties want anything shared unless it is not wanted.

Chucked into the boot of the car and transported home from the farm.
At home our half is pulled out of the boot and hung in the shed to cool down ready to be processed the next day.

I would prefer 2 days hanging at least.

So this would normally be done on the long weekend in June (Queens Birthday public holiday), here is South Australia that usually means cold nights
just right for hanging in the shed to set.
This time also is when citrus fruits are ripening, lemons* and oranges, garlic is harvested, chili dried, all these are used in this process of
transforming Porky into bite sized chunks, that taste SO... good.

Edited November 27, 2017 by 17hornet

[17hornet 188]

Porky is broken up roughly with extreme prejudice.
Sounds good doesnt it?

The "Womans Work" table.

Being a family affair we are all expected to pitch in, I arrived at Nonno's shed at about 6.15am.
The morning was chilly but not as cold as I would like, so I was sure the fat would not have set yet and that is a pain in the bum
when handling the meat and skin, cutting things up.
Previous years I have beaten Nonno into the shed at 5.00am, they were cold starts and I think he was 'cuddling' Nonna to stay warm....
The fat had set well on those days, having a nice fat is good! (we talk like this with the adults working, humour)
But I digress.
Oh, this in my kids Nonno and Nonna, my parents inlaw, my wife is Italian descent and I am of German descent.

So I turned up and the shed light was on, step inside and see half of Porky already laid out on the table.
Nonno in his late 70's and a skinny little guy has moved it off the hook and onto the table and started work, I told him off as he doesnt need to get injured,
let alone that I missed out on some fun.
He gets so excited that he cant sleep and gets up to start work, this was his fathers work in the village back in the hills of Marche, Italy.

So I look around and assessed where he is at, laid out my knifes and steel (spent a few hours sharpening his knifes two days before),
then a quick turn to see what pieces were placed where.
The "Womans Work" table was well covered, bits hanging, buckets and pots holding parts.
Following pics show what is part of their job.

Skin is peeled off Porky in strips about 70mm wide, I like to do this while he is hanging neck down, start at the top and use a Stanley knife to cut just the right depth thru the skin and not cutting the fat layer, grab it with pliers and pull down.

The skin is scraped of any excess fat before boiling and then being scraped again, it is used for flavouring Pasta sauces and called Cotenne, a rollup of skin that has parsley, garlic and chili inside it and eaten also, cooked in the sauce of course. It is frozen until needed.
 

On the table under 'the net' is more body fat used for lard or sliced up to add to the mincer to get more fat into the sausages.
 

 

 

 

Feggatini
The slice of 'raw' liver is cut to about the size of a bay leaf, roughly 12-15mm thick, very little salt if you want any,
you can use a tiny bit of chili flake if you like it. (we do)
Cut the 'net' into squares that wrap the leaf and liver completely all around, the 'net' sticks to itself.
Look carefully at the pics of the liver treat, including the cooked one.

Cooked over hot coals on a grill is the best, its the smoke that does that !
But a BBQ plate will do, if BBQ use some of the pig fat chunks from Porky to melt on the plate to grease it.
The fats from the 'net' and fat from the pigs back make an awesome flavour.
Cook with a low temperature, our BBQ was done at the very lowest gas setting.

I eat it leaf and all, just tasty.

 

This is the fat from around the stomach (the net), I love it, once you have tasted THIS fat around a slice of fresh liver and bay leaf, bbq'd it is just the best thing !!
When a kid eats this, you know it is good.
 

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by 17hornet

[17hornet 188]

Top of the pic down, next is the meat from over the ribs and the rib cage, bones that pile up so the small bits of meat can be scraped off,
trotters, tongue, a different fat.
 

 

 

 

The pics below are fresh pork meat ready for the BBQ and a late lunch that EVERY body is hanging out for, very social thing.

 

 

 

[17hornet 188]

Who's looking up at you !
Pigs head, skin, ear, snout, jaw. These are all cooked up, diced and scraped for another sausage filling once minced and mixed with offal bits.
Made into a sausage that jellies a little inside.
 

 

 

The liver we looked at before, majority of liver and the other bits are chopped up and added to a sausage mix,
a liver sausage that it quite spicy and salty, dark in colour because blood is added to it also.
 

 

[17hornet 188]

 

 

Porky is transformed from Nose to Tail, even the squeal is used.

The " MAN TABLE " - YEAH !!


So now we are getting closer to the nitty gritty of this day, hands onto the big bits.

My Father Inlaw (FIL) Nonno, was working away removing the long back muscle, ribs were out and front shoulder off.

Again told him off, then grabbed the fat to assist him cutting out the long muscle down the top of the spine, from neck to rump.
I dont know the butchers terms for all the parts.

He uses this part for making Lonza and Capicollo (pics lower down), getting a longer 'cut of meat' he learned to do from me.
Years ago, he would break the animal into smaller bits and save the rear leg to make Prosciutto, a salt cured ham which is then 'pressed'
under one wheel of a car parked on top of a timber plank after soaking the leg ham in rocksalt, then it is hung to air dry.
He lost the whole rump and leg for a number of years straight, as it had fluid in the joints and the meat went off.
Talk about pissed off !

So I convinced him to use the meat and extend his Lonza and Capicollo cuts, a great success,
and we have more lean meat for sausages.

That Lonza bit done, I went about removing the fat from back, ribs area and belly, taking ANY meat off to go in the mincer.

Then remove the front leg trotter, remove the skin and seperate the muscle groups from the bone as much as possible by hand.
Cut out and sinu and tendons, seperate white meat and dark meat into different piles.
Same thing happens to the rear leg too.
All along we are cutting pieces for chops and steaks as well as preparing ribs for the lunch BBQ.

These two piles become the base of the sausage types, a salami, "feghetto" liver, plain white pork.

Salami - dark meat, plenty fat, salt, pepper. Short and fat. 50-75mm
Feghetto - dark meat, some fat, liver, orange skin, garlic, chili, salt, pepper. Long and thin 30-40mm
Plain pork - light meat, plenty fat, salt, pepper. Long and thin 30-40mm

The Lonza is salt brined first, has orange peel, salt and pepper inside and it is rolled up, placed in a elastic cotton mesh bag and dried.

Capicollo is salt brined then placed in a elastic cotton mesh bag and dried.

AND Codichino, which is literally the 'nose to tail' and anything in between!

Of course, ALL of this sausage meat is minced first and how 'fine the mince' depends on what it is being used for.

Some Italian regions dont mince but cut into larger chunks and then put it into a sausage casing.


Capicollo meat and Lonza meat removed, ribs separated to the womens table.

Back leg and rump ready to break up and bone out.

Front leg ready to break up, also fat cut into pieces ready for adding to mincer if needed.

Capicollo going into the salt, later it is put into a string netting wrap and hung to dry

 

Edited November 27, 2017 by 17hornet