Fresh Homemade Sausage

Photo: flickr user Daniel Morrison

Ingredients

1 pound Pork loin

1 pound Pancetta

1 pound Veal hip or shoulder

2 tablespoons Salt

1 tablespoon Fennel seed or anise seed

1 tablespoon Freshly-ground black pepper

4 tablespoons Whole black peppercorns

1 pch Freshly-ground nutmeg or to taste

1 pch Cinnamon or to taste

1 Pork casing (see your butcher)

Preparation

Soak the casing in water overnight in the refrigerator.

Cut the meat (loin, pancetta, veal) into 1/2-inch cubes and grind in a meat grinder. The mixture should be quite course. In a mixing bowl, combine the ground meat with the salt, fennel seeds, ground black pepper, whole peppercorns, nutmeg and cinnamon until very well blended. Using your hands in a very effective way to combine the mixture well.

Remove the casings from the cold water and dry on paper towels. Load the casing on to a funnel device leaving one inch of casing at the tip of the sausage stuffer. Slowly twist out the meat mixture into the casing, being careful not to leave any air pockets or tear the casing. Tie the tip end off and continue to tie off 4-inch segments with butcher twine.

Hang sausage in a cool dry room with good ventilation. Hang for 7 days and then refrigerate. The sausage is now ready to cook.

This recipe yields 3 pounds of sausage.