by Julia Child
As an example, for 5-inch sausages, provide yourself with sufficient pieces of well-washed, damp, double-thickness cheesecloth about 8 inches square, and sufficient 4-inch pieces of white string to secure the 2 ends of each. Form sausages one at a time. Start by spreading cheesecloth on a tray and painting it with melted lard or shortening.
Form a neat rectangular loaf of sausage meat 5 inches long on lower end of cheesecloth.
Smooth meat into a cylindrical shape; roll up tightly and neatly in cheesecloth.
Tie one end securely with white string. Twist other end of cheesecloth to pack meat into place, tie it with string, and the casing is finished. These sausages are often refrigerated for 2 hours or so to firm them up before anything else is done to them.
CAUL FAT
A marvelously useful product of the hog is its caul fat (crêpine, toilette), the spider-web-like membrane laced with fat that lines the visceral cavity. Caul fat makes a perfect and perfectly edible container for the fresh sausage patties called saucisses plates or crêpinettes. You can use caul fat instead of casing for boudins, for the large sausages you bake in brioche dough, and it is marvelous for wrapping up the stuffed tenderloin, meats roasted in a cloak of mushroom duxelles, or the noisettes de veau. Although American manufacturers use it for the occasionally made Devonshire sausages, caul fat is so little known to the general public in this country that unless you have a European butcher in your shopping area, you will have to order it. As caul fat will keep 2 months or more in the freezer, get several pieces while you are at it; each will average 30 inches square.
SALT AND SPICES
Seasoning is always an important part of sausage making and of charcuterie in general, since this is what gives the meat character, making your own brand different from any other. Furthermore, the salt and spices that enter into the preparation retard oxidation in the meat and are thus preservatives. French recipes often specify simply épices, sel épicé, or quatre épices, meaning use your own spice formula. The old standby, quatre épices, is a bottled mixture available everywhere in France; the four spices are usually pepper, clove, ginger or cinnamon, and nutmeg. Sel épicé is spiced salt that is usually 2 parts white pepper and 2 parts mixed spices for every 10 parts of salt.
You will find it useful to have your own spice mixture that you can keep at hand in a screw-top jar. Use it not only for sausages but for pâtés, meat loaf, as a marinade before cooking pork chops, and so forth. Here is a suggested formula: be sure all items are fresh-tasting and fragrant.
For 1 cup épices fines
1 Tb each: bay, clove, mace, nutmeg, paprika, thyme
1½ tsp each: basil, cinnamon, marjoram or oregano, sage, savory
½ cup white peppercorns
If ingredients are not finely ground, either pulverize in an electric blender or a coffee grinder (finest grind), then pass through a fine-meshed sieve, and repulverize any residue.
For each 6 cups (3 lbs.) of meat mixture: Suggested proportions of spice and salt
1 level tsp (2 grams) épices fines
Plus other flavors such as more pepper, garlic, more of a specific herb, and so forth, depending on your taste and recipe
For fresh sausages, pâté mixtures, and stuffings: 1 level Tb (½ ounce) table salt
For sausages that are to be air-dried 2 or more days: 1½ Tb table salt
NOTE: These proportions are what seem correct to us. Salts and spices vary in strength, and you may find you prefer a little more or a little less per pound.
PORK CUTS AND PORK FAT FOR SAUSAGES
Sausages, and charcuterie in general, are a byproduct of butchering. If you raise your own hogs and do your own butchering, you will have all the lean meat you need out of the trimmings from hams, loins, necks, and other large pieces. You will have, as well, the various types of fat, such as the hard fat from the back of the hog between the meat of the loin and the skin; this is the fatback, which is used not only for sausages and pâtés but also for larding roasts. You will have the leaf lard, almost impossible to find nowadays, which comes from inside the hog around the kidneys. You will have fat from the jowl, the neck, the belly, the hams, and the shoulders. Those of us not so fortunate have to buy retail cuts from the butcher or the supermarkets; our sausages will be a little more expensive to make, but they will be far better than anything we can buy because we will be using fresh meat of the best quality.
Unless your market goes in for foreign or regional cuts or you live in a pork-eating area, you may have only the loin to work with. However, you can buy a large piece from the shoulder end, bone it out, roast or sauté the lean pieces, and turn the rest into sausage.
Rather than the difficult-to-find fatback, you may use fat trimmed from the outside of a loin roast; it works well because it is neither too soft nor too hard. Fat trimmed from the outside of fresh hams and shoulders is less desirable because a little soft, but it is quite usable when you have no alternatives. If you have a fat-and-lean cut like boneless shoulder butt, make a guess at the proportion of fat to lean and add whichever is lacking according to your recipe requirements. One cup of meat or of fat is approximately ½ pound.
CHAIR À SAUCISSE
[Plain Pork Sausage Meat—for Sausage Cakes, Breakfast Sausages, Chipolatas, and as a Stuffing Ingredient for Pâtés, Poultry, and So Forth]
It is so easy to make your own sausage meat and it is so good that you will wonder, once you have made it, why you ever were so foolish as to buy it. Usual French proportions of fat to lean are one to one; you may cut it down to 1 part fat and 2 parts lean, particularly when you are using the retail pork cuts suggested here rather than trimmings; less fat than this will give you less tender sausages.
For 6 cups (3 lbs.) sausage-meat mixture
1) The sausage mixture
2 lbs. (4 cups) lean fresh pork meat such as fresh ham, shoulder, or loin
1 lb. (2 cups) fresh pork fat, such as fatback, fat trimmed from loin roast, or fresh leaf fat
A meat grinder
A heavy-duty mixer with flat beater blade, or large bowl and wooden spoon
1 Tb salt
1 tsp épices fines or ½ tsp white pepper and ½ tsp pulverized mixed herbs and spices to your taste
Put meat and fat through finest blade of meat grinder; for a very smooth mixture, you may put it through the grinder again. If you have a heavy-duty mixer, beat thoroughly with the seasonings until very well blended. Otherwise, blend thoroughly with a wooden spoon and/or your hands, first dipping them in cold water. To test for flavor, sauté a small spoonful for several minutes until cooked through; taste, and add more seasoning if you feel it necessary, but remember that the spice flavor will not develop to its full in the meat for 12 hours or more.
2) Forming and cooking
Sausage Cakes or Sausage Roll. Either form into sausage cakes with a wet spatula on waxed paper, or with your hands, dipping them in cold water frequently; then, if you wish, wrap cakes in caul fat. Or form into a cylinder 2 inches in diameter in cheesecloth as illustrated at the beginning of this section and chill; then unwrap and cut into cakes. Sauté slowly in a frying pan until nicely browned and thoroughly cooked through.
Sausage Links and Chipolatas. For these you should have narrow sheep casings ⅝ inch in diameter, if you can get them. Breakfast links are usually 3 inches long; chipolatas, the tiny sausages used for cocktails and garnitures, 1½ to 2 inches. Form as illustrated at the beginning of this section. To cook, prick in several places with a pin and place in a frying pan with ½ inch of water, cover and cook at just below the simmer for 5 minutes or until sausages have stiffened slightly. Pour off water and sauté, turning frequently, until nicely browned.
BOUDIN BLANC
[White-meat Sausages—Chicken and Veal or Chicken and Pork Forcemeat Stuffing]
White-meat sausages abound across the Atlantic, from the German and Swiss bratwursts and weisswursts to England’s quaintly titled white puddings. It has even been suggested that the French boudin an
d the English pudding sprang from a single etymological root. The boudin is more like a quenelle than a sausage, delicate in flavor and texture. In France, where a truffled boudin is traditional at the midnight Reveillon of Christmas and New Year, mashed potatoes is the accompaniment. However, you may treat them like roast chicken or roast veal, adding green vegetables to the platter, such as creamed spinach, broccoli, peas, braised endive, or whatever else you feel appropriate.
For about 6 cups, making 10 to 12 boudins, 5 by 1¼ inches
1) The sausage mixture
the pork fat:
½ cup (4 ounces) fresh pork leaf fat, outside loin fat, or fatback
A meat grinder with finest blade
An 8-inch frying pan with cover
Put the pork fat through the grinder. Return half to top of grinder. Cook the rest in the frying pan over low heat for 4 to 5 minutes until it has rendered 2 to 3 tablespoons of fat but has not browned at all.
cooking the onions:
3 cups (¾ lb.) sliced onions
(If you wish a mild onion flavor, drop them into 2 quarts of boiling water and boil 4 minutes; drain, rinse in cold water, and thoroughly shake off excess water.) Add onions to pork fat and fat pieces in frying pan, cover and cook very slowly, stirring frequently, for 15 minutes or more; they should be perfectly tender and translucent, but no more than a pale cream in color.
la panade:
½ cup (1½ ounces pressed down) stale white crumbs from unsweetened homemade-type bread
1 cup milk
A heavy-bottomed 2-quart saucepan
A wooden spoon
The large bowl of your electric mixer, or a 3-quart bowl
Meanwhile, bring the bread crumbs and milk to the boil and boil, stirring constantly with wooden spoon to prevent scorching, for several minutes until mixture is thick enough almost to hold its shape on the spoon. (This is now a panade, in the true and original sense of the word.)
the final mixture:
½ lb. (1 cup) skinless and boneless raw breast of chicken
½ lb. (1 cup) lean fresh veal or pork from shoulder or loin
2 tsp salt
⅛ tsp each: nutmeg, allspice, and white pepper
1 egg
⅓ cup egg whites (2–3 egg whites)
½ cup heavy cream
Optional: A 1-ounce truffle and juices from the can
When onions are tender, pass them with the remaining pork fat, the chicken, and the veal or pork through grinder twice. Place in mixing bowl, add seasonings, and beat vigorously in the electric mixer or by hand until well blended. Beat in the egg and continue beating for 1 minute, then beat in half the egg whites, and in another minute the remainder of the egg whites. Finally, beat in the cream 2 tablespoons at a time, beating a minute between additions. If you are using a truffle, mince it into ⅛-inch pieces and beat it in along with juices from the can.
To check seasoning, sauté a small spoonful until cooked through, taste, and add more if you feel it is necessary, but remember that the boudin is supposed to be rather delicate and mild in flavor.
2) Forming the boudins
Form either in small hog casings or in cheesecloth. Sausages will improve in flavor if refrigerated at least 12 hours before cooking.
(*) STORAGE NOTES: May be refrigerated for 2 to 3 days, or may be frozen for a month or so.
3) Preliminary cooking
(If you have formed the boudins in sausage casing, prick them in several places with a pin.) Arrange boudins in a baking pan, roaster, or large frying pan at least 3 inches deep, and on a rack or grill if you have one that fits. Measure in enough quarts of boiling water or half-and-half boiling water and milk to cover boudins by 1½ inches. Add 1½ teaspoons salt for each quart of liquid, and lay 2 imported bay leaves on top. Bring liquid barely to the simmer and poach uncovered at just below the simmer for 25 minutes. Remove from liquid and cool on several thicknesses of paper towels. If you have used cheesecloth casings, cut off the two ends with scissors and peel the sausages while still warm. (Sausage-casing boudins are peeled just before final cooking.)
(*) AHEAD-OF-TIME NOTE: If the boudins are not to have their final cooking promptly, wrap and refrigerate when cool. They will keep 3 to 4 days in the refrigerator, a month or so in the freezer.
4) Final cooking and serving
Of the several cooking methods available, oven baking is not recommended because it toughens the outside of the boudins before they have had time to brown. Dredging in flour and browning slowly in a frying pan in clarified butter or rendered pork fat is preferable, but the best method, we think, is under the broiler as follows: Roll the peeled boudins in fresh white bread crumbs, pressing the crumbs in place with your fingers. Arrange in a buttered baking dish and dribble on droplets of melted butter. Broil slowly, turning and basting with fat in pan several times, for 10 to 12 minutes, until boudins are nicely browned. Arrange on a hot platter, over a bed of hot mashed potatoes if you wish, and decorate with sprigs of parsley or watercress. Serve as soon as possible.
SAUCISSON À CUIRE—Saucisson de Ménage, Saucisson de Toulouse, Saucisson à l’Ail, Saucisson Truffé, Cervelas de Paris
[Large Fresh Sausages to Cook and Serve with Potatoes, Sauerkraut, Cassoulet, or to Bake in Brioche or Pastry Dough]
The following formula produces a fine substitute for those marvelous creations you read about but cannot find except in a French charcuterie. This recipe is for the home sausage maker, and requires no special equipment; for that reason you cannot call your product a saucisson de Lyon, which is hung for 8 days in a drying shed, or a saucisson de Morteau, which finishes in a smokehouse. Any of the names in the title, however, will do, and any Frenchman you invite for a meal will think you brought it back from the old country.
The sausages will develop their best flavor when you are able to hang them in a dry, airy part of the room at a temperature of 70 to 80 degrees for 2 to 3 days before cooking. If the weather is very damp, or much over 80 degrees, however, omit the hanging; several days in the refrigerator instead will help develop flavor. The saltpeter (potassium nitrate), which you should be able to buy at any prescription counter, is omitted if you are not hanging the sausages; its role is to give the meat an appetizing, rosy color that only develops after several days of hanging. Use the coarse or the fine blade of your meat grinder, whichever you prefer, but the coarse grind is more typical of a sausage that is to be hung.
French sausages of this type are not madly spiced and peppered, like some of the Spanish and Italian varieties. We have suggested 3 special flavorings, and you will eventually develop the proportions or other additions that will make your own sausage le saucisson de chez nous.
For 6 cups (3 pounds) sausage-meat mixture, making 10 to 12 sausages 5 by 1¼ inches, or 2 sausages 12 by 2 inches
1) The sausage mixture
4 cups (2 lbs.) lean fresh pork such as fresh ham, shoulder, or loin
2 cups (1 lb.) fresh pork fat such as fatback, fat trimmed from a loin roast, fresh leaf fat
Either 1 tsp épices fines plus ¼ tsp white pepper;
Or ¾ tsp white pepper and ½ tsp pulverized herbs and spices of your choice
1 Tb salt
¼ cup Cognac
Put meat and fat through grinder. With either a heavy-duty mixer and flat beater, or your hands and/or a wooden spoon, mix in the rest of the ingredients to blend vigorously and completely. Sauté a small spoonful to cook through thoroughly, taste, and correct seasoning, if necessary.
if you are to hang the sausage:
¼ tsp saltpeter, ¾ tsp sugar, and
1½ tsp more salt
special flavorings:
Either 1) A 1- to 2-ounce can of truffles and the juice from the can;
Or 2) ¼ cup chopped pistachios and 1 small clove mashed garlic;
Or 3) 2 or 3 medium cloves mashed garlic and ½ tsp cracked peppercorns
2) Forming and curing the sausages
Form the sausages either in casings or in cheeseclo
th as illustrated at the beginning of this chapter. If you are forming a 12- by 2-inch sausage in cheesecloth, wind a spiral of string around the length to keep it in shape; if you are hanging cheesecloth-wrapped sausages, paint again with melted lard after forming and tying. Hang sausages up on a nail or hook, in the dry airy part of your kitchen where the temperature is generally around 70 degrees and rarely over 80. After 2 to 3 days, they are ready for cooking.
(*) STORAGE NOTE: After curing, sausages may be wrapped securely and refrigerated for a week, or frozen for a month.
3) Cooking and serving suggestions
Saucissons à cuire need 30 to 40 minutes of slow cooking in liquid, and if you have formed them in casings, prick them in several places with a pin so that the fat will run out. When you are braising sauerkraut or cabbage, doing a bean or lentil dish or a pot au feu, add the sausages to the dish 30 to 40 minutes before the end of the cooking period. When you wish to serve them separately, as with French potato salad, or baked in brioche or pastry dough, poach them at just below the simmer for 30 to 40 minutes in a wine-flavored beef bouillon, selecting a container, such as a bread pan or casserole, that will just hold them easily. There is no need to brown them afterwards, but if you wish a more elegant presentation for sausages formed in cheesecloth, roll them in fresh bread crumbs, dribble on melted butter, and brown them under the broiler.