30 encased meats in three days

June 16 to 18, 2009

i signed up for a three-day sausage-making class in march, long before my second quarter at Kendall had begun. i couldn’t wait for it to start. i flipped through the handout that listed the sausages we would make countless times and told everyone i knew about it. but as the second quarter wound down and i finished up exams, i was ready for a two-week break from dishes, cuts, burns, dry hands, washing my whites and memorizing conversion charts. i dreaded three straight days of 6 a.m. wake-up calls.

on day one, as i lugged my bag and knife kit into the garde manger kitchen just before 7 am, i was nervous. i had seen the chef-instructor, Chef Pierre Checchi, pass through my class’s kitchen on occasion. he bore a large tattoo on his forearm that protruded from under the rolled up sleeve of his chefs whites. he would often stop for long chats in french with Chef Pollin during which he would usually impart some advice for us on whatever we were working on that day. he represented what lurked beyond the comfort of my beginner classes where i knew everyone and could easily find my way around the kitchen.

“good morning. you guys here for sausage class?” Chef Pierre asked, shaking me out of my daze. the eight of us quickly gathered around a large table, and he began to describe what the next three days would entail. we would be broken up into teams of two, and we would make as many types of sausage as possible–from fresh to cured, smoked and dried–using different combinations of lean meat and fat. my nerves melted as the task at hand became clear: we would be immersed in encased meats over the next three days. despite that a few of the other students in the class had been in school longer than i, we were all there because of our fascination with a style of meat preservation that has been perfected over hundreds of years and now requires specific equipment and ingredients to properly produce. my novice didn’t matter, since we were all there to learn something new.

first, a little background on sausage:

sausage is a mixture of two-thirds lean meat and one-third fat (called forcemeat) that is seasoned with spices and aromatics and ground. it is often stuffed into a casing, made usually of animal intestine, collagen or plastic. the animal intestines come from lamb, hogs or beef–in ascending size order. they are stored in brine and have to be flushed out with cold water before you can use them.

mortadella stuffed into beef casing (the largest of the casings)

sausages in collagen casings are rinsed

liver sausage in plastic casings

fresh sausages like mexican chorizo, italian sausage, and breakfast sausage are made simply with meat, fat, salt, spices and aromatics for flavor. these are usually kept in the refrigerator during their short shelf life and sautéed or grilled when eaten. but not all sausages are made to order. and this is where salt becomes more than just a flavoring agent–its ability to draw moisture out of meat makes it an ideal preservative.

sausages such as kielbasa, hot dogs, andouille, mortadella and summer sausage are quick cured using sodium nitrite, a preservative made of salt and added nitrite that helps develop the sausages’ color and flavor; but more importantly, it delays the development of botulism while the meat is being stored. the nitrite breaks down within a day, becoming harmless. since it is toxic in large amounts if you eat it out of the bag, it is usually dyed pink and kept separate from salt, sugar and other spices in commercial kitchens where it’s used.

for dry, fermented sausages that are uncooked such as country ham and salami, the powerful sodium nitrate (a single vowel, an unnerving difference in meaning) is used. it slowly breaks down into nitrite over a much longer period as the sausage cures and dries at a temperature specific to its makeup. over the course of the three days, the eight of us made each of these types: fresh, quick-cured and dried sausages.

my teammate nick and i made hot dogs, liver sausage, thuringer (pronounced TUR-in-gur–thanks to my sister, for taking several years of german), fresh mexican chorizo and english bangers.

making 20 pounds of hot dogs proved to be a true labor of love, spanning across two days, a variety of large machinery and countless broken lamb casings. the forcemeat–a mixture of lean beef, pork butt (upper shoulder) and pork jowls (from the side of the pig’s head)–had to be kept on ice as we trimmed it, cut it into strips and brought it to the cooler where we ground it several times before mixing it with sodium nitrite to cure overnight.

Chef feeds meat into the grinder

the following morning, i trudged into the kitchen, my back and arms sore from lugging around giant hunks of meat and fat on ice the day before. our hot dog meat was waiting for us in the cooler just where we’d left it, and we set up the grinder to the smallest plate size–3/32 of an inch in diameter–to combine our pre-ground meat and fat together. grinding sinewy meat and fat through such a tiny setting can create backups if you don’t do it properly, something we learned the hard way as the grinder began working too hard and heating up the fat, causing it to ooze out slowly with the texture of caulk. “your fat is getting too warm,” Chef said. he expertly threw in some ice cubes to loosen the clog in the grinder, then told us to dismantle it, clean it and start again, making sure to keep the meat and fat cold enough and to not overstuff the grinder.

after grinding it several times, we brought the mixture over to the giant commercial food processor in the cafe kitchen, where we would add the spices, crystallized corn syrup (to keep ingredients evenly mixed and add sweetness), soy protein (the extender) and process it to make it into a paste. we were careful to add each ingredient at the right time, first mixing in some ice to keep the meat and spice mixture below 45 degrees F, then letting it mix for a few minutes to bring it up to about 52 degrees F before adding the soy protein. after it was sufficiently mixed and gummy to the touch, i carried the seasoned pink meat paste back to the garde manger kitchen, where we would finally stuff the hot dogs into their casings.

in order to stuff the 20 pounds of forcemeat, we used an automatic machine, meaning we wouldn’t manually crank the meat into the casing; rather we would push on a lever to squeeze the forcemeat out through a tube. we filled the large metal basin with the sticky forcemeat and raised the bottom up to meet the lid with a foot lever (like raising the chair in the dentist’s office). this shrunk the size of the basin and forced out any air pockets. by pushing on another lever on the side of the machine, the sausage would be forced out of the basin through the small tube we attached on the end. we fed several lamb casings onto the little tube, each about eight feet long. “you have to keep lubricating the casings with warm water so they don’t break,” Chef instructed.

he adjusted the speed at which the forcemeat would come out with a small dial on the back of the machine. he pushed on the lever with his knee to start squeezing out the meat and effortlessly guided it into the casing with one hand, while he continuously splashed warm water on the remaining casings on the tube. the meat spread itself out evenly within the lamb intestine as it was quickly squeezed out of the tube. “you should work fast, so it comes out uniformly,” he said. as with all the sausages he stuffed, he coiled forcemeat he had already encased into a large spiral to prevent unwanted pinching and twisting.

coiled chorizo (to prevent pinching)

as he came close to the end of the eight feet of intestine, he eased his leg off the lever to let the last bit of meat come out as he pinched off the end of the intestine and knotted it. he then pricked the sausage all over with a fork to help spread the forcemeat out evenly and prevent bubbles from forming.

next, he lightly squeezed the forcemeat in its casing at roughly eight-inch intervals to make links. “just lightly pinch it, and make sure you keep those links even sized!” he said. he then picked up the second link from the end, grabbed the two pinched ends and twirled them quickly around and around like a hopscotch rope until the casing tightened enough on each end to stay together when he put the link down on the counter.

he repeated this until eight feet of encased meat became hot dogs.

“ok guys?” he asked, looking from nick to me. “ok, Chef,” we replied. it was our turn. we adjusted the speed down slightly and began easing the forcemeat into the casing. i made sure to keep the casings wet all the while. “you have to move faster, guys,” Chef scolded as he walked by our counter full of hot dogs. we had probably only gotten through about five pounds by this time. we adjusted the speed upward. as we tried to replicate Chef’s expertise and speed, the forcemeat would periodically burst out of the sides of the casings. “don’t try to be perfect. they will come out fine once we smoke and poach them,” he said. clearly he could see the frustration in my face growing as i tore off a broken casing, tied it off and thread a new casing onto the tube, over and over again. “this is for you guys to learn, so just keep going.” after another half hour of stuffing, we finally finished our hot dogs. with the help of another student, we unintentionally made them all into links of different sizes. before we could eat them, they still needed a full night of smoking followed by a quick poaching. while they weren’t nearly as good as the best hot dogs i’d tasted, i was so proud of them i didn’t care. i couldn’t believe the depth and involvement of the process required to make this american staple that has also been the butt of countless “so what’s actually in there?” jokes. i would never make fun of a hot dog again.

Chef’s words on the end of day two solidified my appreciation for the art of making sausage: “we are barely scratching the surface here, guys. three days is not nearly enough,” he said.

indeed, the hours flew by over those three days as the eight of us trimmed, ground, reground, mixed, stuffed and cured 30 sausages using forcemeats that ranged from pork, beef, fatback, pork jowls, veal, chicken, alligator, lamb, beef hearts, beef blood and pork livers and snouts all under the careful eye of Chef Checchi. he thought of coffee and lunch breaks as little more than a nuisance, which he made known on day two when we returned from lunch. “i thought i said 12:30, not 12:45!” he cried. “if you want to spend your time in this class sitting in the cafeteria and eating, that’s up to you.”

if we asked him a question about meat to fat ratios or curing salt measurements, rarely would we receive short answers. he would demand to know the recipe in question and quickly thumb through his pile of sausage books until he found it. he would often second guess the measurements as laid forth by the cookbook authors based on his own experience. “rytek tends to go short on salt,” he would say, recommending we add an extra half teaspoon to our recipe for liver sausage. and yet i came to love this intensity because it was never intimidating. when our casings bubbled or the forcemeat felt softer than it should after smoking overnight, he would list the possible reasons for the mishap and gently remark, “but it’s ok. i’ve made mistakes making sausage. the only way to get better is to practice.”

through the countless lessons i learned, i gained a strong sense of pride and gratification from making and eating sausage. to take on such a direct role in the production of my food provided me with a true connection to the animal from which it came. i trimmed and sliced a whole beef heart; i broke down gigantic pork livers and snouts for the liver sausage; i cured; i smoked; i stuffed; i tasted the beef blood that would go into blood pudding and kiszka. “go ahead and taste that blood,” Chef said, gesturing to the large plastic carton with rust-colored liquid dripping down the sides. “i think you’ll find it to be a little salty, but you should try it, you know?” the salty blood left a metallic taste near the back of my mouth that lingered for awhile.

on the final day, we prepared to eat. we were sent to all corners of the school to fetch side dishes, condiments, serving utensils and drinks. the smoked thuringer, andouille, lamb summer sausage and kielbasa were removed from the smoker to be rested and rinsed. the one-day-aged mortadella was poached and sliced. nitrite-cured and fresh sausages we’d made were cooked in all manner of styles: the brats were grilled and finished with onions and white wine; the hot dogs, kiszka, french sausisson de lyon and liver sausage were poached; and the mexican chorizo, bangers, chinese sausage with ginger and soy, chicken and apple sausage and alligator and rabbit sausage were each sautéed.

cooking fresh sausage

we piled our plates high with the cholesterol- and sodium-filled feast and the proper accompaniments. several types of mustard, cornichons, potato salad made by Chef and freshly baked baguettes from the baking students’ kitchen. i loved some of the sausages and didn’t care to taste others after one bite. Chef commented freely about which sausages had perhaps too much or too little salt, had or hadn’t smoked quite properly or long enough, but he was pleased and told us so as we cleaned the kitchen for a final time that afternoon and bagged up our sausages to take home.

i didn’t want any meat the next day or even the day after. on day three, some friends came for breakfast, and i fried up the english bangers i had prepared on the last day of class. as we ate, i proudly described their process to my friends. later, i found myself researching a kitchenaid mixer and the meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachments that i couldn’t afford. i wondered where i could order the proper curing salts and whether my cellar was the right humidity for dry aging. i wanted to taste and judge different sausages from my favorite butcher shops and restaurants around the city, and i wanted to make more of my own.

i was hooked all over again.

kielbasa and lamb sausage

perfectly acidic sides

a meat plate