Right then, kiddies, the pub beckons, and I can hardly decline, so I'm gone for the day. Have fun . . .
243 days ago
RT @rattlecans: How many suicides will occur in the UK before Lab Party is willing to reconsider their policies and attitudes to the poo ...
244 days ago
@crimsoncrip Yep - excellent day, thanks. A friend took me to Edale, in the Peak District, a Mecca for walkers… (cont) http://t.co/Ht08I91Q
244 days ago
@nigeldraper Screw that! I don't drive now, but that's way too much interference in what is purely a national, even a local, issue.
244 days ago
@crimsoncrip Thanks for #CT. Bit late - been out all day.
245 days ago
The last thing to be done was to cut it into suitable lengths, pack and freeze, as I’m too knackered to bother with the wrestling-with-a-python nonsense that’s involved in making linked sausages, so they’re just cut into suitable lengths like Cumberland – not least because I like the crisp bits you get on the ends.
I fried off some surplus meat, formed into small patties, and it was very tasty, meaty and slightly peppery – I had feared I’d overdone the pepper. Could have used a bit more sage, but what the hell? Salt, too, but that’s a matter of personal taste – you can always add salt on the plate – you can’t take any excess out. The sausages will retain more moisture than the patties which, even so, were nicely moist.
Total meat cost was £9.57 which gave me 1.46kg (approx. 3¼ lb)**, of finished sausages (everything else I had in stock). It might be more than I’d pay at Sainsbury’s, but at least I know everything that’s gone into them is the best it can be – and that the cooking sausages are NOT going to fill my frying pan with mysterious, urine-coloured liquid.
**For those of you scratching you heads and trying to relate that to the amount of meat I started out with, bear in mind that there were losses of both meat and breadcrumbs in the mincing process – not everything that goes into a mincer comes out, particularly the crumb – I’ll have to remember to compensate for that in future batches – and maybe 4 ounces of sausage meat left over from the stuffing process, which I fried and ate. Plus the addition, not mentioned previously, it was an afterthought, of perhaps a quarter of a pint of cider – not measured, but added until it felt right.
This is the almost finished product:-
The last thing to be done was to cut it into suitable lengths, pack and freeze, as I’m too knackered to bother with the wrestling-with-a-python nonsense that’s involved in making linked sausages, so they’re just cut into suitable lengths like Cumberland – not least because I like the crisp bits you get on the ends.
I fried off some surplus meat, formed into small patties, and it was very tasty, meaty and slightly peppery – I had feared I’d overdone the pepper. Could have used a bit more sage, but what the hell? Salt, too, but that’s a matter of personal taste – you can always add salt on the plate – you can’t take any excess out. The sausages will retain more moisture than the patties which, even so, were nicely moist.
Total meat cost was £9.57 which gave me 1.46kg (approx. 3¼ lb)**, of finished sausages (everything else I had in stock). It might be more than I’d pay at Sainsbury’s, but at least I know everything that’s gone into them is the best it can be – and that the cooking sausages are NOT going to fill my frying pan with mysterious, urine-coloured liquid.
**For those of you scratching you heads and trying to relate that to the amount of meat I started out with, bear in mind that there were losses of both meat and breadcrumbs in the mincing process – not everything that goes into a mincer comes out, particularly the crumb – I’ll have to remember to compensate for that in future batches – and maybe 4 ounces of sausage meat left over from the stuffing process, which I fried and ate. Plus the addition, not mentioned previously, it was an afterthought, of perhaps a quarter of a pint of cider – not measured, but added until it felt right.