The pork has been collected from the butcher and has all been labelled, bagged, and relevant parts made into sausages, salami, black pudding (boudin noir) and pate. Sausage making is a bit of a marathon task so once your pigs are booked in for slaughter ensure you keep a few evenings or days free to deal with it all. Its difficult to predict when your meat can be collected. It takes anything from a day to a week for tests to be returned to the butcher, and he won't carve the carcass until then. This gives the pork time to hang, which is ideal. The meat can't be released until he receives this clearance. This can be problematic if you wish to make pate, as the liver is past its best after 48 hours. Your butcher may be able to vacuum pack it to stretch out freshness a little.
On this occasion we made a range of sausage flavours including lemon & oregano, garlic & rosemary, plain, white pepper, Toulouse, sage & onion and apple. This is the first time we did some sausage making with the children around, they really enjoyed helping out and they seemed all the more eager to taste their efforts at lunch time.
Its been our first time making our own air dried salami so fingers crossed and recipes followed diligently so as not to poison ourselves! Its certainly unbelievably satisfying to see them all hanging in the wood shed. Six weeks of waiting before we can delve in for a first taste. We tried three flavours .... garlic, peppercorn and port. It seems from my book, but not others, that an important ingredient is the addition of acidophilus which gives the dried sausage its familiar white/green powdery coating which is in fact a 'friendly' mould. Its proliferation prevents, through competition, the growth of dangerous moulds or bacteria.
There will also be more air dried hams hanging in the wood shed, but this time around they will be a little more protected from possible interference!
that all sounds too yummy! I love good sausages! can I come live with you for a while ;)
Posted by: cliodhna | February 20, 2008 at 05:29 PM
Hi Rebecca,
I adore your blog but do not have the time to keep up with it some days which saddens me! I was telling my boyfriend about your blog the other day and how I would love one day to rear my own animals and grow my own crops because I don't think I should be eating them if I am not willing to go through from start to finish and that I thought it would bring a whole new meaning to life and food. He agreed and we hope one day to try, at least with some chickens and veggies if nothing else. And I just have to say that reading your blog makes me more and more determined to make this dream happen for us one day!
So thanks for sharing your world with us and you deserve the awards you've been nominated for wholeheartedly!
Posted by: Amanda | February 21, 2008 at 08:50 PM
Hi Amanda, great to hear from you again. You could start of with a window pot ... radishes are really simple, rocket too, both great to boost a salad ... or why not a hanging basket with a trailing variety of tomatoes!
Hi Cliodhna ... we could swap homes for a few weeks, anytime. x
Posted by: Rebecca (author of Sallygardens) | February 29, 2008 at 11:36 AM
The sausages sound delicious, my Dad use to make them when we were kids I remember the garlic ones and the curry ones as favorites. Reading your blog makes me more determined to get my own lifestyle block with pigs and a milking goat especially. Inspiring.
Posted by: Gill | March 03, 2008 at 08:03 PM