Home Sausage Making: Healthy Low-Salt, Low-Fat Recipes

`Home Sausage Making' by Susan Mahnke Peery and Charles G. Reavis is a great small book in its third edition since it was originally published in 1981 by the very small publishing house, Storey, which specializes in culinary titles. Reading this book shows up the dangers to a reviewer in reviewing the very first book one encounters on a specialized subject such as home sausage making. Just three days ago, I reviewed `Bruce Aidells' Complete Sausage Book' by meat and sausage experts Aidells and Denis Kelly, published by cookbook behemoth, 10 Speed Press. Naturally, with Aidells' reputation and my liking the previous two books this pair have done, I gave the book a very complementary review.

Now, I read another book on exactly the same subject and I find an even better book that addresses all of the criticisms I had of the Aidells and Kelly book. Specifically, it makes liberal use of illustrations of both equipment and technique, with the added bonus of being very specific about health hazards and the means for avoiding them, by being clear about cooking, aging, and smoking temperatures. Thankfully, there is enough difference between the two books and they are both inexpensive enough to make it worth your while to own both. If you really need to limit yourself to one, the Aidells / Kelly book is better for the armchair sausage buff, who is more interested in things to do with sausage and with the scoop on what is in the sausage he buys at the deli, megamart, or specialty meat store. Peery / Reavis is better for people who are really interested in actually making sausage, based on the much better illustration of sausage making equipment and technique, and fewer recipes, compared to Aidells / Kelly on what to make with sausage.

Peery / Reavis also has a much broader interpretation of what constitutes sausage. In addition to all the obvious preparations, this book includes recipes for making scrapple (2 recipes) and other American favorites. While both books include lots of famous international recipes for fresh and cured sausage, Aidells / Kelly presents these recipes is a more organized fashion which is better suited if you happen to want to make a Spanish or Cajun or oriental sausage.

I compared the recipes for `basic breakfast sausage' in both books and found the ingredients to be virtually identical. The only difference in ingredients is the presence of dried marjoram in Peery / Reavis and their substitution of brown sugar for granulated white sugar. Peery / Reavis' procedure was also more detailed, especially since it was oriented toward making sausage in casings while Aidells / Kelly refers you the general technique on filling casings without repeating the instructions for the specific recipe.

While Aidells / Kelly organizes their recipes by region, Peery / Reavis organizes their recipes by ingredients, giving us chapters on:

Pork Sausages

Beef, Lamb, and Veal Sausages

Combination Sausages

Game Sausages

Poultry Sausages

Seafood Sausages

Vegetarian Sausages

Both books have lots of sidebars on the origins and trivia about sausages. The introduction giving the history seems like one of them cribbed from the other, as they both seem to touch on the same bases, right down to the references to sausage in Homer's `Odyssey'. Aidells / Kelly is just a bit more interesting in this background information; however the charm of Peery / Reavis' background from U.S. bratwurst central in Sheboygan, Wisconsin is not lost in their obvious love of their subject.

As a trivial aside, I must object to Peery / Reavis' comment on Otto von Bismarck's comparison of sausage making and lawmaking, as Bismarck's intent was clearly to illuminate the nature of lawmaking and politics and not to make a culinary comment.

Both books are very good. Get both, but get Peery / Reavis first if you really want to make sausage yourself.

While the book is informative and provides good instruction about some of the basics of sausage making, it is nonetheless lacking in many respects. First, most of the book's recipes that I've made come out under-salted and under-spiced. While this is something that you can test for and adjust during production, it would have been better for the authors to simply provide quantities that produced sufficiently seasoned sausages. In short, most of the sausages end up bland, tasting more like plain ground meat than sausage.

Furthermore, the recipes utilizing sausage are unimpressive as well. Most cooks experienced enough to make fresh sausage probably don't need a recipe for a sausage omelette or sausage pizza.

Finally, and most importantly, the book misses some important techniques that are essential to proper sausage making. While they do make mention of freezing meats for 30 min. before stuffing, they don't sufficiently emphasize how essential it is to maintain near-freezing temperatures throghout the process until the casings or stuffed. Failure to do so will result in dry, crumbly sausages, something I learned the hard way. Additionally, there is no discussion of the "primary bind," an essential step in sausage making whereby the ground & spiced meat mixture is beaten (either by hand with a wooden spoon or with a paddle attachement in a stand mixer) for a couple of minutes before stuffing. This allows the meat to bind together, preventing a loose & crumbly sausage, yet this essential step is entirely absent from the book.

My recommendation would be to look at "Charcuterie" by Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn. Not only does that book provide all the ins & outs of sausage making (plus the reasoning behind them) from award-winning professionals, the recipes are perfectly seasoned every time. The book has the added benefit of providing information on some more exotic things to do with meat as well, such as dry-curing hams, prosciutto, salami, etc.

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I bought this book because I wanted an introduction to sausage making, something that I didn't know much about and very much wanted to learn how to do. I haven't tried any of the recipes yet, ( I just got the book a few hours ago ) but I am already really glad I chose this book. Not only are there a lot of recipes for various sausages, both fresh and smoked, there is also a lot of basic sausage-making information perfect for a beginner like myself. There are some great sounding recipes (including how to make your own salami, pepperoni and hot dogs)as well as recipes for dishes that use your homemade sausage.

The only thing that is missing from this book is a more detailed discussion of the various sausage casings available and how to store and use them. All the recipes use natural hog casings (intestines).

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This is one of my go-to books for sausage recipes. My favorite is Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book, but this book is a close second.

The instructions are good for beginners and the recipes are good for all skill levels.

My favorite recipe in this book is the Garlic Sausage. I love garlic, so I bump up the quantities of fresh garlic. I also increase the fresh ginger a little bit (don't tell my wife--she hates ginger). The results are phenomenal.

So here's the dirty secret about sausage cookbooks: There are really only about ten or so recipes that the average DIY sausage maker wants to cook. That won't sell a book though. So they have to fill the pages with goofy recipes you'll never try (like Duck Sausage!). I ignore those recipes when I judge the book, because I know they have to fill the pages and maybe there's some guy out there who really wants to make duck sausage. I think there's a rabbit recipe too, so if Bugs and Daffy ever settle things once & for all, the winner will know what to do with the loser's corpse to hide the evidence.

My only real gripe about this book is that the recipes are organized by meat type instead of by recipe type. I think the recipes should be organized regionally (German, Italian, Mediterranean, Asian, etc.) or by type (breakfast, etc.). I have to skip through the book to find the one I'm looking for, because I know the varieties better than I know the meat contents. ("Is Bockwurst pork, veal, chicken, or mixed?").

I've noticed complaints from some of the other reviewers about the bland spices. I guess that's sort of true, but I assume that from most cookbooks and I usually bump up the seasonings per my own taste preferences.

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This book proves to be outstanding in introducing a person who is completely unfamiliar with the basics of sausage making. After reading this book one will know everything that one needs to know to confidently procure the right equipment, shop for the right ingrdients, and how to get started. The tips on food hygene were helpful, but the dangers of poisoning related mishandling meat seem overstated, and may spook some people from untaking a tradition that was for centuries carried out before refridgerators and certainly in less clean circumstances than the modern kitchen. All in all, it's a clear simply written introduction to the craft of sausage making and that makes it ultimately a success.