Homemade Semi-Dry Cured Sausage
Description
So you can enjoy your morning sandwich without fear or harm to your health, here is a simple recipe for dry-cured sausage at home. No special skills or equipment are needed to make it—just a little time and the necessary ingredients.
Instructions
- 1
Step 1
1. The recipe for making dry-cured sausage at home begins with preparing the main ingredients. Wash the fatback, pat it dry, and rub it with salt and garlic (optional). Refrigerate for 10–12 hours.
- 2
Step 2
2. For this sausage, you can use any meat you prefer. In this case, it's veal. Wash the meat, pat it dry, and cut it into thin, small slices. Place it in a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon of salt and sugar and a little pepper. Pour in vodka and, if desired, add other spices to taste. Refrigerate as well, ideally for 24 hours.
- 3
Step 3
3. The fatback must be thoroughly dried so it does not release excess moisture. The meat can be finely chopped with a sharp knife or passed through a special meat grinder attachment.
- 4
Step 4
4. The pork fatback can be placed in the freezer for about 15–20 minutes so it firms up slightly. Then it should be finely diced into small cubes. If desired, the fatback can also be ground in a meat grinder; however, the sausage may turn out quite fatty as a result.
- 5
Step 5
5. When all the ingredients are ready, you can combine them. Add the remaining salt and sugar, and pour in a little cognac. If you don’t have cognac, you can use vodka. This is a simple homemade semi-dry cured sausage recipe, but you can add spices for a more interesting flavor if you like. Gently mix the resulting mince.
- 6
Step 6
6. You can start shaping the sausages. Rinse the casings and carefully stuff them with the meat. If you don’t have casings on hand, you can wrap each sausage in clean cheesecloth, for example.
- 7
Step 7
7. Now the sausages need cool air and a draft (you can hang them near the exhaust fan). After about 2–3 days, the sausage will begin to dry-cure, and it will be fully ready around day 9–10.