Sausages

One of the three little pigs decided he wanted a change of career today, so we made pork and fennel sausages. Ken the Kenwood Chef and his sausage-making attachment are instrumental in the sausage-making process. The first time we made sausages (over 30kgs of sausages, thanks to a generous contribution from Kevin, one of our old boars) we used a hand-operated mincer. It took days. With Ken, it takes about half an hour. Here is the recipe, adapted from the Kenwood cookbook:

For every 1kg pork:

1t fennel seeds

2T paprika

1t freshly ground black pepper

1/2t salt

50g breadcrumbs

We like to use fatty pork (our first ever sausages were super lean, and as a consequence, super dry). The best texture is obtained by using the smallest mincer attachment, however the fat in the pork has a tendency to clog the attachment up, so only try this if you have plenty of time (and patience) on your hands to keep cleaning it out. An almost-as-good texture is obtained by putting the mince through the large mincer attachment twice before mixing it with the spices.

Once you have your pork mince, combine it with the spices. You'll need sausage casings - we use natural ones bought in bulk from Dunninghams (from memory, we bought about 50 metres of them). They are available from some butchers, but at a considerably larger price. Using Ken again, pipe the sausage mixture into the casings, twisting clockwise then anti-clockwise to make individual sausages.

These are great barbecued on a German barbecue, or oven-baked and served with corn and paprika fritters and a tomato and roast capsicum salsa (tomato, roast red and green capsicum, lemon juice, garlic, cumin and coriander). They are also brilliant on a pizza with homemade goat feta (especially if manuka smoked beforehand).

Photo: Pork and fennel sausages fresh off the sausage-maker. They look slightly more appetizing when cooked.