Description:
Chris Kobler's Making Great Sausage is about meat and it's about getting your hands right into the thick of it. The old joke, of course, is that no one really wants to know what goes into sausage. Try telling that to an Italian farm wife around Christmastime with the entire family gathered to stuff sausage from the grindings of the annual pig. Not only does she want to know what goes into the mix, she's proud of it, and she's proud of the final results. With Making Great Sausage, you can get to the same place. No sausage need necessarily be stuffed. Patties work well. But there's nothing quite like stuffing 20 pounds of a sausage that simply can't be purchased in any local market, then sharing with family and friends. People look at you a little differently. Where you may have been getting that "oh-you-dilettante" look with any earlier culinary activities, unveiling a long string of handmade sausage will get you the glow of deep respect. It's something about the primal nature of meat. Even vegetarians get a little wide-eyed and weird. So, if you are going to go to all the trouble of investing in a good stuffer, finding the right casing, grinding the meat, gathering the spices, and all the rest, a decent road map would be nice. And that's what Making Great Sausage is all about. Kobler walks you through the basic process, then launches off on a country-by-country sausage tour of the world, providing the reader with baseline recipes to get started. Kobler explores seafood and poultry sausages as well as the various cuts of pork and beef. Two-thirds of the book takes in the sausages of the world. The last third is dedicated to sausage dishes. You'll find Thai Sausage Salad, which calls for Lop Cheong, a sweet sausage used throughout Asia. Or Choucroute Braisée é l'Alsacienne Garnie, which calls for Garlic Sausage. You can buy the sausage. Or you can make it yourself. Guess which tastes better? The author's technique is sound, and he is particularly careful about keeping everything sanitary. If you are inclined to discover what really does go into sausage (which will only lead to inventing your own), Making Great Sausage is a great place to start. --Schuyler Ingle
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