u can just walk along, have a sausage and drink a beer and you’re set for the day,” Prei says.
If you’re serious about stuffing your own sausages, consider investing in a food grinder and sausage stuffer, or stand mixer attachments. But as Vallins points out, they can also be stuThe world of sausages is vast, and flavour opportunities endless. From North African merguez to Chinese lap cheong and German bratwurst, encased meats hold a special place in the hearts of meat lovers.
Making them yourself is a rewarding project. Whether you’re creating a small batch or kilogram upon kilogram with friends or family, homemade sausages are perfectly customizable.
You can play with ingredient combinations and come up with your own unique spice blends. Meat, seasonings, casings, and a digital scale are all you’ll need to get started.
With Oktoberfest kicking off in Munich on September 17, and Bavarian festivals rolling out across Canada, now is the perfect time to embrace the rich and varied tradition of German sausages.
“Every region in Germany makes their own sausages and they are very, very proud. Each has a different spice mix,” Edmonton-based chef Doreen Prei says.
“If you were in Bavaria for example, you would get a lightly simmered, poached white sausage (weisswurst). It has to be at least 51 per cent veal. And then of course, Bavaria is famous for its pretzels. So you would get a pretzel served with sweet mustard.”
Chef Jesse Vallins of Toronto’s Maple Leaf Tavern developed and instructs the sausage-making course at George Brown College. He says that many German sausages are emulsified-style: bratwurst, weisswurst, knockwurst, and frankfurters, for example. The hot dog is likely the best-known emulsified sausage world-wide.
“I’m a very big fan of emulsified sausage and that texture. You can tell there’s good pork, good seasoning and that’s generally what German sausages are. German cuisine in general is based around pork and that’s one of my favourite things,” he says.
“We do a weisswurst in class that is half veal, half pork with the addition of milk and spiced with quatre épices (four spice): nutmeg, white pepper, clove and allspice. You can do variations on that. Some people might add ginger, some people might add mace, but that’s your basic weisswurst.”
Prei, a Michelin-star trained chef, is originally from Weimar in the east-central state of Thuringia, which is famous for its charcoal-roasted sausages.
“Sometimes I crave them, so I try to recreate my childhood memory of this beautiful Thuringian sausage. I love the flavour of fresh lovage. I grew up with that so I use a marjoram-lovage spice blend. It’s super delicious. I like to use pork shoulder, pork belly and (hog) casings when I make my sausages,” she says.
As for cooking the sausages, first, she poaches them very gently for about five minutes, to ensure the casings don’t burst. Then, she cooks them on a charcoal grill, spritzing occasionally with beer.
“My grandfather would always spray the sausages with
sausage machine. It keeps them nice and moist while they’re doing their thing,” she says.
“We eat them in lovely little soft white buns with spicy Dijon mustard. You could survive on those sausages. In my region, you can buy them from vendors for (about) two euros. Yoffed by hand — feeding the sausage mix into a casing using a spoon — or not stuffed at all.
“If you don’t want to stuff sausages with
sausage stuffer, you could make meatballs or patties. It’s essentially the same method as making a good meatloaf; you could bake it in a dish. You could make sausage gravy or a pasta sauce. Once you’ve made your mix, you have a lot of options,” he says.
Oktoberfest is a celebration of beer, which is a natural fit with sausage. But spit-roasted, crispy-skinned chicken (Brathendl) is actually the most popular meal at German Oktoberfest celebrations, Prei says. Rustic potato or flour dumplings, pretzels, and of course, sausages with sauerkraut, are all mainstays.
“If you go there with a bigger group, it’s easy to feed your friends. You share a chicken amongst a group, get a couple sausages and then you eat from everything and enjoy yourself while you’re drinking beer. These festivals are about total comfort food,” she adds.
