Stuff it

Today was the end of my arteries as I know them. After taking the Charcuterie class at Culinary Communion, I tackled sausage making on my own, armed with my old Mixmaster, the meat grinder and stuff attachments, and recipes for French merguez and boudin noir (blood sausage). I picked up pig blood, and hit the Pike Place Market for pork shoulder, lamb, and fat back, and casings.
The blood sausage is not as gross as you would imagine. Its not like being on Fear Factor. In fact, when the blood pops out of the container, it is so gelatinous that it reminds you of canned cranberry sauce (and is as just as appealing). And mixing up the meat, fat, spices and blood was just like mixing ketchup into meatloaf.

The recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of quatre epices, which research showed as a combination of four spices of varying quantities and spices. I settled on powdered ginger, black pepper, ground clove,and ground nutmeg. Since I needed it for the merguez as well, I decided to make a large batch and store the remainder. So a few teaspoons of this, and a teaspoon of that, and 6 teaspoons of freshly ground black pepper all went into a clean glass bowl for my mise en place, which I then threw into the mixer. Only after it had all blended did I realize I had thrown in all nine teasppons instead of the required 1/4 teaspoon. It sure smelled good though.

But it got to be pretty nasty when I had to stuff the casings. The machine would clog, and blood would spurt all over. (I still am finding it on the pendant lights.) Blood was all over my face and glasses. Pushing the mixture into the machine would create a suction and fart-like noise but the whole sausage-making process was such that you had to disengage yourself from the corporal and not think of bodily functions, because that would lead you to think of the body, and that to blood, and fat and muscle, and then the task at hand. Best to just get on with the job of stuffing the cranberry mixture.

Dale finally came over and helped when he realized that I would be serving these on Sunday for a birthday dinner. He was grossed out to say the least (and he didn't even see the blood splattered all over my face.).

But as he loves boudin noir, he steadfastly faced his task, and continued to force the mixture into the machine while I held the casing and pulled it along. Finally we finished, and we cleaned up. Well, after two good bleachings, that blood still stains my jacket and counter towel. Luckily the stainless countertops stood up to their name, and were a cinch to clean.

As for the gingerbread boudin noir, they were delicious. The spice was definitely there, but not as obnoxious as I had feared. The texture was sublime, with little bits of white fat that melted in the mouth, creating that wonderful texture obtainable only through pork fat. In fact, if I hadn't known better, I would have thought that boudin noir was supposed to be this spicy, and would have thought everything else bland.