Home sausage making is easy and delicious, and opens the door to virtually unlimited possibilities in terms of the type of meat and seasonings you use. I recently sat in on a sausage making class at kitchenware store Las Cosas in Santa Fe, N.M. Led by veteran sausagemakers (and store staffers) Dick Faller and Jean Lamuniere, a class of aspiring sausage-makers learned how to grind the meat, season the mixture, stuff the sausage into casings, and, finally, cook the sausage.
If you don't have the opportunity to take a class like this, never fear. I've outlined all the steps on making sausage in this easy tutorial. You'll need a meat grinder and a sausage stuffer; in these instructions, we're using a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and the food grinder and sausage stuffer accessories.
Most traditional sausages are made of meat, fat, flavorings and casings. For pork sausage, the best cut is the picnic shoulder, but it's often hard to find, so a good substitute is pork butt. Whatever meat you use, it should have some fat in it. Fat back is a good fat to use; it won't melt out of the sausage as it cooks like some other types of fat. As for casings, natural casings give them most satisfying "snap" and flavor; hog casings are good for Italian sausage or bratwurst-type sausage because they come in 2-inch diameters. Narrower sheep casing are more delicate to use, but are good for small breakfast sausages. If you can't find a local source for natural casings, you can order them online from Mid-Western Research & Supply. Casings are packed in a salty slush and will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator.
To make about 4 pounds of sausages (about 16 to 20 links), you'll need about 3 pounds of meat and between 1/2 to 3/4 pound of fatback. If you want to add a liquid flavoring, such as wine, use 1/2 cup. You can also add garlic, dried herbs, pepper and kosher salt.
