Notes on Making Fresh Sausages

Considering the luscious rewards, making sausages at home is well worth the effort. With little specialized equipment, a bit of practice, and some reasonable recipes, you will soon feel free to disdain forever the composites of ambiguous origin that often pass themselves off as fresh sausages.

We have limited ourselves here to the production of “fresh sausages,” that is, those made of fresh pork meat and fat which are not lengthily air-dried (although one kind is smoked) before being poached, pan-broiled, or baked. Air-dried sausages (such as salami and summer sausage) have not been included because it is difficult to maintain the cool, dry, airy atmosphere necessary to prevent spoilage. For similar safety reasons, we have not included sausages that require smoke-curing at temperatures that demand the accuracy of professional equipment.