Spicy Italian Sausage Food

SPICY ITALIAN SAUSAGE PASTA

Steps:

• In a skillet over medium heat, combine the olive oil, fennel seeds, and chili flakes and cook until the fennel seeds start to snap and pop.
• The onion, half of it finely diced and the other half frenched, should be added to the skillet at this point and sauteed until translucent. (OPTIONAL: If you were to add any green bell pepper, it should be when the onion goes in, and it should be diced.) Add the minced garlic and continue for 1-2 minutes until the garlic starts to lightly brown on the edges.
• Add the spicy Italian sausage in small bits about the size of half a walnut and saute until brown.
• Add the diced roasted red pepper, tomato, marjoram, and basil. Toss with the rest of the ingredients and season with the salt and black pepper.
• Stir in the tomato paste and cook it for 2-5 minutes, until it coats everything and smells sweet; perhaps a bit smokey. Be careful, however, not to burn the tomato paste.
• Pour in the chicken broth and stir to dissolve the tomato paste. Taste and re-season with salt and pepper. Simmer uncovered until the liquid thickens.
• Add the cooked egg noodles and toss the sauce throughout.
• Serve family style on a platter with the parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.

SPICY ITALIAN SAUSAGE PIE

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 425°F
• Place crust in 9-inch pie pan. Prick bottom of crust with fork. Line crust with foil. Bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven; remove foil. Return to oven until crust is golden brown, about 7 minutes. Cool slightly.
• Heat large saute pan over medium heat. Add sausage, crumbling well. Cook through.
• Add peppers, onions, herbs and pepper; cook until onions are translucent, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Spoon sausage mixture into pie shell. Sprinkle with Mozzarella and Parmesan Cheeses.
• Whisk eggs and milk in bowl. Pour over sausage mixture. Bake until egg mixture is set, puffed and golden, about 25-30 minutes. Cool before slicing.

HOMEMADE ITALIAN SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Cut pork shoulder into cubes. Place in a bowl and refrigerate while preparing the other ingredients.
• Grind garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar to make a paste. Add fennel, anise, and black pepper. Bruise spices lightly with a pestle to release the flavors. Add red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, oregano, marjoram, coriander, mustard, allspice, sugar, and a splash of water. Stir to combine.
• Add the spice paste to the pork cubes. Mix thoroughly by hand. Add the remaining salt. Cover and refrigerate until flavors meld, 8 hours to overnight.
• Process the cold pork through a meat grinder on the slowest speed.
• Push a casing onto the stuffing tube of your meat grinder. Feed the sausage meat through the filling tray. Run the meat through the casing on the slowest speed until all the casing is used up. Tie casing at the end into a knot. Pinch and twist the meat to create links if desired.
• Place sausage onto a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Refrigerate uncovered for 24 hours.
• Preheat a charcoal grill for medium heat. Separate the links and grill them until browned, about 5 minutes per side.

SPICY ITALIAN SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Mix the meat with the salt and sugar and refrigerate overnight, or up to 2 days. You can skip this step, but the sausage will not bind as well.
• Get out about 4 metres of sausage casings and soak them in warm water. If you want, flush them with water; this helps the stuffing process and will let you know if you have any leaks.
• Mix the minced garlic, pepper, coriander, hot paprika and oregano with the meat and fat and grind through a medium (6.5 mm) die. Chill the mixture in the freezer until it is about 0 degrees C.
• When the mixture is cold enough, add the fennel seeds, red wine and ice water and mix well with your (very clean) hands for 60 to 90 seconds. Your hands will ache with cold. You'll know the sausage is ready when it coheres in one mass. You'll also start to see whitish streaks form on the side of the container you're mixing in. You can also do this mixing in a mixer on low.
• Pack your sausage into a stuffer and thread on a length of casing. Slowly ratchet down the meat to remove all air from the stuffer and the tube the casing is on. Leave about 10 cm of casing off the end of the tube; you'll use this to tie off later. Stuff one big coil of sausage rather loosely. If you have more sausage to stuff, keep stuffing large coils until you're done. To form links, take a coil and pinch off two links about 15 cm long -- the first link is the end of the coil, the second one up from the end. Roll this link away from you a couple times. Tie off the end of the coil. Now move down the coil and pinch off another link. Roll this link towards you a few times. Move all the way down the coil until you get to the end. Tie off that last link. Repeat with other coils.
• Gently compress each link looking for air pockets. Use a needle or sausage pricker to pop any air pockets. Gently compress the links to fill that gap. This takes finesse not to burst the casing. When all you links are ready, hang them to dry. At room temperature, hang an hour or two. Ideally, you'll hang links between 0 -4 degrees C overnight. Alternatively, leave them uncovered in the fridge overnight before eating or freezing.