Homemade Sausage Making

Redzed, that looks great and the smaller chubs is really the way to go, good thinking there! Who cares about beauty, we're in it for the taste!

Once in a while I get a hankering for some good salceson and there is nothing more pleasant to the senses than scents of garlic and cooking pork wafting though the house! I had some hocks left from the pork legs i bought recently and threw in one beef tongue, ground the skins and there it is, a 6lb loaf of goodness. Hardly any left as both my wife and I love the stuff!

Now that looks darn good!

Holly mackerel!! - Redzed - it looks fantastic. My mouth is watering

This is a professional job

Thanks for the accolades but making one of these is actually very easy and you don't need any sausage making equipment. Along with the one in the picture above I also made one in a 75mm waterproof casing. Both chubs are gone, only memories remain!

Last week I bought several beef tongues from a farm abattoir. We make tongue many different ways, but I have not had any head cheese now for quite a while and was longing for some. Added what else I had in the freezer and put this together yesterday. Did not weigh any of the ingredients but other than salt it has bayleaf, lots of garlic, pepper and a dash of nutmeg and all spice. A couple of teaspoons of cure 1 went into the broth mainly for colour. Also splashed a bit of vinegar into the reduced broth before stuffing. Forgot to add a bit of caraway. Stuffed into a non permeable clear casing. Ended up with a nice salceson weighing just over 4kg, and it's going fast! Tastes quite good, but an addition of head meat would have taken it to a higher level. The flavour that you get from head meat, especially the pockets of bright red meat are unique and one of the tastiest parts of the pork.

That looks good!! Love the finer dice compared to the larger chunks. Perfect for some thanksgiving day (US) hors devours in a few days.

That is beautiful. I like the smaller pieces too.

Again Red, Wow!! I have good access to feet tongues and hocks, every Wednesday actually, and dirt cheap too. Hunting season is over in 2 weeks, so this is on my to do for Christmas list for sure!!
Edit: just read the bit about head meat. The local boys boil the heads for dog food. Will grab a few pounds for this!

Go for it! You will be pleasantly surprised how tasty the head meat is and how much you can get out of the head. Cut out the jowls for bacon or use in sausage. Jowl fat has a pleasant soft flavour and is a required cut in many European sausages. I made some kabanosy a couple of days ago and wished I had some.

They always separate the jowls out for their sausage, but heads and feet are dog food. They boil all the heads then use the meat for dog food. I can get a few pounds and add it to the mix. I can only get cure #2 around here. Any reason not to use that in the portion you described?

In a Marianski recipe it states:

Now you can go two different ways:
pour your head cheese into containers, let them sit for 2 hours at room temperature and then place in a refrigerator. Keep it there for 12 hours to give the head cheese time to set.

stuff with a ladle into large diameter waterproof casings, clip the ends and cook (simmer) in hot water at about, 185° F (85° C). A rough estimate will be about 20 min for each 1/2" (12 mm) of diameter of a casing. Or using a thermometer cook to 160° F (72° C) internal meat temperature. Then place at room temperature for about 2 hours for gelatin to set. Place for 12 hours in a refrigerator.

Just wondering why if cased it requires further cooking?

Bob, this question was discussed earlier, but I can't find the thread. To begin with, we are talking about two related, but different products here. the first type of head cheese in Polish known as "galareta" which is a product where something is prepared in aspic. The second is a cased product, "salceson" where the already cooked meat is poached after it is stuffed into a casing. The traditional Polish method is to cook the meats in water only, without any spices or aromatics. The meat may have been cured, so it would have salt and nitrite in it. So by poaching the spices and aromatics are infused and distributed throughout the product. A "salceson" was traditionally cased in a pig's stomach or other natural casing such as beef middles or the smaller pork middles. These of course had to be cooked and also imparted a flavour to the end product. Today many of us use artificial casings but still follow the traditional processes.

Sorry I did not reply earlier, but for the past few days I have been busy on the beaches of Maui.

I have copied your concern and question on polish site and answers of masters in "salceson department" were practically same as Redzed mention above.