Homemade Sausage Making

When my sister announced that she and her husband were coming for a brief visit she asked if I would like some meat, liver and bones from her food freezer. The quick answer was, Yes!!
She brought all of the shanks from a dairy steer they had butchered this past winter, plus several pounds of liver chuck and deer meat. I have the bones in the oven roasting with carrots, celery and onions. and after a while I will add a couple of gallons of hot water and let them simmer for a few hours. Then I will can the skimmed stock and save the marrow fat for cooking. The dogs will get the bones.
I also see sausage, soup and mince meat pie filling in my future.

I always save meat bones and some scraps of meat. I use my slow cooker to make stock (10 to 12 hours on low). I find that 1.5 to 1.7 kg of bones is about right. My crockpot holds 6 L. I do not add salt as I reduce the stock down to a concentrate.

Rules that I follow/things that I have worked out.
-If you are not using a slow cooker the slower you rise the cooking temperature (don`t boil like mad) the less emulsified fat you get.
-Never mix cooked and un-cooked meats/bones
-depending on the flavour you want you can roast uncooked meat bones before making the stock
-After the stock has cooked I remove the bones asap and cool the stock asap
-If the stock is not going to be used within 2 days I freeze it (my cooking bible mentions 3 days).
- You can clarify stock with 3-4 egg beated egg whites and the crunched up shells to 1 L of stock. I bring the stock, shells and egg whites to a simmer over about 15-20 mins then simmer them for 30 mins. I then let the stock cool. Remove the scum. Finally I strain the stock through a dish cloth. This way you end up with a very clear stock.
-In stock tomatoes and potatoes (other starchy products as well) can make the stock cloudy.
-A hand full of crushed peas (fresh or defrosted) can give vegetable (never tried it with meat stock) stock a lovely subtle sweetness.

My yield of stock was 7- 24 ounce jars of stock as dark as strong tea. And the neighborhood fox and dogs will enjoy the bones.

This was the first time I have completed the process in the oven. The fat skimmed of perfectly dry and the stock is as dark as strong tea and just as clear. I stopped the cooking when the joints would pull apart easily but if I had continued for a few more hours I would have extracted more of the gelatins.

I reduce stock down to a glaze, and freeze them in those ice cube containers, less space needed and easier to use if you want stock just pull out how many cubes you want put some water with it and you have stock same for a quick demi glaze just deglaze pan with a couple of cubes

No matter how you choose to make and use meat stock it is a valuable addition to any pantry and making it is such fine use of the bones.

After we remove all of the good parts from the pig, cow or chicken there seems to be a pile of bones and trimming left.
Some people are very careful to not waste anything including the hair or the feathers. I once read of a house that was insulated with cow hair. Feather pillows were common before they invented polyester fiber.

Most of the bones that I got from my sister were knuckles and shanks. When they were cooked enough the stock gelled in the fridge. When I bone out several chickens all of the bones go into a pot with carrots, onions, and celery and get slowly simmered for several hours.
Then the fat is skimmed and saved and the broth is strained and filled into pint or larger jars and processed in the pressure canner and placed on the shelf. I use it when cooking rice, making gravy or soup and I use it in place of plain water in some sausage recipes.

Instead of roasting bones in the oven, I throw them on the BBQ. I get a quick and very nice browning and them add them to my stock pot.

ajwillsnet wrote:Instead of roasting bones in the oven, I throw them on the BBQ. I get a quick and very nice browning and them add them to my stock pot.

If this is done without the veggies you are missing some of the complex flavors that are gained by caramelizing the sugars in the vegetables. But any stock is better than tap water.

When I made my first head cheese a couple weeks ago, the left over broth was about the tastiest I have ever had. A nice surprise. I had used very common ingredients - onion, bay leaf, carrots, celery, black peppercorns, and salt. I've got access to free pig heads, so am going to do this again.

But I am strictly forbidden from talking about pig head soup at the dinner table, while we eat it.