Found an interesting book while researching British sausages

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markjass
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Found an interesting book while researching British sausages

Post by markjass » Wed Oct 29, 2014 01:48

As I mentioned in a previous post I have just started to make some British sausages. Anyway I wondered if Mrs Beeton had a recipe for the Oxford Sausage. According to wikapedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Beeton ... Management Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management was a guide to all aspects of running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton. It was originally entitled Beeton's Book of Household Management, in line with the other guide-books published by Beeton.
Previously published as a part work, it was first published as a book in 1861 by S. O. Beeton Publishing, 161 Bouverie Street, London, a firm founded by her husband, Samuel Beeton.

Anyway I came across this link which allows you to download The Book of Household Management by Mrs. Beeton for free. It comes in a kindle, plain text and other versions. It is not a pirate version or ripped off. Project Gutenberg offers 47,120 free ebooks to download.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10136

As there is no copyright on the book I can show you some recipes. Check out the amount of fat and suet.

(Author's Oxford Recipe.) 837. INGREDIENTS.- 1 lb. of pork, fat and lean, without skin or gristle; 1 lb. of lean veal, 1 lb. of beef suet , 1/ 2 lb. of bread crumbs, the rind of 1/ 2 lemon, 1 small nutmeg, 6 sage -leaves, 1 teaspoonful of pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, 1/ 2 teaspoonful of savory, 1/ 2 teaspoonful of marjoram. Mode.-Chop the pork, veal, and suet finely together, add the bread crumbs, lemon-peel (which should be well minced), and a small nutmeg grated. Wash and chop the sage-leaves very finely; add these with the remaining ingredients to the sausage-meat, and when thoroughly mixed, either put the meat into skins, or, when wanted for table, form it into little cakes, which should be floured and fried. Average cost, for this quantity, 2s. 6d. Sufficient for about 30 moderate-sized sausages. Seasonable from October to March.

BEEF SAUSAGES. 662. INGREDIENTS.- To every lb . of suet allow 2 lbs. of lean beef ; seasoning to taste of salt, pepper, and mixed spices. Mode.-Clear the suet from skin, and chop that and the beef as finely as possible; season with pepper, salt, and spices, and mix the whole well together. Make it into flat cakes, and fry of a nice brown . Many persons pound the meat in a mortar after it is chopped ( but this is not necessary when the meat is minced finely.) Time.-10 minutes. Average cost, for this quantity, 1s. 6d. Seasonable at any time.

There are recipes for curing ham and all sorts of other things.
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Post by redzed » Wed Oct 29, 2014 08:25

Good stuff Mark! This is what this site is all about: Re-discovering and making traditional sausages using simple ingredients without binders, fillers, genetically modified soy, highly processed milk powders, phosphates etc. etc. etc.

And since we are not that strong here with British recipes, please post more of them and we will include them in the Index.
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Post by markjass » Wed Oct 29, 2014 09:07

I am very interested in history and research. That goes for family, National, local, social, industrial and food. With the internet it is possible to find so much information, but what is a traditional recipe is difficult to work out. Ultimately does it matter? Often there are many different versions of the truth and whose perception is the truth? and when does something become tradition? This is getting to philosophical for me.

The next fresh sausage I am going to make is the Oxford Sausage I will not make a traditional version with 33% beef suet (I do not know how easy it is to get hold of). I will use pork shoulder with about 20% fat. There is debate whether the sausage is hand shaped, dipped in egg and rolled in bread crumbs or stuffed.

Some time in the past few months someone put up some links on the history of brats. I must look that up. If anyone else finds an article on history or traditions of a particular sausage post the link as I am interested in reading it.

Because of the nature of the world and copyright. It is sometimes difficult to know what is copyrighted. I know that there is some info on this site. Newer members may like to look at that before posting things.
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Post by Shuswap » Wed Oct 29, 2014 15:00

markjass wrote:1 lb. of pork, fat and lean, without skin or gristle;
Mark I'm still pondering "fat and lean" :roll: As you explore the British recipes, as you were doing with the Cumberland sausage, you bump into the dreaded phosphates and rusk. I too am intrigued by regional differences - we wouldn't be here if all sausage was the same. Enjoy the journey.
Phil
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Post by markjass » Mon Dec 15, 2014 10:02

My project to follow an 1851 Oxford sausage recipe has moved on a lot today . INGREDIENTS.- 1 lb. of pork, fat and lean, without skin or gristle; 1 lb. of lean veal, 1 lb. of beef suet , 1/ 2 lb. of bread crumbs, the rind of 1/ 2 lemon, 1 small nutmeg, 6 sage -leaves, 1 teaspoonful of pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, 1/ 2 teaspoonful of savory, 1/ 2 teaspoonful of marjoram. I wonder if the sausage should be called a heart stopper with that amount of fat.

After 6 wks of emailing and phone calls I have located and bought some fresh veal. It is escallops and costs $39.95 NZD (30.64 USD) a kg. It is a bit of a waste using escallops and that price, but it is a one off project. I also got some beef suet that was $3 for 500 g. I am now trying to find an equivalent yeast for the bread. The flour will be white organic stone ground. I grow the savory.
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Post by redzed » Tue Dec 16, 2014 06:16

Mark, you deserve a lot of credit in researching and wanting to craft this 19th century sausage! But that beef suet!?! :shock: :shock: Looking forward to your report on the finished project.
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Post by markjass » Tue Dec 23, 2014 00:40

Things comming together. As part of my oxford sausage mission I have found two links that use a circa 1560 bread recipe. The interesting thing for me is the lack of salt, no second rising and using yeast ale.

[www.williamrubel.com]

[let-justice-be-done-though-the-heavens-should-fall.obsidianportal.com]

The choice is to buy a dry german beer yeast (simple) or try and find a local brewer who can give me some sediment from beer and I can 'wash' that. I am not interested in starting home beer brewing to just produce yeast. That part of the project will have to wait until the new year. In the mean time I will use a modernised version of the recipe. I will make some bread crumbs from some of my home made bread. I have some very lean pork shoulder (no visible fat), a small amount of backfat. I will push that up to 20% fat with some beef suet.
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Post by markjass » Tue Dec 23, 2014 11:36

Made 2 kg of my Modern Oxford Sausage. I would describe it as a neglected gem.

Per Kg off Meat
Pork Lean shoulder 500g
Beef Suet (pork backfat) 200g
Veal 500
Rusk or dried bread Crumbs 168g
Salt 16g
Pepper 1.1g
White Pepper 1.1g
Cayenne 0.264g
Nutmeg 1.23g
Mace 0.79g
Thyme 0.6g
Marjoram 0.6g
Sage 0.7g
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of Half a lemon
Water 150 mls (Rusk absorbs 1.5x the amount of water).

The weights of the herbs and spices were converted to grams by by taking 10 teaspoons and dividing the weight by 10 to get the average weight of a teaspoon of the ingredient. I then divided it by 1 to get 1/2 a teaspoon etc.

I followed the method of making a Cumberland sausage suggested by Robert Goodrick (Butcher and small goods maker extranar from Vancouver - a facebook contact).
Mix the zest and juice with the water.
Grind the meat with a coarse plate
Mix the spices etc with the breadcrumbs
Regrind the mixture through the same plate.
Mix in the zest/water/juice

I chose to stuff the mixture in hog casing. The mixture is often rolled in bread crumbs and fried. I have read a few blog pages that say never stuff the meat and that is not traditional (?urban myth). I do not know where they got that idea from as a couple of references I have read circa 1780 (no recipe) and 1851 talk of either stuffing it or rolling it in breadcrumbs.

Since I have been experimenting with English sausage mixes I have decided that I like the texture and bite resistance of using rusk/dry breadcrumbs. I do feel that there is a difference in these between mixing and regrinding.

Next step is getting the yeast and experimenting with making bread with German Beer yeast.
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