Homemade Sausage Making

I have been studying the Swedish potato sausage recipe for some time and came up with a variation. Grind the meat portions and season it as for the complete recipe but hold out the potatoes. Take nice russet potatoes and cut them through their length and hollow them out so that the wall thickness is about a quarter inch. Mince the removed potato flesh with a quarter cup of raw onion and mix in enough of the sausage to generously fill the potato shells. Then bake them to finish.

The mince needs a rather high percentage of fat. Otherwise it is pleasing. I gravy would enhance it.

Ross, what kind of sausage have you got going on in that recipe? It looks wonderful. Oh, and perhaps a brown gravy of some type? With mushrooms perhaps?

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

I just checked my notes and that is not included, The sausage was probably a chaurice or a garlicky Polish type. I keep both in the freezer in 4 ounce lumps. A mushroom gravy would be grand on it.

Ross that yummy, I'd love to have some for lunch! But, ole' boy, that ain't sausage

Of course it is sausage in an all natural casing made from a fresh potato.

I also use cabbage leaves and peppers for casings.

Me too! Me too!

I diverted a small batch of Italian sweet sausage into mushroom stuffing, the other day. Best non-sausage sausage that I've enjoyed in... well... a few days, but who's counting?

There's a Bruce Aidells recipe which uses crumbled sweet Italian sausage, parmesan cheese, green onions, bread crumbs (gluten free cracker crumbs in our case), and the stems and pieces. Set aside the mushroom caps and the cheese. Saute the sausage, empty it into a mixing bowl, then saute all the other items except the cheese and mushroom caps. Mix, stuff, bake for 15 minutes or so at 375° F on an oiled cookie sheet (so you can get 'em loose intact), and you have delicious, funny-shaped little casing-free, all-natural-casing, sausages (also known as stuffed mushroom caps).

Warning: don't eat too many, or you won't have room for the main course.

If anything, this forum has helped me to better understand why Americans are so often misunderstood.

We try to be creative in almost everything, stretch the definition of all things to the absurd. Considering the range of animal organs used to case minced meat I am inclined to believe that it is in the nature of the species. We just have to be patient while the rest of the world catches up.

The English language builds misunderstanding in. That way, we can "negotiate" more. (Danger: lawyer infestation.)

Consider the following rules for English (which by the way are the only ones for British English that I have been able to figure out).
---It's not pronounced the way it's spelled.
---(British English especially!) Never use one word when ten will do.

My German colleagues say (after a few beers, and off the record) that
---English isn't really a language. Rather, it's a collection of other languages.
---Germans form new words by using different combinations of older word components, whereas English speakers invent a new word.
---Russians steal French words. The Spanish steal French words. The English steal French words. The French don't care.

I'll leave it to you to comment on Polish and Italian. (...should be great!)

Hey, I love the way the erudite Brits can flummox you with ten adjectives or ten adverbs to describe an object or action! They are so much more expressive, have a greater vocabulary and have more fun with language than North Americans. Quite evident in British television like Monty Python's skits or the current Downton Abbey series.

And your German friends are somewhat correct. Many decades ago I took an undergrad class in philology and it's amazing how similar different languages are and how much we have borrowed from each other.

Of course language is always in a state of flux, but at the same time, I see no reason to abuse it. And I doubt that if you insist that the bovine you see grazing in the field is actually a unicorn, the good folks at Webster's will change their definition.

In the end, I'm not a member of the language police, so if Yankee Doodle can stick a feather in his hat and call it macaroni, surely Ross can wrap something in some leafy green and call it sausage. But he might have a problem with ordering cabbage rolls the next time he visits Stan's Deli.

The best indicator of universal similarities in language is the fact that almost all expressive words can be translated.

A Discombobulating Rebus!
Yup, a real puzzle!

At this point, a topic is normally SPLIT. However, I believe we could have a little fun with this one by (1.) EXPRESSING OUR OPINIONS as to whether Ross's recipe is actually a sausage, and by (2.) VOTING yes or no.

So, we invite all readers to decide if the recipe is a "sausage" and vote yes or no, then explain your reasoning. Let's have some fun! We want to hear from YOU!

Is it a sausage? I vote YES because Ross has indeed made a ground-meat product with added ingredients, and he`s surely encased it into "fast food" form. I believe it IS a sausage.