Homemade Grilled Pork Sausages

Ground meat

1. The pork must be fresh, preferably not frozen. A leaner part of the carcass works very well: the shoulder or the hind leg. If the meat is freshly slaughtered, it’s better to let it rest in the refrigerator for a day, because sausage made from freshly slaughtered meat doesn’t turn out well. If you’re worried about parasites, you can freeze the meat for 5-7 days before cooking. That doesn’t guarantee 100% safety, but it lowers the risk.

   Garlic is best from the garden. I don’t know why, but imported garlic, though beautiful and white, is much weaker in garlic strength and aroma than our local kind. The salt should be rock or sea salt. For aromatic herbs we traditionally use a mix of equal parts dried oregano, basil, savory and thyme. By the way, there are excellent dried herb mixes on sale, such as Mediterranean or Provencal.

2. Prepare the meat: carefully remove all small bones, sinews and membranes.

   

3. Separate the fat. Cut a piece of fresh pork fat, from the back or the belly, into two parts: cut off a 30-40 g piece for rendering and set it aside.

   

4. Grind the meat in a meat grinder, preferably twice. Cut the larger piece of fat off the skin and grind it as well, combining it with the meat. You should get a uniform mixture, roughly like the one for meatballs.

   

5. Add the garlic and spices to the ground meat. Chop the garlic, preferably as finely as possible with a knife. Add black pepper and salt to taste, 0.5 tsp of ground coriander and roughly a scant teaspoon of the dried herb mix. Mix the ground meat thoroughly until completely uniform. It’s important that the spices and salt are distributed evenly.

   

6. Put the finished ground meat in the refrigerator for 1 hour; it should cool down a little.

   

Casing and sausages

1. This kind of casing is sold in stores, preserved. Or you can arrange it at the market in the meat aisle, as the vendors are happy to bring in intestines.

2. Prepare the casing. Natural casing (pork intestines), if not already cleaned, has to be cleaned. Do this with the back of a knife, laying the intestine on a cutting board. You need to scrape off the layer of mucus very thoroughly and rinse. The result should be a transparent casing with no traces of fat for the homemade sausages.

   

3. Fill the casing with the ground meat. This takes some skill. When I was little, the intestines were stuffed by hand, then a meat grinder “attachment” appeared. You remove the knife and plate from the grinder and put on a plastic device that looks something like a conical tube. The casing is pulled onto it, the end is tied with cotton thread, and the ground meat, filling the casing, pulls the necessary length of casing off the attachment by itself. Still, you have to control how full the casing gets with your hand, so the homemade sausages don’t burst during frying.

   

4. Tie the sausages with thread. When the required length of casing is filled, about 12-15 cm, tie the casing with thread, separating the filled part. Then step back 2-2.5 cm and tie it again. This leaves an empty gap, along which the homemade grill sausages are cut later. Continue like this until you run out of either ground meat or casing. If there is casing left, you can freeze it. If there is ground meat left, you’ll get tasty, aromatic cutlets.

   

5. Pierce the casing with a toothpick or a needle in several places; this is important. Make 5-6 punctures on each sausage on one side and 5-6 on the other.

   

Grilling

1. Next comes a picnic outdoors, with a fire and a barbecue grill. Or, if you have an electric grill at home, you can fry the homemade sausages in the kitchen. Boiling the sausages before frying isn’t necessary, but you can. When we make homemade sausage for Christmas or Easter, we boil it briefly first and then fry it.

2. Grease the sausages with fat and put them on the grill. Render the pork fat from the piece set aside earlier over low heat and let it cool. Cut the sausages along the empty gaps, grease them with the fat and put them on the hot grate.

   

3. Grill the sausages for 4-5 minutes on each of the four sides, until browned all over. While the sausages are cooking, prepare the sauces: mustard, spicy adjika.

   

Serving

1. Serve the sausages hot. They go wonderfully with various fresh herbs, peppers in oil, olives, all kinds of pickles or marinated bell peppers, black olives and, of course, fresh bread.

   

   It looks very impressive to serve grilled sausages not on a plate or platter but on fresh lavash or pita, which takes just 10 minutes to make. Homemade grilled sausages are real meat and a guaranteed good time outdoors with family and friends.