Ginger and Sage Breakfast Sausage

I have the book: Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

I've bought a meat grinder (though I'm still waiting for the sausage stuffing attachment).

I then noticed some pork butt chops at the market. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to make the two previously mentioned items useful. So one Saturday morning after coming home from the market, I got to work in the kitchen.

Something the authors of Charcuterie stress when grinding meat is to keep the ingredients and the tools cold. This proved to be the most inconvenient part of making sausage since my freezer has limited space. Beyond this however, making sausage from scratch was fun, easy and super cheap!

I'm not going to give away the recipe here but I will say that sage, ginger, garlic and pork go beautifully together. Following the authors' instructions on giving the meat a tacky texture turned out some succulently juicy sausage patties. What's even better is the fact that I had tonnes! If I'd stuffed them into sheep casings - which is what was suggested - I probably could have made between one and two dozen sausages for the price of not even a half dozen.

So far, Charcuterie is all easy and fun. Now all I need is to have a kitchen empty of the crap of roommates...just a few more months...

The finished product which tasted way better than it looks here

Thai Flavoured Hot Sauce

That's right. I finally made my own hot sauce.

The mash of 50/50 Thai and red cherry chilies with sea salt has been fermenting for a month in my fridge and were finally ready to become something more glorious.

I matched the amount of rice vinegar to approximately the same amount as the mash. I then purred the mixture in the blender with 2 cloves of garlic, a tablespoon sized knob of ginger, 2 tablespoons of lemongrass paste (the 4 supermarkets I went to didn't have any fresh lemongrass), 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, and 1 tablespoon of miso paste. These measurements are approximations. I eyeball things more and more.

What I ended up with was a liquid sauce that had a beautiful burst of flavours followed by a pleasant kick of spice.

As we speak, I'm letting the sauce sit in the fridge with a couple Kaffir lime leaves in it. I don't know how long I'll leave it there but I can't wait to douse shrimps in this nice little creation of mine.

Look mom! I didn't follow a recipe!

Crepes & Failed Ginger Beer

I don't care what your personal tastes are, crêpes beat pancakes any day. The shear versatility of crêpes as opposed to pancakes is one thing. But the texture is what really sets these two apart. Crêpes are smooth and buttery. Pancakes are puffy and soak up way too much syrup. Anyways, here's a recipe for traditional crêpes suzette.

1 cup all-purpose flour

4 tbsp sugar

Pinch of salt

2 beaten eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

2 tbsp melted butter

2 tbsp cognac or brandy (optional)

As you would with any pastry, mix wet and dry ingredients together seperately and then mix together. The crêpes mixture should be very liquid and lump-less. Simply pour enough of mixture into a frying pan so that the bottom is covered. The crêpe should not be thin enough to hold together and not thick enough to mistaken for a steak. Enjoy with maple syrup, fruit, brown sugar, caramel, or whatever you feel like. Plus, crepes can also be used in non-desert meals.

In other news, I took a stab at homemade ginger beer. I love the spicyness of ginger beer, how refreshing it is, and I also like the fact that ginger is excellent for the stomach. However, making my own ginger beer didn't achieve the results I'd wanted. It tasted funky to say the least. The recipe - which I got online - called for a 2 litre bottle of water, 2 tbsp grated ginger with juice, juice of 1 lemon, 1 cup sugar, and 1/4 tsp dried yeast. You let stand in a warm area for a day or so and the yeast produces CO2. That much was achieved. But the taste was just gross. Anyways, the only good thing about this is that it gave me a chance to talk about peeling ginger, something I learned on Food Network. Simply use the tip of a small spoon and scrape. This allows you to get around every bump which causes less waste. This technique, however, did not make for a better ginger beer. Maybe some things are just better when they're bought...