Sausages

Look what I made

Sausages sizzling slowly in my frying pan

These are beef and tomato sausages.  I mixed 500g of beef mince with 5 heaped tablespoons of sausage rusk (I usually use breadcrumbs but bought some rusk just to see what it was like - verdict is positive!!).  I mixed in a slurp of sun-dried tomato paste, a slurp of plain tomato paste, and the juice from a tin of tomatoes and smooshed it all together for a few minutes by hand.  Then I left the mix in a bowl in the fridge for the day so the ingredients could get to know each other.

In the evening, I put the sausage mix into sausage skins using my mincer sausage attachment.  I have to say the results looked remarkably uneven; there were air bubbles and bits where the skin hadn't filled properly.  But when I started to fry them, very gently, in some sunflower oil, the meat expanded and the skins filled out beautifully.

The sausages were very tasty and I was pleased with the texture.  But they weren't very tomato-y.  I think I need to be much more heavy handed with the tomato paste.  I might try using one of those small tins next time.

Although, next time I might make pork and sage sausages

Finally fried, with home grown mashed potatoes, home grown stewed veg and gravy