Homemade Sausages, Candied Bacon and Bitch Morgans

Mincer and Jack Daniel's - in for a good evening!

Last night we were all invited to Cheese's house for Vark Club. It's been a while since our last Vark Club so were all suitably excited and ventured forth. On the agenda was sausage making (Cheese has a mincer and has recently perfected the art of making sausages - see the post from a few days ago here).



We arrive and find Schoem has taken it upon himself to bring some of the new Jack Daniel's Honey flavor, which is very new to the world market and has only just hit the shelves in South Africa - apparently the first country to get it outside of the USA. Not sure why but I'll take it! The stuff is delicious!

Jack Daniel's Honey Liqueur

So Schoem knows how partial we all are to a Mitch Morgan, and decides the perfect accompaniment to Honey Jack Daniel's would be candied Bacon! WHAT A TREAT! We decided to title this the Bitch Morgan as it is quite a bit sweater than a Mitch Morgan!

Sprinkling the brown sugar on the Bacon - very thin Bacon this, but worked out ok.

The Jack Daniel's Honey and the candied Bacon

What a combination - a Bitch Morgan!

Now was time for the sausage making...although to be honest it was all really happening at the same time - some chaos was ensuing in the kitchen! Bitch Morgans on the go, sausages being minced, beers being drunk. Chaos!

So first off Cheese put together a fantastic lamb sausage for starters, and showed us how to use the mincer.

Probably not as elegant as it should be with three sets of hands making this lamb sausage

The finished product - lamb sausage

The recipe for the Lamb Sausage:

800g deboned leg or shoullder of lamb
1 onion finely chopped
1/2 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tbsp ground coriander
1 minced chilli
2 tbsp chutney
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp olive oil
large handful chopped fr4esh coriander
small handful chopped fresh mint
1 tbsp soy sauce

Just about ready to eat - Lamb Sausage,
plus the little bit of mince to make a patty with that gets left over in the mincer

The lamb sausage had some unbelievable flavours - for me this was nearly the highlight of the evening, if it was not for the candied Bacon!

Next we moved onto the making of the Pork Sausage, from a recipe only known as "The Pork Sausage Recipe".

Chopping up the Pork before being put in the mincer

1 kg minced pork neck or shoulder
1 tbsp crushed garlic
2 tbsp brown sugar
large handful chopped fresh sage
1/2 handful chopped fresh fennel
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp cayenne pepper
chilli as per your taste

This too was a jolly fantastic tasting sausage! Again, loved the flavours!

Halfway through eating I remembered I needed to take some more snaps!

Mustard Sambo brought back from Deutschland. Very tasty!

Sambo also then had a crack at another flavour. His was pretty good, but a little too lemony but did result in what seemed like a lighter sausage, if that makes sense. Wasn't quite as heavy.

The recipe

Minced Pork
Zest of 1 lemon
Lemongrass  - 1 stalk
¼ bottle of MRS BALLS Original
1 Tbs Cayenne Pepper
2 fresh green chillies, finely chopped
2 Tbs Soy Sauce
2 Tbs Fish sauce
2 Tbs Olive oil

In Sambo's words, "Mine - TOO MUCH VARKIN LEMON, BIT HEY, IT WAS A TEST, AND THESE COULD GO WELL WITH A PASTA, OR AS A BREAKFAST SAUSAGE".

Sams Lemony flavoured Pork sausage...
would be great with a little less lemon, but a nice light sausage.

So thanks to Cheese for hosting an awesome evening of Vark Club - got to be up there with one of the best - although the last one we had at his house was a sucking pig which was pretty epic too!