Brian has made this recipe from River Cottage Everyday by Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall a couple of times and thinks it’s brilliant!
We came back from the Somerset Levels via Wedmore and popped into a butchers called Hector’s Farm Shop. Brian’s grandfather was a butcher and some of the skills were passed down to him from his father when he was younger. He used to live in Cheddar when he was young and he had a great time in Hector’s talking butchery and about folks who used to live and work in the area. The old bakery is now gone; we peeked at the old bakehouse through some gates. It looked sad and lonely. The butchers though is still going strong and there is a fantastic fish supplier in the village who gets his fish sent up from Newlyn every day.
Wedmore is an attractive village, with pretty front gardens, charming Somerset cottages, and a thriving and happy community. It has some great places to stop for lunch, or tea, a wonderful café/delicatessen, with bread imported from Chipping Sodbury, and giftie and clothes shops make for pleasant browsing.
We bought a kilo of pork trim to make this recipe, all that butchery talk came in handy as the butcher offered Brian what he uses to make the shop’s sausages. He minced it at home and put half in the freezer for another time. This is what he used:
Chorizo Sausage Mix from a River Cottage recipe:- You can find the recipe by clicking here on the River Cottage site if you haven’t got the book.
To store press clingfilm over the surface, and then a second layer over the top of the bowl and put the bowl in the coolest part of your fridge at the back. The surface of the meat will darken (oxidize) slightly but this has no detrimental effect. Leave for at least 24 hours before using.
Hugh says it will keep for up to two weeks in the fridge. It doesn’t last that long in our home and I wonder if there is enough salt there for a proper cure. I don’t think I would keep it longer than about four/five days max myself.
It makes delicious meatballs, and toppings and seasonings and tastes so much fresher than elderly imported chorizo sausage. We had it one night with pasta, tomato passata with a spoonful of creme fraiche beaten into it and a griddle full of asparagus splashed with white balsamic. Easy and delicious!
The following day for lunch I made the remainder into two little burgers and we had them sandwiched in Dan Lepard’s fabulous new bun recipe – poppyseed and onion burger buns. A real treat all round! and equally as delicious as Dan’s semolina barbecue bun recipe of last year.
Celia at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial has made this too and said it was excellent and found lots of ways to use this delicious seasoned meat mix.
The original recipe can be found online as well as in Hugh’s book.
A spicy pork burger with home grown leaves in a Dan Lepard bun
Zeb Bakes 
Making my mouth water- I love mixing up my own sausage! You can control the spices and the fat content- plus it just makes me feel like a farmer~!
You should try this bun recipe Heidi! it’s lovely and light, it has a little yoghurt in it, one egg, slow cooked onions, mmmm. I am a novice with sausage type meat recipes. What’s so nice about this one is that it kind of demystifies the process a bit for people like me who only ever buy sausage ready made…. till now :)
Want to try both recipes, would shake up our normal burger routine a bit. Great to hear of a good butcher still open as well!
Thanks Helen, we don’t make many burgers at all, so it is a double treat to have them for us. We had these with a cooling buttermilk/mayo/parsley dressing which was good against the warmth of the spices :)
Wow, I would love to make up my own sausage. It looks so easy. We like a little spice, kick to our sausage, just not alot. The pork burgers look perfect with those scrumptious buns. I think hubby would love those buns, and I like to try a new recipe every time I make buns. Will be on the menu for next week!! Thank you:)
Hi Melanie, I think Brian felt like he was tapping into some family history there. He had such a good time doing that!
I should say above that one doesn’t need to use the chillis and the cayenne if one doesn’t like heat but actually that smoked chipotle chilli was one of the mildest chillis I’ve ever come across, lovely smoky taste but not hot at all. I am a bit of a chilli wimp. Reduce the spices if you are not sure about them. Dan Lepard also gave us a wonderful bbq bun recipe last year which used semolina. They are well worth trying too if you haven’t come across them. I wrote about them here.
Yum, that looks so delicious. I want one now.
Hee hee, you have a bit of a way to come but sure any time :)
I recently had my very first experience of making my own sausages and just loved it. I was particularly pleased with the pork, pear and ginger snags I made – I’m a bit of a chicken when it comes to chilli, though.
I’m envious, I would love to make sausages in their skins one day. Maybe we’ll investigate some more….
That sounds like a yum combination of flavours Amanda, I don’t know the word ‘snag’ is that a particular shape of sausage? I am pretty wimpy with chilli too, the chipotle one is both mild and not that big. I would simply leave it out if you are not a fan though :D
I would love to make my own chorizo’s. They’d be hanging from the ceiling some how and my kitchen would certainly look like a serious one :-) Maybe one day…
I’d happily have one of your burgers for dinner Joanna.
I know you make the most awesome burgers Brydie, so thanks for the compliment :D I would love to have sausages hanging from rafters, and charcuterie of all sorts, but I fear Zeb would go insane sitting underneath them waiting…..
A snag – is good old Aussie vernacular for ‘a sausage’ – as in “be a good Sheila, will ya, and throw another snag on the barbie” :) I love the sound of Wedmore – Joanna – you could buy that old bakehouse and then it wouldn’t be sad and lonely. Brian’s sausages mince does indeed look yum. What proportion of fat to meat did he use? Today we had lunch with Deb of BDL and Jim; Deb made thin and crispy pizzas one of which had crumbled Italian sausage and juicy spanish onion on it – very yum yum – Brian’s sausages would be excellent for that. Great photos Joanna.
We didn’t add extra fat to the mix, as we weren’t actually making sausages, which is another culinary art, no rusk, fat added or anything but what you see above. The meat had some fat in it but not much. Hang on I’ve got a pic somewhere…. Brian says it’s what is left when the butcher bones and rolls up a leg or shoulder for sale, the off cuts…. the butcher would add belly pork fat or whatever to that when he makes his sausages up.
Gentle rain this morning, time to bake something, I wish it was bbq weather here but it is not to be… Love the sound of that pizza Jan! Thanks for the snag explanation, I thought it might be a particular variety of sausage, like a chipolata, or a banger…. xx
Thank you Joanna. Gentle rain and the smell of something nice baking on a Sunday morning – doesn’t get much better than that.
Wonderful recipe, Joanna, and thank you again for putting us onto this cookbook (and for the linky!). I really must invest in a mincer – I think that every year, but never do – are they a bugger to clean? I would love to make our own mince and sausages.
Isn’t it just? I loved your post on this one Celia :D
He who minces says, ” Hi Celia, the mincer is easy to clean, doesn’t go in the dishwasher, dismantle and wash in hot soapy water, rinse and dry. If you are not using the cutting blades for a while, wrap them in greaseproof paper with some lard or something similar on them to stop them rusting, don’t use oil, because oil won’t adhere to the metal – mind you we live in a damp climate.”
That’s funny – I’ve just been listening to the revival of the burger on the Food Programme on R4. It’s always a treat for CT to get his hands on a burger (a good one of course) and he would adore yours.
You know me, just following trends, I guess, or maybe it’s just a summertime thing. The buns are lovely, you can put anything in them of course, doesn’t have to be meat :)
Like Brian, this one brought back many memories – mine of Mexico, where one finds literally thousands of kinds of chorizo – most of the commercial ones are links made with natural casings (all shapes and sizes), but if made at home, they are most often loose, like yours. In Mexico, chorizo is ALWAYS made with the scraps of the scraps, with ample amounts of fat added – I don’t know how much, but a lot. I personally think stuffed sausages need ample fat to work, maybe 15-20% – but here in the U.S., most commercial chorizo has so much fat added, it’s ridiculous – this is reflective of the tendency of our food industry to make inferior products, and put a Mexican name on it – and sadly, it sells. Even the small ethnic companies that compete with the food industry giants, sadly do the same thing – their chorizo is not much better.
I love your grinder! I used to use one of those, but one day I was in a thrift store and picked up the Kitchen Aid sausage attachment kit for $1 – they apparently didn’t know what they had. It works like a champ, and even has a sausage stuffer – but when I tried to use that, I discovered that it takes a good deal of practice to stuff well. I kept over-stuffing, and the casing would break – I never did get the gist of it.
Loose sausage is fine!
I don’t know if I have ever had a Mexican origin chorizo here. We get lots of different ones too, but mostly from Spain or made by people who have jumped on sausage making as a new business venture. There are many of those in England, some of which are superb I have to say.
The traditional English banger is far removed from a chorizo, as its name suggests, it often pops with a bang! My dear Uncle Ronald, whose birthday would have been today, always complained that he couldn’t get a decent English sausage in Sweden and we had to bring them with us when we visited. Bangers are high in rusk and low in meat usually, he said that Swedish sausage had too much meat in it.
Certainly the chorizo that I get for cooking is full of fat, when I add it to soups I have learnt to add it at the very end, otherwise too much fat comes out of the sausage and floats around in paprika coloured pools on the top.
To each nation their own sausage Doc :D
I really like Hugh FW’s “Everyday” cookbook. Not a meat eater myself but made some lovely lentil and goat cheese burgers this week which would go lovely with those buns!
Thanks for visiting Ray – I like the sound of your burgers – we had some great sheeps cheese sandwiches with the first lot of the buns, cheese and onion an english classic taste combo :)
Thanks for visiting Ray – I like the sound of your burgers – we had some great sheeps cheese sandwiches with the first lot of the buns, cheese and onion – an english classic taste combo :)