We’re all very familiar with the viral smash taco, wellllI I only had garlic naan and a small fist worth of homemade carbonara sausage on hand so I leaned into it and reinvented the smash taco using Mediterranean ingredients and made my wife this masterpiece.

I start out by swapping out a flour tortilla for soft and fluffy garlic naan bread. Raw carbonara inspired sausage (ground pork, crispy guanciale, pecorino Romano, Parmesan, garlic, egg yolks, and black pepper), is smeared directly onto the naan and smashed meat side down onto a hot pan until browned and caramelized. Once flipped, I turn the heat down to low as to not burn the bottom, but ensure the sausage is fully cooked that was pressed on the naan. Next it gets piled high with shredded mozzarella cheese and covered until melted. Then I hit it with a layer of rich marinara sauce and finished with a generous amount of Vienna spicy Chicago-style giardiniera for a spicy, tangy crunch. From there I just fold it over into a thick, messy, delicious and comforting street food hybrid.

Whadya think? Is it a taco? A wrap? Flatbread sandwich? Or just stupid food?

Didn’t suck!

Does anyone know if Cabelas or LEM grinder attachments will fit a Meat! Your Maker grinder? I have a 1hp grinder I'd like to get a juicer for but Meat! doesn't make one yet.

We need to grind meat maybe half a dozen times a year, but when we do we're looking to do 30-40 lbs at a time. We'd like a grinder that's rock-solid, that we don't have to worry about overheating or other stuff that can be an issue with the cheap home electric ones.

What would y'all recommend in the $200-$300 range? And I mean, less if we really don't need to spend that, but we're willing to spend that much to get something decent.

Thoughts?

I'm very new to sausage making and have had issues with my first two batches. Flavor was great but the texture was horrible. Right now I'm attributing this to using an auger style grinder to stuff my sausage as well. I am going to invest in a stuffer so my question is the Hakka 11 lbs 2 speed vertical stuffer or a horizontal Trento 11 lbs stuffer. I am leaning horizontal but I can't find much info on the Trento products.

My take on uk Chinese takeaway salt n pepper style sausage

My family bought these sausages from a now shuttered butcher store in Peru, Illinois. To my recollection they were beef, dark colored and had a strong black pepper taste. They were similar in shape to kabanos sausages but not dried.

I have tried looking online and in all the artisan shops around me but I can’t find anything similar.

Does anyone here have a guess as to what they could be?

I crushed the foot peddle cord in the mechanism today so need a new peddle. Where do you get replacements???

Hey all, kind of a niche question here, but I'll take any pointers you've got.

There used to be a soul food / bbq place in Oakland called Flint's BBQ. It was around for a long time; 1970s to 1990s, and they had a shop on 66th and East 14th by the 65th Village projects, but it closed ages ago. There was another shop on San Pablo that closed in the 00s sometime I think.

Anyhow, they had these smoked beef links that were insanely good, and I want to re-create them. I've got the potato salad and the sauce pretty close, but I really don't know where to start on the links. They were a coarse grind beef link, not spicy hotlinks. That's about all I've got to go on. Here's some descriptions if it helps: - https://www.kqed.org/arts/13894423/flints-an-icon-of-oakland-barbecue-plots-return-to-original-location - https://walk.ouroakland.net/stop/flints-bar-b-q/

I've got mixer, grinder, stuffer, smoker, etc., and am pretty comfortable making sausages, although an amateur, not a pro. Just looking for some pointers to get me going. What cust should I use, lean/fat ratio, spices, etc..

If any of you remember flints and can get me going, I appreciate it.

See that thin grey-looking washer between the fat white one and the aluminum auger? What's it called? And is there a better material replacement for it that I can find somewhere?

My concern is that this thin washer doesn't seem to fit well, like it's been pressed to be slightly warped, so it sticks out a tiny bit, and I think it may be affecting the grinder's performance. As the auger rotates, it doesn't rotate with a smooth, even sound. The auger has a little wear toward the front, on the edges, the housing looks to be fine, and the plates/knife all look okay.

I'm hoping someone with more experience with this can help me out, because I really like my grinder and am starting to use it more as now I am grinding my own meats for general use.

I've been making bbq for about a year and want to try making sausages. I have most of the equipment needed but I have a few questions regarding milk powder. Since I can't use dairy with the meat sausages, what are some alternatives? What is the purpose of milk powder as a binder? How does it work? What happens if I just leave it out?

Additionally with casings, whats the difference between (edible) collagen casings, vegan casings, and the natural intestinal casings? What would give me that snappy glossy experience?

Thanks yall!

I have been making summer sasuage for a while, and decided to try my hand at making a sasuage using Mossy Oak pork casings that I picked up at Walmart. When I opened them, the odor was vile. I threw them out and instead drove into town and picked up some LEM collagen casings, that I used without issue.

My question is how strong should the odor to be. I am not expecting roses, but this was much worse than the South end of a North bound goat. Is it common for the odor to be this strong?

Thank you,

Bart

Hi everyone,
I’m a hobby charcuterie maker from the Netherlands and over the last year I’ve been building a desktop application to manage my entire dry-curing process.
It all started because I got tired of using Excel sheets, notebooks and multiple apps to keep track of everything.
So I decided to build my own solution.
At the moment it includes features like:
• Batch management
• Recipe management
• Curing chamber management
• Live temperature & humidity monitoring (Govee integration)
• Weight loss tracking
• Production analysis
• Cost calculations
• Inventory management
• Order management
• Reports & statistics
I’m not selling anything and the software is still under development.
I’m simply trying to find out if other hobbyists or small producers would actually find something like this useful.
A few questions:
What do you currently use to manage your production?
Do you still use Excel or paper?
What features would you want in software like this?
Would you ever pay for something that saved you time?
I’d really appreciate any honest feedback. Thanks!

2 questions if anyone can help. Found a recipe I want to try and it says once your grind the meat, to add dry ice before you stuff the casings? It also has percentages for the seasonings - are the percentages based on the meat weight? Any help in explaining!!!

I want to make venison pork brats this year and I want to know if I need to use high temp cheese to do so or if I can deal with the cheese spreading thru the meat. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Made jalapeño cheddar and cheddar smoked sausages with high temp cheddar for the first time. It’s nice to have the cheese stay in the sausage for a change.

Has anybody tried to make baloney favorite sausage in the regular 32 casing? Not emulsified. And adding cheese. . I was thinking of smoking it at a low temp till it reached about 125 then poaching it to the rest to hit 160. any tips only if you have tried.

First time posting here.

Just wanted to share my latest chicken thigh breakfast sausage.

About 2kg of chicken thigh (deboned, skinless), ended with 24 links.

I use collagen casings from Lem.

Vacuum-sealed hot Italian pork sausage. Would love to not waste this if possible.

Edit: eating it now

Not necessarily for sausage but you guys know grinders. I'm planning on getting a LEM #8 0.5hp grinder on their 4th of July sale to be used for grinding brisket into ground beef for burgers, tacos, chili and spaghetti. Will a double grinder do a good job of evenly distributing the fat? Or should I stick to double grinding with 2 passes on a single grinder?