Andouille

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Andouille was a great favorite in nineteenth-century New Orleans. This
thick Cajun sausage is made with lean pork and pork fat and lots fo garlic.
Sliced about 1/2 inch thick and greilled, it makes a delightful appetizer.
It is also used in a superb oyster and andouille gumbo poplular in Laplace,
a Cajun town about 30 miles from New Orleans that calls itself the
Andouille Capital of the World. (about 6 pounds of 20 inch sausage, 3 to 3
1/2    inches thick)
Soak the casing about an hour in cold water to soften it and to loosen
the salt in which it is packed. Cut into 3 yard lengths, then place the
narrow end of the sausage stuffer in one end of the casing. Place the wide
end of the stuffer up against the sink faucet and run cold water through
the inside of the casing to remove any salt. (Roll up the casing you do not
intend to use; put about 2 inches of coarse salt in a large jar, place the
rolled up casing on it, then fill the rest of the jar with salt. Close
tightly and refrigerate for later use.)
Cut the meat and fat into chunks about 1/2 inch across and pass once
through the coarse blade of the meat grinder. Combine the pork with the
remaining ingredients in a large bowl and mix well with a wooden spoon. Cut
the casings into 26 inch lengths and stuff as follows: Tie a knot in each
piece of casing about 2 inches from one end. Fit the open end over the tip
of  the sausage stuffer and slide it to about 1 inch from the wide end.
Push  the rest of the casing onto the stuffer until the top touches the
knot.   (The casing will look like accordian folds on the stuffer.) Fit the
stuffer  onto the meat grinder as directed on the instructions that come
with the  machine, or hold the wide end of the stuffer against or over the
opeoning by hand. Fill the hopper with stuffing.  Turn the machine on if it
is electric  and feed the stuffing gradually into the hopper; for a manual
machine, push  the stuffing through with a wooden pestle. The sausage
casing will fill and inflate gradually. Stop filling about 1 1/4 inches
from the funnel end and slip the casing off the funnel, smoothing out any
bumps carefully with your fingers and being careful not to push the
stuffing out of the casing. Tie off the open end of the sausage tightly
with a piece of string or make a knot in the casing itself. Repeat until
all the stuffing is used up.
To cook, slice the andouille 1/2 inch thick and grill in a hot skillet
with no water for about 12 minutes on each side, until brown and crisp at
the edges. From: Ellen Cleary
From Gemini's MASSIVE MealMaster collection at www.synapse.com/~gemini

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