Foodie Swellness: Making Great Sausages class at The Healthy Butcher

So we all look pretty giddy here, don’t we? That’s how much fun we had at the Making Great Sausages seminar at The Healthy Butcher.

I was invited to try out the 2.5-hour class a couple of weeks ago, and let me tell you, I made sure to clear my calendar for the evening. Learning how to make a favourite food from some of the best sausage makers in the city? Yes!

In the class, we learned all about what ratio is ideal of fat to meat, about the different types of casings, what ingredients work well in sausage, and we saw how to use the stuffer and then how to twist the casings into links. Then we were divided up into small teams of two to three people and kicked up a little friendly “sausage war.” Armed with $100 of play money, our teams bid on a number of ingredients, ranging from roasted garlic to white wine. Our team (we dubbed our team Miss Piggy, since we chose to make an all-pork sausage — I was teamed up with Brea and Savannah from Abbey’s Kitchen, btw) pulled what I like to call our Boston Rob move (love him!) and used the last of our money to grab up the last ingredient just so the other teams wouldn’t get to use it. (Okaaaay, maybe not the most good sportsman-like conduct…)

In our Miss Piggy pork sausage, we had roasted garlic, white wine, maple syrup, lemon juice, parsley and onion. In terms of dried herbs, we added thyme and sage.

After all the sausages were made, a few links from each team were fired up on the grill and we tasted each one. Yum! Alas, no winner was selected in Sausage Wars — every team’s sausage turned out delicious. I went home with several pounds of sausage, which I used in a pasta dish (and I froze the remainder — there’s only so much sausage a girl can eat in a week!).

With the holiday season coming up, I think a cooking class is great gift idea for the food lover in your life. I know I’ve added it to my list of potential gifts. And the Healthy Butcher offers a range of seminars, from butchering and fish basics to the art of the roast and knife skills.

Making Great Sausage seminar, $70. For more information on the seminars available at The Healthy Butcher, check out their website.

2 Comments November 14, 2014