Italian Night!

February 15, 2020

When I initially suggested to a group of friends that we get together to make sausage one afternoon or evening, holiday goings-on got in the way.  Those friends, however, were intrigued: none of them had ever made sausage and they wanted to see how it was done.

Once everyone got through the holidays, I brought up the idea again and we began to plan an informal ‘event’ that centered on home made sausage.  One of those friends is from a big Italian family, and she asked if we could make cheese and parsley sausage.  I responded that we could make just about any kind of sausage she and the gang wanted, and cheese and parsley sounded just fine!  We also decided that making pasta would really enhance the Italian experience, so planning began.

Another friend offered her home for the event; that turned out to be fortuitous, because my home couldn’t accommodate the twelve(!) people she invited.  The invitation suggested that those who wanted to watch or help with sausage making come at 4:00, while those who just wanted to enjoy the results come at 6:00.  In preparation, I butchered an 8 lb. pork butt and gathered my equipment and the ingredients the morning of the event.

I showed up early to prep the kitchen by setting up the meat grinder, sausage stuffer and pasta machine, as well as ‘staging’ the ingredients so as to make them easy to grab as the processes of making the sausage and the pasta got underway.  Our Italian friend was supposed to arrive at 3:30 to complete setup and help me finish getting everything ready, but by 3:40 we hadn’t seen or heard from her, and since she’s normally very prompt (and lives next door to the hostess!), we decided to go to her house to see what was up.

As it happened, she had suffered an episode of high blood pressure and had been taken to the hospital ER by another neighbor who luckily happened to be a nurse!  Realizing that there was nothing we could do to help her, the hostess and I enlisted help from another friend to go next door to get the salad, bread, dipping oils and extra folding chairs our Italian friend had agreed to bring.

At 4:00, a couple of guests arrived, and we learned that some who had planned to be there at 4:00 had gone up to the hospital to see how our friend was doing.  Fortunately, we started getting positive texts and phone calls, along with the message that our friend wanted us to get on with the evening as planned.

Grinding the meat went quickly, as did mixing the sausage ingredients: ground pork, pepper, a touch of sage, finely chopped parsley, white wine and freshly grated parmesan-reggiano cheese.

While we mixed the sausage, several hog casings (thoroughly cleaned and salted hog intestines) soaked in warm water.  Then, when the sausage was ready and scooped into the stuffer, I rinsed the casings to wash off the salt from both the outside and the inside then slipped a casing onto the stuffer tube.  As we quickly learned, the tube I chose was too large and ended up tearing the casing, so we switched to a narrower tube.  Success!

It was nearing 6:00, and additional guests started arriving, and since our Italian friend wasn’t with us, we decided to pass on the home made pasta, substituting dry linguini noodles from our local store and turning our attention to visiting, noshing on an antipasto plate and drinking wine while the sauce simmered, the noodles boiled and the garlic bread heated in the oven.

Some of the guests had brought desserts, including pixelles and chocolate cookie wafers.  A great cap on a fun and unique evening!