Jan/Feb DC 2013 challenge - Cured, smoked & cooked salamis and sausages

Cured, smoked & cooked salami and sausages that was what this challenge was all about. I have to much work on at the moment this will have to be a very short posting  Thank so much to to our hosts I think the best way is to use their introduction

"I am Carol, a non-blogging member from Canada and I have been a member of the Daring Kitchen since January 2009.... And I am Jenni, and I blog at The Gingered Whisk! I have been a member of the Daring Kitchen since June 2009. This challenge evolved rather organically. Carol was doing a book review on “Salumi”, and Jenni sent Lisa an email saying that “someone” should do a challenge on making your own sausage. The timing was just too perfect, and so we decided to combine the book review and the sausage making into one awesome challenge! We are both really excited to bring this challenge to you - we feel this is a great technique to know how to do, and not only is it fairly easy, but is very rewarding. ...."

See here for the full challenge

Berkshire pork and roasted fennel seed bangers

I got hold of some Berkshire pork shoulder and pork belly off-cuts from friends in NZ this is a very old breed of pig that is prized for its juicy moist fatty (and very pink coloured) meat that is prefect for bangers I couldn't resist and I teamed this with roasted fennel seeds with a dash of chilli powder and a shake of seed-weed powder. This challenge was so much fun to do, I used a piping bag to fill my casings.

Some photos of the cooked bangers. As you can see the cooked home made sausages have a very different look to the shop brought versions, I was surprised that you can see small bubbles of fat (i.e. flavour) appear on the casings that explode when eaten which is a very pleasurable experience. The smell while cooking was amazing and the flavour is stunning.