Growing up, sausage-making was an annual mid-winter event in my family. At first, “the team” comprised my parents and maternal grandparents. While I enjoyed eating the sausages, my only memory of helping them was when Mr. KB and I joined them once for making Hungarian Hurka (liver sausage).
Once my grandparents were gone, we helped my parents a few times. In time, there was no one left to make sausage, but we were left with all the equipment - some of it fashioned by my millwright father. It was time to dust it all off and we resurrected the tradition in 2015.
Working with several versions of my mother’s handwritten notes combined with some sausage research we came up with this recipe that triggers all the right food memories.
Our inherited meat grinder bit the dust one year and we now use the grinding attachment that can fit onto a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. For various reasons, we have super large mixing bowls for the stage when you add and mix in spices. (Worse case, you could carefully divide the meat and spices into halves if you only have smaller bowls.)
For years we have spent Family Day with good friends and family making sausages. We make this Hungarian kolbasz (my family’s recipe for a paprika sausage) and Italian sausage (recipe) and Hurka (liver sausage).
Getting Ready:
if necessary order your meat, this can be cut into chunks the day before
access a meat grinder and sausage stuffer and a bowl large enough for 10 pounds of ground meat.
purchase high-quality Hungarian paprika
purchase fresh garlic
measure spices - can be done the day before
garlic slurry can also be done the day before (and refrigerated)
Be sure you are aware of all (raw) food handling precautions - for example, cover hair, and keep meat cold along the way.
10 lb (4.54 kg) boneless pork butt or shoulder
0.5 - 1 lb fat (225-454 kg)
5 + 4 cloves garlic
Cut pork and fat into 1/2 “ chunks to prep for grinding.
Make garlic slurry (can be done ahead of time). If the garlic cloves have a green growth in the centre remove these - they are bitter.
For garlic slurry: Bring 2 cups water to a boil, add 5 of the peeled garlic cloves, and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove cloves (but do not discard water). Place cloves and 1/8 - 1/4 cup of water into a mini food processor and blitz, or mash by hand. Return this to the remaining water and stir together. Mince the remaining 4 cloves of garlic and add to the slurry. Set aside.
4 TB salt
2.5 tsp ground black pepper
5-7 TB sweet paprika
4 tsp ground allspice
Mix spices together. (I notice my parents used 1 TB paprika per pound of meat but we haven’t gone that far - yet… Will continue to experiment.)
Aim to use the best possible paprika (see Notes below). Add 1-2 TB more paprika for desired colour or flavour.
Once the meat and fat have been ground and mixed together, add the garlic slurry and spices all at once. Mix by hand (covered in a rubber glove if you wish) until thoroughly mixed with no sign of poorly distributed spices or garlic. Fry up a small patty in a frypan to test the flavour and adjust spices if desired. Stuff the casings and ideally vacuum seal sausages that will be frozen.
Raw kolbasz
Oven-cooked kolbasz
Sausage stuffer made by my father
The cooking method is your preference. A nice, almost crisp, casing is ideal. I find that if fried in a pan the sausage only browns on the top and bottom. Instead, I cook it in a shallow pie plate in an oven preheated to 375 F. Pierce the casing in several places and start with a wee bit of oil. Turn it over several times and each time you’ll notice the browning intensifies. This should look nice and be done within 30 minutes.
Notes and Tips...
One of my mother’s kolbasz notes - more paprika than we used, and cayenne!
Paprika - this recipe uses sweet (not hot) paprika. (BTW smoked paprika is a Spanish thing, not Hungarian.) Take care about what brand you buy - they are not all the same and many will deliver a dull colour and minimal flavour. Read more.
For KB Recipe Attribution Practices please visit “Whose Recipe Is It?”
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