The Daring Kitchen: The Sausage

I keep coming back to the Daring Kitchen challenges from time to time and was thrilled to see the current challenge. After turning vegetarian, the concept of a veggie sausage for a while did not make any sense, but now Italian veggie sausage sautéed with onions and peppers is now once of my favorite quick dinners.

Since I was always curious about sausage-making; veggie-type seemed too quick and easy and I had no excuse to pass on this challenge.

For the January-February 2013 Daring Cooks’ Challenge, Carol, one of our talented non-blogging members and Jenni, one of our talented bloggers who writes The Gingered Whisk, have challenged us to make homemade sausage and/or cured, dried meats in celebration of the release of the book Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn! We were given two months for this challenge and the opportunity to make delicious Salumi in our own kitchens!

The recipe I used was adapted from IsaChandra’s Simple Italian Sausages (here). I have changed the type of beans and the mix of spices from the original recipe. The end result was definitely interesting and the process was fun. The best part, my meat-loving DH was a fan and seemed to enjoy them even more than I did.

1/2 cup cooked kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup vegetable broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste (tomato paste is a great fat replacement)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/4 cups vital wheat gluten
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
 Several dashes fresh black pepper

Before mixing your ingredients, get the steaming apparatus ready, bringing water to a full boil. The rest of the recipe comes together very quickly. Have ready 4 square sheets of tin foil. In a large bowl, mash the beans until no whole ones are left. Throw all the other ingredients together in the order listed and mix with a fork. Divide dough into 4 even parts (an easy way to do this: split the dough in half and then into quarters). Place one part of dough into tin foil and mold into about a 5 inch log. Wrap dough in tin foil, like a tootsie roll. Don’t worry too much about shaping it, it will snap into shape while it’s steaming because this recipe is awesome. Place wrapped sausages in steamer and steam for 40 minutes. That’s it! You can unwrap and enjoy immediately or refrigerate until ready to use.