Spices are what give the sausage its character and individuality


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Sausage and Spices

Spices are what give the sausage its character and individuality. Needless to say, they should be as fresh as possible as they lose aroma rapidly, especially garlic, and should be kept in a dry, cool and dark place. Spices come from:

roots - onion, garlic, ginger,
leaves - bay leave, marjoram, thyme, sage, cilantro (seeds are known as coriander), rosemary
bark - cinnamon
flowers - cloves
seeds and fruits - nutmeg, mace (fruit part of the nutmeg)cardamon, caraway, coriander, juniper, paprika, chile, pepper, allspice, pistachios

The most popular spice "pepper" comes in two forms:

black pepper - unripe seeds of the plant with the skin left on
white pepper - ripe seeds with the skin removed

It is available as the whole seeds but you have to grind it. Like in a case of coffee beans, the advantage is that you get a fresher aroma when grinding seeds just before use. It is available as coarse grind, sometimes called butcher's grind or fine grind. A recipe will call for a particular grind but the final choice will be up to you. Black pepper is normally used in fresh sausages and blood sausages, and white pepper is used in others. Polish sausage might need black pepper of a coarse grind but a hot dog, Bologna or Krakowska sausage will call for white pepper. The dividing line is whether you want to see the pepper in your product or not. Otherwise it makes no difference and you can replace black pepper with the same amount of white pepper, although the black pepper is a bit hotter.

Basic guidelines for spice usage as practiced by commercial sausage manufacturers:

Spice	Dosage in g/kg
Allspice	0.5 - 2.0
Cardamon	0.25
Cinnamon, used for blood sausages	0.5
Coriander	0.5 - 1.0
Garlic	1.0 - 2.0
Ginger, poached sausages, white headcheese, liver sausages	0.3 - 0.5
Juniper	2.0
Marjoram	1.0 - 3.0
Mace	0.5
Nutmeg	0.2
Onion	10.0
Paprika	0.5 - 2.0
Black Pepper	2.0
White Pepper	2.0
Thyme, similar to Marjoram but stronger	1.0

Notes:

Mace and Nutmeg can leave a bitter taste when used more than 1.0 gram per 1 kg of meat. As a rule they are not used in fresh sausages as their aroma is easily noticeable.

Onion if not cooked will leave a bitter taste and should never be used in sausages that are going to be cold smoked or air dried for a long time. Up to 50 g/kg can be used in blood sausages, liver sausages, and headcheeses. Fresh or dehydrated onions may be used. Dehydrated onions are more practical as thay are always in uniform size, clean and ready to use.

Garlic can be used fresh or granulated. The advantage of granulated garlic is that it does not have to be peeled off what may be a time consumming task when making large amounts of sausage. Although the flavor of fresh or granulated garlic is basically the same, fresh garlic has a much stronger aroma.

Dark spices like nutmeg, caraway, cloves, and allspice can darken the color of the sausage. Paprika is another well known colorant and will give the sausage an orange tint (dosage:1 Tbs/1 kg)

Meat plants use commercially prepared extracts that have much stronger flavor.

Vinegar though not a spice is used in some sausages like white headcheese or Mexican Chorizo.

Certain spices are known to posses antibacterial properties and the list is available at: fermented sausages

Page added on November 12, 2006