Sausages are products made from boiled twisted meat or its substitutes acceptable according to the technology. They are made in the form of small thin sausages, which must be subjected to additional heat treatment at home before use – boil or fry. We can say that this food product is the “Holy Grail” of culinary art, with which many legends and historical facts are associated.
History of occurrence
History attributes the invention of the modern form of sausages to the butcher Johann Laner, who lived in 1772-1845 between Frankfurt and Vienna. The move of the creator of these sausages from one city to another predetermined the centuries-old dispute between Frankfurt and Vienna about the right to be considered the birthplace of this sausage.
The fact is that Frankfurt sausages were known much earlier than Laner “composed” them, but only in Viennese products for the first time a combination of two types of minced meat – pork and beef – was used, which is preserved in traditional recipes to this day. However, since then, there has been no more famous dish in German cuisine than all kinds of sausages.
In 1805 modern sausages were cooked for the first time in Hasseldorf, and a monument to them was later erected in the same city. The product was prepared from a mixture of two minced meats of not the best quality, which led to the cheapness of the product and its enormous popularity.
German emigrants brought sausages to America, where the product became even more popular among the local population. The popularity of the sausage product reached its peak when the Americans thought of combining a sausage and a bun into one dish, and in honor of this event they announced July 18 as Hot Dog Day.
In the Soviet Union, they learned about sausages only in 1936, at the same time it was decided to open about 20 new meat processing plants, which produced new types of sausages.
It should be noted that during the Soviet era, the quality of sausages was much higher than in modern industrial production, because in those days it was strictly forbidden to produce any sausage with meat indicators below 50% in the composition of products. To date, sausages with a meat content of 3-5% are on sale!
However, the external qualities and properties of sausages have changed little since then, they are still elastic, grayish-pink in color, with a smooth surface without greasy smudges, homogeneous texture and very tasty.
The main varieties include sausages:
- dairy, in which skimmed milk powder is introduced into the composition;
- dietary, made from poultry meat;
- soy, in which meat is partially or even completely replaced by soy;
- grilled sausages;
- hunting, prepared using the hot smoking procedure;
- Munich.
Unlike sausages, sausages can be eaten raw, not thermally processed, since boiled minced meat is used for their preparation, and not raw minced meat, as in sausages. You can also boil, fry, stew the product, add it as an ingredient to salads and casseroles, use it to prepare minced meat, eat it yourself with a side dish. There are also dishes in which it is absolutely impossible to replace this ingredient. These are hot dogs, corn dogs, sausages in dough.
Frozen sausages are stored for about a month. Sausages are produced in a natural casing, which can be eaten with the contents, as well as in an artificial casing, which must be removed before cooking the product.
Useful and harmful properties
All the benefits of sausages can be measured by the quality and quantity of meat from which they are made. If the product is prepared according to all standards and technologies from high-quality raw materials, then it is useful as an energy dish, which can easily make up for the loss of energy during physical exertion.
But more often in modern production there are such types of sausage products that can not only cause harm to the human body, but can also be very dangerous.
Today, in the best scenario, only 10% of “near-meat” products get into sausages – trimmings, skins, tendons, ground bones. The remaining 90% are soy ingredients, milk casein, water, vegetable and animal fats, chemical additives, blood, cereals, thickeners, flavors, colors and other chemicals.
However, most people consider the product under discussion to be healthier than sausages, since they lack spices. But the percentage of chemical components that manufacturers put into the product today rather allows vegetarians to eat modern sausages without fear – there is practically no meat in them.
Also, there are a lot of allergens in modern sausages, which is especially harmful for young children, who, due to the high concentration of flavor enhancers, love them very much. Parents should completely exclude this food from the children’s menu, as it can cause the development of dependence on chemical ingredients, which in the future will not allow the child to enjoy tasty and healthy food.
Modern sausages contain all the ballast chemicals that can either not be absorbed in the body, or, even worse, cause a chronic illness.
It is strictly forbidden to use these sausages for children under 3 years of age, pregnant women, people with disorders in the cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal tract, patients with reproductive disorders, pathologies in the liver, kidneys and gallbladder, arthritis, arthrosis, diabetes, obesity, gout, thyroid problems.
Recipes for home cooking
Homemade sausages, made from high-quality and fresh products, with no preservatives and dyes, can come to the rescue of those who love this product very much, but due to health reasons cannot afford to eat it.
You can cook homemade sausages from minced meat, which the hostess likes the most. As a rule, pork, beef, chicken or turkey types of minced meat are mixed for this product.
According to the recipe, all the meat is passed through a meat grinder several times, and then beaten in a blender, supplemented with milk, eggs, salt, pepper, aromatic herbs and butter. In some recipes, it is acceptable to use ground onion or garlic for minced meat, and for a recipe for milk sausages, it is customary to add skimmed milk powder to their base.
For children, you can cook sausages with pieces of vegetables – carrots, peas, or with cheese. The resulting minced meat must be kneaded for a very long time and thoroughly, gradually diluting it with water so that the overall final consistency is moist and tender. It depends on how tender and smooth the sausages will come out in the end.
In order for the consistency of minced meat to be silky and uniform, you need to pass all the ingredients through a meat grinder at least 4 times.
If after each time the hostess rubs the minced meat in a blender, this will only benefit future sausages.
When the minced meat, tender and silky by all criteria, is ready, small sausages are prepared from it, pre-wrapping each of them in cling film. Both edges of each sausage must be tied so that the product is well formed and does not blur during cooking. After molding, before cooking, sausages must be placed in the refrigerator for at least an hour to allow them to settle.
They are cooked for at least 20 minutes in salted hot water (boiling water), focusing on the color of the meat during cooking, which, when fully cooked, in homemade sausages necessarily changes, unlike store-bought counterparts.
For the preparation of home-made semi-finished products, which can be stored frozen for much longer, the same technology is used, only after molding the sausages are immediately sent for freezing. You can also immediately boil the resulting sausages for an hour at a temperature of 90 degrees (not in boiling water) and store them boiled in the refrigerator for 5 days.
Delicious sausages, as well as high-quality homemade sausages, often serve as the basis for such popular culinary masterpieces as sausage in dough, scrambled eggs, casserole, pie, soup, bigos and many others.
Healthy homemade sausages will become a favorite delicacy both on weekdays and on holidays, they can easily be allowed to be eaten by children, since there is no doubt as to the ingredients of ready-made sausages. In addition, if there is such a semi-finished product in the refrigerator, you will never have to spend a lot of time on daily cooking.