This is the most powerful Kitchen Aid I have ever used and it works awesome. I do wish the top tipped up like the other models, but that is the only thing I would change.
Throughout the busy years I’ve tried a variety of store bought Italian sausages that are okay but never match the quality of Italian sausage my Grandfather made when I was a child. I’ve always had the recipe for this great tasting sausage but never had the time to make it.
Yes, making your own sausage takes plenty of time and you need plenty of help in the kitchen to prepare such a family recipe. Anyone who has ever made Italian sausage before knows that you start out as the sausage holder not the mixer. The mixer is the person who mixes all the ingredients for the stuffer to make the sausage with.
If you are not experienced with grinding, mixing or stuffing then you get to hold the sausage in the front so the casing doesn’t break and to make sure all the air bubbles are out. Not until you master this technique can you work your way up through the ranks of grinder, mixer and stuffer.
For generations Sicilians have been making sausages in there own special way. Each town or each home would produce a different type of family sausage. The type of meat varied as well as the spice mixture that was used. Each home would at least have one thing in common and that would be the sausage grinder and stuffing machine.
So you can imagine how happy I was when my Aunt asked if I wanted my Grandfather’s sausage making equipment. Yes I know I can buy attachments for my Kitchen Aid or food processor to do the job but we all know it won’t taste the same as putting the meat through fifty pounds of cold steel attached to side of your kitchen table. There’s something about spending hours grinding, kitchen aid mixer mixing and stuffing by hand that gives the sausage that extra love that’s needed to create perfection.
Now let me remind you that half way through this process you will definitely start to miss all of your modern day utensils. That is why you use more people in the kitchen to pick up the slack when your arms get tired from cranking out the meat.
So if I have not scared you away just yet, lets continue on the equipment you will need to create this miracle. I’ll first give you the old equipment version and then the modern equipment version just in case you decide to take the easy way out.
The version my Aunt gave me was the old heavy hand crank version with a grinder and sausage making attachments. There was also a grating attachment which I remember my Grandmother using to grate cheese and to turn stale bread into breadcrumbs.
The modern version of these tools are simply a grinder, mixer and sausage stuffing attachments that you can purchase with your Kitchen Aid Mixer. This method is much quicker and less strenuous on the arms.
Here is my Grandfather’s recipe for Sicilian sausage. It can be used to make into links or you can leave some of it in bulk to use with your favorite pasta. I usually make a sausage cream sauce with the bulk mixture or add it to my gravy.
INGREDIENTS
25 pounds of pork shoulder
pork casings (get from butcher)
1/4 cup of whole fennel seed
1/2 cup of fresh ground black pepper
3/4 cup of salt
1/2 cup of paprika
1/4 cup of dried basil
1/8 cup of dried oregano
1/2 cup of fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped
1/4 cup of garlic, chopped
1/4 cup of crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup of red wine
PREPARATION
1. Soak the casings overnight in salt water.Before using the casing rinse well and cut into 18 inch pieces.
2. Keep the casings in a small bowl of warm water.
3. Cut the pork into 1 inch cubes keeping some fat on the meat so the meats stays moist. The best ratio to this is 80% meat 20% fat.
4. Using the meat grinding attachment, grind the meat into a ground pork type texture.
5. In a large, deep pan season the meat with the remaining ingredients and thoroughly mix together by hand until all the spices are blended through.
6. For best results I like to refrigerate the mixture overnight t let the spices blend.
7. Take the meat out of the fridge and let it stand for about 30 minutes to reach room temperature. It makes stuffing a lot easier and doesn’t clog up the tube.
8. Test the flavor of the sausage by frying some up in a pan. Adjust seasoning accordingly before stuffing.
9. Using a tube attachment, carefully slide the casing on the tube.
10. Stuff the casing with sausage mixture being careful not break the casing. Remove any air bubbles with a toothpick. This is a two person job. One to turn the crank to stuff the sausage and one to hold the sausage as it’s being made.
11.Twist the casing around every 7 inches or however long you want.
When your finished they’re ready to cook, freeze or give away. Make sure you always get the whole family involved when making sausage or any great Italian meal. Enjoy!
Mangia Italiano!
How long does it really take to knead Whole Wheat dough in a Kitchen Aid mixer?
It seems to take an awful long time for my kitchen aid to mix whole wheat dough properly. The manual kitchen aid mixer says its just a couple of minutes, but I knead for like 20, and the dough still is barely pliable. I don't want to add too much flour, too early, because I know that whole wheat breads absorb the flour more slowly. Does anyone make whole wheat breads in their kitch aid , and if so, what are your tips for getting the dough to the proper stage. for rising?
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m giving this 5-stars because the product itself is fantastic. But this is NOT a 5-quart bowl. It is 4 1/2 quart. They have changed it since I let them know of the error, but it is still showing up in a 5-quart search.
THIS IS A 4 1/2 QUART BOWL. NOT 5-quart!
I’m glad I got this because once I started researching baking, I was no longer interested in retail baked goods (except for Dunkin Donuts’ Old Fashioned Donut). I plan on baking American classics with my kids just as a part of their childhood even though I plan on serving them an authentic Chinese menu otherwise. American desserts are just fun but there are too many bakeries that take liberties with using too much sugar and butter and sometimes artificial fillings to make children loyal customers. I’d rather bake at home than buy anything that tastes like they didn’t clean the sheet pans between bakings.
I’ve had my mixer for 10 years. My husband calls it my cement mixer. It is heavy. I don’t keep it on my counter because it takes up too much space, so I move it every time I need it from cupboard to counter. I don’t mind because this mixer is consistent in the way it beats! I only make cakes, icings and cookies, but it performs beautifully today as the day I received it. I’ve never had any problems. What makes this mixer even better are the additional attachments. On days when I ran out of ground beef or ground pork, I didn’t have to make a trip to the grocery store. I only had to reach into my freezer and pull out some sirloin or pork shoulder butt and then grab my meat grinder and within in no time, I had ground meat! Same for the pasta attachments. When I ran out of spaghetti, I only had to pull out the mixer, make some pasta dough and push it through the spaghetti attachment. This mixer is versatile and will not let you down. I love my mixer!
I have had my Kitchenaid mixer for 6 years and use it all the time. Adding these attachments has made it even more useful. I really love the shredding attachment. It is quick, efficient and so much easier to clean than hauling out my whole food processor. Also, since it shreds into a bowl, I don’t have to keep stopping to empty a food processor container and starting again. I shredded 15 pounds of potatoes in minutes, rinsed everything, tossed it in the diswasher and just kept cooking.
This mixer a bit heavy, but that is a small price to pay for a well built work horse.
I have had two empire red Artisan mixers in the past five years. They are gorgeous BUT both have suffered from the same three serious problems: 1. the slow speed burned out in the first month on machine number 2 when I kneaded soft brioche dough and now the mixer has only two speeds: fast and faster. 2. the mixing bowl sticks to the metal plate so that dislodging it requires a healthy husband or a liberal amount of WD40 or both. 3. the pin holding the armature to the base slides out when the machine gyrates, which it does something fierce when kneading for more than three minutes. This is one of the worst engineered products I have ever owned, and Kitchen Aid’s service is not helpful. I’m going to buy a Breville next and abandon KA for good.
i had absolutely no problem with the attachments at all, if you read the directions theres nothing to it. The meat grinder is the best, i wish i would have bought it sooner. I hope this helps.
This attachments are total waste of money. I have had this attachments for two months and still can’t quickly put it together.
Cons are:
1) Many small parts – makes it very hard to figure out which part goes where specially when you are in hurry.
2) Gets clog even for simple ingredients. I am trying to grinding few peanut. Grinder stopped working twice. I had to stop and unclog it.
3) Loss of food in the big white worm. Food does not come out completely. The last bits get stuck in the funnel. Not suitable for small batches.
4) Parts are so tight – hard to separate for cleaning and change of attachment. I am constantly running to my husband to detach the attachments.
Pros: Are there any??
Expensive machine – not worth it. Kitchenaid has good marketing and good product placement. May be they should have good products?
I love my KitchenAid stand mixer. Slicing potatoes was a breeze. I wish there was a blender attachment, but I did purchase the slicer and grinder attachments. My only complaint is that it is so heavy, but maybe that is because of the quality of the product.
The product was delivered promptly in excellent condition. The seller did everything expected in the transaction.
Always wanted a KitchenAid mixer and I bought the workhorse. Simply put, it makes baking and whatever else you would use a mixer to make so much easier! It is well worth the money.
This mixer is beautiful. It works great. We have made a few batches of pizza dough, cookies and brownies. THe only thing that we don’t like about it is that if you are making small batches of things the bowl is really way too big. I wished they had a diffeent size bowl that you could interchange with the 6 qt one.
This is a fabulous purchase. I use it almost everyday. Really easy to operate. Heavy duty. I bought the ice cream maker attachment as well, and all I can say is YUMMO! I saw a few reviews about it being a bit difficult to attach the ice cream blade, however it was as easy as hooking up a beater. (Hint; just look at the length of the two sides of the attachment and match it according to the picture of your model.) I looked at the other Kitchen Aid models, and am happy I bought the deluxe, lift bowl. It makes a large batch for one thing, and the power is incredible. I can make a quart of whipped cream in a minute, and my hands are free to do other prep work. I definitely use the shield when I have a full bowl, so don’t be fooled by what the adds say about the refurbished ones, “that you don’t need it”. (They can be ordered separately though.) With power like this, I will be ordering all the attachments for sure, which will eliminate many appliances. Just another reason I am happy to have this powerhouse. REALLY WORTH THE MONEY!
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