Cooking up a storm

Some women drool over the latest fashions, I drool over coffee machines and food processors.

If I have spare money in my sticky mits, I know exactly where to head for. The rather wonderful Trevor Mottrams in Tunbridge Wells. This is a cookshop par-excellence. It only sells the best and most desirable in kitchen paraphernalia.

Such was the fortunate situation in which I found myself in December. Unable to keep up with my changing desires and whims, but also unable to leave the house, my mother and grandmother gave me money for my birthday. I decided to pay a visit to Mottrams. I've long coveted a sausage stuffer and had not, until this point, managed to find one. This time I was in luck. There on the shelf was a gleaming, brushed silver Cuisinart food mincer and sausage stuffer. It cost the exact amount I had in my pocket, so home we went together.

I've minced up a few cow pieces so far and have been quite impressed with the Cuisinart's performance, but tonight, just after Archie's bedtime, the stuffer made it's maiden voyage.

Armed with a porky care-pack put together by Derek, the wonderful butcher at Boathouse Organics (gold award winners of the Charcuterie category of the Soil Association Organic Food awards in 2006, no less) just outside Lewes, I persuaded Phil to assist me by bribing him with the promise of home-made Boerewors. Rather predictably, this worked.

I'd herbed and spiced the pieces of meat on Sunday night. The chosen recipe was for Italian-style sossies with fennel and garlic and I added my own touch - a generous sprinkle of crumbled sun-dried red chilis. Mincing went smoothly and then we had a few moments, waiting for the mincer to cool sufficiently for us to change the blade for the Kebbe plate and to pop on the stuffer tube.

This gave us ample time to examine the pig entrails, Now, I'm not quite sure how I expected them to look, but the picture in my head definitely was not of one of the legs of the "super-squid" recently dragged out of the Southern Ocean.

Yes, they are slimy. Yes, they are difficult to manage. Yes, intestines really are miles long!
However, they're incredibly strong, which gave confidence that we might just make an edible product which also looked like a proper sausage.

Stuffing was relatively simple and incredibly, so was linking the sausages. I even managed to make some fancy sausage arrangement looping the finished snags together like they do in the butchers. I could see a dreamy look in Phil's eyes. He was obviously smelling the braai-ing Boerie already.

Now that the first batch is bagged up and in the freezer, I have some plans for some rather unusual flavours taking shape in my mind. Of course, if anyone wants to suggest a new and exciting variation on the theme, I will attempt to make up a batch and post tasting notes. Braai's may prove to be quite interesting this summer.