In industrial chicken sausages, the number of "improvers" has been off the charts for a long time - only it certainly does not get better from them. Starch, phosphates, soy textures - but you never know what unscrupulous manufacturers put in their products. The more valuable is the sausage cooked at home. Chicken meat is considered ideal for sausages. The carcass has a good balance of oily skin, lean white meat and thigh pulp. Of course, you can buy already cut fillets of breasts and red meat, but zealous housewives prefer whole carcasses, because a delicious rich broth can be cooked from the skeleton and wings - at a cheaper price.
For homemade sausage, pass the pulp of the thighs together with the skin through a meat grinder with minimal holes, and then process the minced meat in a blender. An important point: before processing, it is advisable to cool the chicken meat strongly, the required minced meat temperature is not higher than 3-5 degrees. Otherwise, the risk of fat melting increases.
Chop the chicken breast fillet on a larger wire rack or cut into quail egg-sized pieces. Do not be afraid to make them a little larger - this will make homemade chicken sausage less cut.
Combine the processed breasts with the minced meat and knead well with your hands. Perform vigorous actions for at least 7-10 minutes. Professional sausage makers have such an expression - "stir until white threads". This means that you have to continue until, taking a piece of minced meat between your thumb and forefinger and spreading them slightly apart, you see that it seems to be stretching. It's time to add salt and spices.
The addition of nitrite salt at the rate of 12-15 g per kilogram of raw material prepared for homemade chicken sausage gives a very good taste. Optionally, you can add one gram of black and allspice, cloves, nutmeg. If you love the aroma of garlic, this spice, dried and ground, will also be a good addition. But it is not recommended to add onions.
After mixing the minced meat again, stuff the polyamide or collagen sausage casing. It is better to choose a diameter of 60-80 mm, if the casing is narrower - you need a special attachment for a meat grinder, designed for stuffing sausages. The wider casing can be stuffed with your hands or with a spoon. This is an undeniable advantage when making chicken sausage for the first time at home.
Tamp the sausage loaves very tightly and tie at both ends with cotton string. It's time to hang them up to shrink. It can last for about two hours and take place in a room with a temperature of 20-23 degrees. If in the course of time you need to tighten the ropes, be sure to do this. Homemade chicken sausage should be free of voids and air bubbles.
The ideal temperature for starting heat treatment is 40 degrees. Unfortunately, this temperature can only be achieved in modern electric ovens. In gas it is hotter. The way out is to make the smallest fire and keep the gas oven door ajar. If at this stage the recommended temperature is exceeded, part of the broth will come out of the chicken sausage and the so-called “broth edema” will result.
It takes an hour to bake the sausage at 40 degrees, then gradually raising the heat in the chamber to 80 degrees, achieve the temperature inside the sausage loaf in the region of 75-77 degrees. This usually takes another 2-3, 5 hours. Check with a thermometer equipped with a probe that the chicken sausage is ready.
As soon as the desired temperature is reached, take out the sausage and give it an "ice shower". This is the first forced cooling for rapid cooling - further can take place at room temperature. When the loaves are slightly warm, move them to the refrigerator for 12 hours. It is difficult to hold back for so long, but the right chicken sausage, cooked at home, can only be tried after that.
