From the wild..... to the table.

There is nothing more satisfying than knowing exactly where your food comes from, and what is in it!

I am fortunate that my husband has a VERY SUPER KEEN spirit for hunting.  He has always been a deer hunter and duck shooter since we first met 21 years ago. I will admit I never used to eat the stuff. We were just discussing the other night how much my Mum influenced that part of me. She wouldn't eat it, so I wouldn't eat it. But over the years I have come to love venison so much more than fatty beef. It is dark, tender and very lean.

In the past we have taken the deer to the butchers and got it whipped up into sausages and mince, after taking the prime part (back steaks off first).  But we recently bought an electric mincer, not only to cut costs but to truly know what is in our food and to know we are getting every bit of meat back.
We decided to tackle some sausage making this time. So after alot of googling and you tubing we knew what we needed to know. Then it was to find the time to do it.
So we set ANZAC day aside to create our own 'in home butchery'.

Below is a photo blog of the process:

It all started on 3 April 2014 when Mike flew into the bush with his brother and two friends for 5 nights and came home with more than one deer!

This isn't the deer shot this time, but he didn't get any photos of his last trip.

Again, not the deer in question but this is part of the process.

Putting the strips of meat through the first time.

The big box of meat we ended up with.

This is exactly what went into our sausages, venison mince, pork fat (you need to add fat as venison is very lean and will end up with a dry sausage)

Hands moving very fast mixing it all together.  Mike endured alot of pain with freezing fingers during this process.

                       

Then back through the mincer to mix it properly.  And this is the natural casing, this little baby was nearly the length of our living area.

Now to slide it on to the sausage funnel.

                                                    
                                                                                      And the fun begins.

There is a bit of a trick to this part, which we still haven't mastered.  We had a couple of explosions with the sausages being too tight.

9 fat sausages sizzling in the pan.

The end result, with a bit of damson jelly on the side. Delicious!

And the smile says it all.  a very happy man!

It was a labor intensive job, taking 5 hours to make 100 sausages but well worth it.  We tried something new, we know what is in the sausages, and we worked as a team to put the meat on the table.

And great memories made.......