Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book : Recipes from America's Premium Sausage Maker

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Bruce Aidells, Denis Kelly
Publisher:	Ten Speed Press
Release date:	01 November, 2000
List price:	~~$21.95~~
Our price:	$14.93 that is 32% off!

Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book : Recipes from America's Premium Sausage Maker

Average rating: Stars

Really Good Sausage Recipes

The word "complete" is because this cookbook shows you both how to make sausages, and then how to cook with them. I liked the sausage making recipes, but was not very impressed with the sausage cooking section.

This book is really 2 different books in one, so I will describe them separately. The first part, which is the first 100 pages, is full of wonderful, useful, and very rare recipes for making fresh or cured sausages. The second part is 200 pages is a pretty standard collection of recipes that use sausages, which I am less enthusiastic about.

The first 20 pages of the sausage making section supplies information for making and curing sausages. The rest of the section has individual recipes for many different types of sausages. It has sections on: country style, southern, german / east european, southwest, mediterranean, asian, game, and seafood. You quickly learn that despite their variety, sausages are really just ground meat with many seasonings (getting the texture just right and fighting with the meat grinder is a different story). The only difficulty with this part is the necessity of a meat grinder; in most cases, you cannot use a food processor. The other problem is getting the sausages casings; you can just make them in bulk (which is how I usually use them, as I am too lazy to go through the trouble of stuffing them into casings), or go to a local, old fashion meat butcher and get them there.

The recipe section is a little less interesting. It has: breakfast, appetizers, soup, sandwich, pasta, grains, seafood, poultry, meat, and sides. The quality of the recipes is OK, but not exceptional (sort of like the recipes in those magazines in the check-out lines at the grocery store). The recipe section is a moderately useful section, since you can use store bought varieties of sausages. The problem here is that the recipes are arranged in standard fashion; organizing according to the sausage they use would have been more helpful. That way, if you have some sausage sitting in the refrigerator or freezer, it would be easier to find a recipe that uses them.

Some of the page references are wrong.

Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book : Recipes from America's Premium Sausage Maker - Bruce Aidells, Denis Kelly

Worth it even if you don't make your own sausage

If you're unsure about your commitment to sausage making, don't let your uncertainty dissuade you from buying this book. While his sausage recipes are indeed excellent (I've made a few of them), a large portion of the book provides recipes for using sausage in recipes. And those recipes are very good. Personally, I think the book's worth the price for the cornbread stuffing (with pork sausage and andouille) alone.

Bruce Aidells, Denis Kelly - Bruce Aidells's Complete Sausage Book : Recipes from America's Premium Sausage Maker

Insanely great book (if you want to make sausage)!

I really bought this book to make cajun boudin, as well as andouille sausage. My dream was to make gumbo with my own andouille, and darned if it didn't turn out perfect the first time. We've made Chorizo, Linguica, and are looking at a poultry-Thai sausage next!

To truly get the most out of this book you need the following:

1) a meat grinder (I use my Kitchen-Aid with an attachment

2) a sausage filling attachment for your meat grinder (not required, if you're just going to make patties!)

3) some medium hog casings (again, not required, if you're just going to make patties!)

4) a smoker (not required, if you're not making smoked sausages, of course!)

However! The second half of the book is recipes USING sausage, so you could just buy the sausage at the market and enjoy the recipes (but what's the fun in that?)

This is a fantastic book, highly recommended, with interesting background essays on several of the sausage varieties. The sidebar on "Hot Boudin and Cold Beer" is right on the money.

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