Making Wors

Wors–sausage

Boerewors–Farmer’s Sausage and what every South African living overseas dreams about–hot coals, a beer in one hand and that sizzling smell of a “boerie” been thrown on an open fire.  A  juicy, fat  sausage that explodes in your mouth when bitten into.

There are lots of different receipes for Boerewors, most include spices such as coriander seeds, cloves, pepper and vinegar or Worstershire sauce. Almost all of the receipes also call for a Butcher’s spice–this we realised is the secret ingredient as this contains a fair amount of MSG  with salt, a little bit of spices and then bulked out with cereal (wheat).

Herman has been wanting to make his own wors for a while and has been collecting all the different spices and ingredients as well as pre-packaged Boerewors spice to try figure out the specific spices without the MSG. One thing we have figured out is that Boerewors bought from a butcher or a supermarket can contain anything (all offcuts and as our neighbour kindly put–ears and ovaries)  what makes it taste good is the spice mix (and the MSG?)

So–can Herman make a good tasting Boerie without MSG and flavour enhancers? The history of Boerewors (according to Wiki) is that it originated from our Dutch descendants in Limburg–a poorer community that had a lot of game  in their diet and used all the animal parts in their food. When it became South African is unsure but it was being made before the Great Trek in the 1830′s as the Voortrekkers used to dry the Boerewors (droewors) to take with them. Obviously the recipes have changed and evolved over the years but what seems to stay constant is the coriander seeds, vinegar , spek (pig fat) and natural pig intestines for casings. Coriander seeds, black pepper, nutmeg and cloves where all available in the Cape Colony perhaps this was the major influence for the specific flavour of Boerewors.

Today was the day to try this out. Herman had bought 6kgs of beef and 4kgs of pork and packed out all his packets of spices, salt, bulk Worstershire sauce, brown vinegar, coriander seeds and pre-packed spices. Sitting with his everpresent calculator( to work out amounts and weights) with all the researched recipes we had accumulated, we set to work.

The first job was to get all the meat coarsly minced–luckily the small bandsaw that Herman got from a local has an attachment for mincing. In no time at all, with the help of Regan and his friend Peter, we had trays of freshly minced beef and pork. Herman was working on a ratio of 3:2 (beef to pork). 

 

 

It was decided that everyone could make their own kilogram of wors, using their own unique blend of herbs and spices. Once each kilogram was mixed and stuffed into the casing (Herman bought a sausage stopper at an auction for R50) we fried it and sacrificed it to the “taste panel”–pre-teens are ruthless!!!

Herman had first attempt–and got a 4 out of 10—too much like a beef sausage and a bit bland. We than added chopped spek to the next batch and Regan and Peter’s sausage scored higher respectively–around 7. Keya spent a long time with the morter and pestle and ended up with a very nicely spiced sausage and scored an 8. Unfortunately she is unable to remember her secret, personal recipe so it will forever remain a secret. I was busy ploughing through baskets of plums, making plum jam so I opted out of the Boerie Competition.

Herman and I finished up the last kilos with a mix of 1:1 beef to pork with extra toasted and ground coriander seeds added. It tastes good but the texture isn’t quite right–still too much like a beef sausage. The next batch we will try more handcut spek, larger casings (we were using sheep and the sausage was a bit thin) next time we will use pig intestines (yes—natural casings really are intestines stored in salt!!!) , the meat also needs to be more coarsly ground and we need to be more heavy handed with the spices.

On the left is a photo of Regan excited about stopping his unique Boerewors and on the right is Keya using her feet to hold the mortar while she is busy with her own special recipe.

A fun family day all round, resulting in a freezer packed with wors.

Conclusion–if we want to slaughter one of our Bonsmaras and work the meat ourselves we need to be more organised and have a mechanical sausage stopper as 300kgs is a whole lot more than 10!!