Homemade dinner sausage - danish medister

I had never thought of the traditional danish sausage “medister” as anything special. Until I got Astas homemade version. It was different, juicy and flavourful. It kept the basis of a classic “medister”, yet still managed to be much better. It was a whole new experience, that opened my eyes to the possibility that medister could be something other than the rather tasteless experience I had previously been used to.

Ingredients

1 serving meatball mix for “frikadeller”

  • 500 g (1.1 lbs) minced pork (or a 50/50 mix of pork and veal)
  • 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  • 1-2 dl milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 1 stock cubes or 1 tbsp chicken powder (optional)
  • 1/2 tbsp salt (only 1 tsp if you use a stock cube.)
  • 1 pinch pepper

1 serving sausage specific mix

  • 100 g (3.5 oz) lard (can be the smoked kind) (optional)
  • ½ tsp. allspice ground
  • ¼ tsp coriander, ground
  • ¼ tsp ginger ground(Astas secret)
  • ¼ tsp nutmeg, grated

casing

  • 5 meters (16 feet) sausage casing, from porc intestine (the smallest package you can get)

Directions

Rinse the casings in plenty of cold running water.  I usually put on end on my tap and let the water run through it. Like a garden hose.

Chop the lard finely in a mincer or food processor.

Mix all the ingredients.

Use a sausage filler to fill up the casing. There are many different kinds of fillers, so you must do it like it says in the instruction manual for your model.

In general though.

  • make the nozzle wet
  • put all the casing on the nozzle at once, as close to the tip of the nozzle as possible.
  • do not tie a knot. It will catch air and cause troubles.
  • gently pull and squeeze the casing while filling it with the mince.

It is important not to fill up the casing too much. Use only around half of what you think. It should be very soft and flaccid. The mince expands a lot when heated and will make the casing crack.

Cooking

First brown it in the pan and turn down the heat. Then let the roast slowly until finished. About 10-15 minutes on low heat.

You can also boil it in water in lightly simmering water, for 10-15 minutes. Then it should be browned in a frying pan before serving.

It’s done when the internal temperature is over 65°C (150°F) degrees. Then it will usually reach a few degrees higher after resting a short while, and it will be perfect. Please use a meat thermometer.

If the temperature becomes too high it will become gritty in texture.

Notes

Medister: means “with ister (Med ister)” - “Ister” is the Danish word for “suet”. It is the fat that sits around the intestines of the pig. It is not often that you can buy suet in the supermarket, but lard is a good substitution.