Homemade Smoked Pork Sausages With Vinegar.

This is an interesting recipe from a small village in Crete called Agios Thomas. For those who don't know, Cretan cooking is considered one of the best regional cuisines in Greece. In this recipe, pork mince is marinated for a week in vinegar, flavoured and stuffed into sausage casings and finally smoked over hot coals. Now I haven't tried this but I have to say it sounds good, really good!

• Ready In: 169 hrs
• Yields: 12 sausages

Ingredients

• 4  kg  pork mince, with a slightly higher amount of fat than usual (coarsely ground)
• 2  kg vinegar (red-wine)
•  salt (to taste)
•  pepper (to taste)
•  cumin (to taste)
•  pork sausage casing (or pig intestines)

Directions

1. Get your butcher to grind the pork coarsely (the typical finely-ground mince won't do for this recipe) or grind it yourself using the appropriate attachment on your food processor.
2. Put pork mince into a large non-reactive tub and add vinegar and salt. Leave it to marinade for a week mixing it at regular intervals.
3. Note: If using pig intestines as sausage casings rinse well, turn inside out and scrub with salt to clean. Repeat daily for a week.
4. Add pepper and cumin to the sausage mixture and fry a small ball in order to check the seasonings.
5. Tie the intestines or sausage casings at one end with butcher's twine.
6. Fill sausages carefully making sure not to tear the casings and gently pressing the mixture down the casing to the end of the sausage.
7. Make long thin sausages about 2cm or 1 inch in diameter tying at the other end with twine.
8. Pierce the sausages at several points with a pin or needle and then string them up over a fireplace with hot coals.
9. Smoke over low heat making sure to add twigs from a sage bush or cypress tree. The sausages should be a rich brown colour and quite dry when cooked. Alternatively use a smoker and follow the instructions.
10. Serve fried, cooked over hot coals or baked with a glass or Cretan raki or ouzo.