Sausage is one of the meat products that are very popular with young people and children. The practical way to process and consume is one reason why sausages being the choice. For lunch or eaten directly, sausages are always the choice.
Sausage is a ground meat product that is given spices, plus fat and other ingredients, which undergo the process of curing (the process of ripening with the addition of nitrite and salt which is intended to improve color, taste, and resistance to storing meat), cooking and fumigation.
Type of Sausage
In general, there are six types of sausages, such as:
- Fresh sausages. The main ingredients are finely ground, salted but not cured, wrapped in natural sleeves, not cooked and must be stored frozen or cold. The flavor and taste of sausage come mainly from spices, for example: Country style sausage, Breakfast sausage, Bratwurst, Italian sausage, Polish sausage.
- Sausages are not cooked but smoked. This type of sausage can be cured or not, smoked but not cooked, must be stored in cold temperatures, for example: Kielbasa Smoked pork sausage (smoked pork sausage).
- Cook sausages. Mostly use minced meat (in the form of emulsified), are cured and smoked, cooked to full maturity, must be stored in cold temperatures. Example: Frankfurters Wieners, Bologna, Vienna sausage.
- Fermented sausages. This type of sausage goes through the curing process and uses a lot of spices. The physical form is dry or semi-dry, has a chewy texture, low water activity, contains a lot of lactic acids, low pH, full or half-cooked, ready to be consumed, so cold storage is not needed. Examples: Thuringer, Salami, Pepperoni, Cervelat.
- Luncheon meats. Cured, fully cooked, in the form of slices, can be smoked or not. Most of them have added water, emulsified or in the form of restructuring (reshaped). Example: Dutch loaves, Headcheese loaves, Scrapple.
- Other types of sausages. Made from the side products of the meat industry, mixed meat, specialty sausages. Example: Blood sausage (blood sausage), Liverwurst.
How to Make Sausages
Although the types of sausages are very diverse, in general, there are four main stages of sausage making that apply to all types of sausages, namely: the stage of grinding or counting meat, making emulsions, filling the material into the casing, and packaging.
In the early stages, usually ground or chopped meat will be prepared and at the same time, a meatless emulsion material is also prepared. After that, the emulsion and meat ingredients are mixed at low temperatures and at certain times. After a good emulsion is formed, the ingredients are put into the sausage sleeve.
For certain types of sausages, ripening and/or fuming stages are needed. The stage of cooking and fuming is usually carried out in one place which is often called the smoke room (smokehouse) where the temperature and humidity of the room can be arranged according to needs.
For fermented sausage, there will be a fermentation stage. Fermentation is usually done by adding a starter (lactic acid bacteria) and the sausage is placed in a smoke chamber which also functions as a fermentation chamber where the temperature and humidity are regulated.
Smart Choose
In terms of our name, we must be careful to remember that the name does not reflect what is contained in the sausage. For example, if it is called beef sausage, it does not mean using only all ingredients originating from cattle or only using beef, but can contain other animal fats or eat other animal meat, or the presence of blood elements, etc.
This is important to note especially for imported sausages. While for domestic sausages, the halal guarantee can be known by the MUI halal logo. This must be considered.
In the rules for naming sausages in developed countries, it has been established. However, in Indonesia as far as the knowledge of the author does not yet exist. Referring to the writing of the previous Halal Journal, names of sausages can be found in various countries. In Germany, for example, if it’s only called sausage, it’s automatically from pork, either fat or meat.
If it’s called beef sausage, then the meat is mostly from beef, but the fat can be from anywhere and generally is from lard. If the sausages are all from cows and without ingredients from other animals, then the name of the animal must be mentioned and pure words added, so it must be `pure beef sausage`.
Naming sausages become more complex for pate products or can be translated as pasta sausages or liver pasta sausages. The problem with naming this pasta sausage is that often the name does not describe the actual content.
For example, beef sausage not only contains ingredients from cows but the hearts can come from pigs, so does the fat. For information, pork liver is preferred from beef liver because beef liver tastes bitter.
Beware of Halalness
The critical point of halal lies in the ingredients of this sausage maker, in which the sausage-making ingredients generally consist of: raw meat, salt, phosphate, curing material, water, preservatives, seasoning, flavoring, antioxidants, sausage casings, binders, and filler material.
The meat used is often not just one type of meat, it can be a mixture. In addition, the side products of the meat industry are often used to make sausages such as tetelan meat, meat left over from the trimming process, and so on.
Apart from not being pork which must be criticized, other meat that is not slaughtered in an Islamic manner must also not be used. In addition, other parts of the pig such as skin and innards such as the heart are used for making sausages. The use of pork liver also needs to be watched out, as previously explained.
Other additional ingredients commonly used in making sausages also need attention, such as:
- Fibrimex (beef blood plasma protein). This material is obtained from cow blood and is used for the purpose of hardening meat muscles (making crosslinks) in order to obtain the desired sausage texture.
- Collagen is a protein derived from animal skin, usually used for sausage skin. The advantage of using this skin is that it can be colored, edible, and attached to the product. This collagen sausage skin is unique compared to other skins, which has a thick, dense texture and attractive outer appearance. This sausage skin also contains high nutritional value so it is highly recommended for consumption. Unfortunately, this type of sausage skin cannot last long.
- Soy protein isolate is an additional ingredient used in mixing sausage dough, because of its high protein content and low carbohydrate, it plays a role in binding water and forming the emulsion system. Soy protein isolates are commonly used as a binder in processed meat products such as sausages (Soeparno, 1992).
- Seasoning. Although most of the spices used are spices in powder form, there are some spices used in the form of emulsions, so the halal is very dependent on the halal emulsifier used, which is generally the status of halal.
The above points will be one of the information for us to be able to consume sausages that are halal, safe, and healthy. Check the MUI halal label on the packaging to make sure the sausage is halal and safe for consumption. To make sure, you can check on the official LPPOM MUI website at www.halalmui.org, or through the HalalMUI application on Android and iOS.
