Tuesday 15 December 2009

Lost in Translation!

Posted by Simon

Our two white pigs have now been slaughtered, butchered and bagged up. Only one of the pigs was ours and we had around 40/45kgs of meat from each pig. So the freezer is pretty full at the moment.

With the boys, it is useful for us to mince quite a lot of the meat. One, they like it and two, it's easy to cook up. So I made up 9 x 500g bags of mince. All very simple - so far.

But then I decided to make some sausages! Especially as one of our friends asked if she could have some and as she helps us out at times, I thought I'd go into production. So I set everything up. Mince, onions, oats, salt and pepper and of course the skins. All the ingredients the hand written recipe says.

"Rosie is tsp teaspoons or tablespoons?" I ask - well I can never remember.

"Tbs? Tablespoons" Now you see where this is going!

"Okay"

Right I've mixed everything up and ready to go. Rosie is in place to catch the sausages at one end of the machine whilst I feed the machine at the other end.

"Hadn't we better cook a bit to taste the mixture first?" suggests Rosie

"No, it'll be alright. It's based on last years recipe which was okay. I reduced the oats and the meat is not so fatty."

So with three very long sausages ready to be 'twisted' into small ones I proceed to cook a bit of the leftover mix. Smells good, cooks nicely and with watering mouths the taste test ......... Ugh! A mouth full of salt and pretty overpowering on the pepper too. These are horrible.

"How much salt did you put in, Simon?

"3 tablespoons"

"These will have to go in the bin, they're inedible, we'll have to adjust the recipe"

Rosie looks at said recipe to make the changes and then asks.

"How much salt did you put in?"

"What it says, 3 tablespoons"

"It says tsp - teaspoons"

"I asked you and you said tsp was tablespoons"

"I thought you said tbs"

And I'll leave it there! But for - we still have 6 of our 9 bags of precious mince but my mouth feels as though it has been assalted!!!

7 comments :

  1. I don't know if this will work, but I've been told in the past that if you put a raw potato in with anything that is oversalted whilst it is cooking the potato will absorb a large proportion of the salt.

    Might be worth a try!

    Sue xx

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  2. Oh no! What a nightmare! Bless you guys I bet you were gutted. You will laugh about that in the future for sure, though :D Xx

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  3. I'll take them with 3 tbs if I can get them here in San Francisco! The Customs might object but for how good it tastes everything that you make I'll take the risk... Man, I wish I had been there!

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  4. We have cut our losses and binned the said sausages - not sure even a potato could have saved them. Luckily we had not made too many so we can laugh about it now. We did think about sending them to you in SF Mr Anon (!!) - and anyway what are you doing up - it's the middle of the night there. And to make you miss us even more we are just about to tuck into some baked mini pumpkins.

    Rosie

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  5. I'm still trying to re-adjust and dreaming about Lenault... Oh God, those mini pumpkins. How are the called, I forgot? They have the finest taste and I think that they are really good. Thanks for reminding me about them; now I have to attack the fridge at 04:30 in the morning!

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  6. Sorry about the fridge attack - the pumpkins werer the variety, "Hooligan".

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  7. oats? we use bread...

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