Back to School: Sausage Making Class
There are always a lot of food-related workshops and presentations around food-obsessed San Francisco, and I finally signed up for a cooking class. This one was presented by Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats, a purveyor of meat-based creations like sausages, turducken (during Thanksgiving), and hamburgers (at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market).
This class was held at the Macy's in Union Square, and apparently Macy's helped underwrite a lot of the cost of the class. It was $75 for three hours, and the class that Ryan offers directly costs $200. Here he is showing us how to mix the meat by hand. Standing in the background is a representative from KitchenAid. It wasn't a great day for her, unfortunately, because the KitchenAids did not have enough horsepower to send the beef through the food grinder attachment, getting stuck at the very beginning of the presentation. We had to feed it one small cube at a time.
You know the meat is mixed well when it sticks to the bottom of your hand.
The KitchenAid attachment also has a sausage stuffer attachment. This was a very new experience for me, putting the intestines onto the plastic tube!
This was a great class. Ryan is obviously experienced at teaching classes, because he would ensure that everyone got hands on practice with every step of the process. Also, I had never before attended a cooking class with so many assistants. In addition to two Ryan brought from 4505, there were also other staff from Macy's, Williams Sonoma, etc. In all, I think there were about 9 or 10 assistants, for our class of 15 students!
Final product, which we sampled in class alongside a green salad, and which we got to take home as well.
