Page 26 - SAFFER Magazine 01

Boerewors for Dummies

Making boerewors is actually very simple and does not have to be an expensive exercise. I started with a manual mincer / grinder
bought online for less than GBP 15 which worked very well. If you are going to make large quantities of wors and dry wors it makes
sense in investing in an electric mincer. The cost depends on the brand, features and the power rating. Again, I opted for a mincer
with a reverse function (very handy should the feed become ‘blocked’) with a 1800 watt motor and after shopping around found
one for under 50 pounds. Unfortunately, the mincers tend to be a bit noisy but worth enduring the noise level to acquire the result!

The name Boerewors comes from Dutch (Afrikaans). The word “boer” meaning farmer and “wors” translates to sausage. There are a
number of varieties to the basic recipe. The traditional recipe consists of 90 percent meat, beef, as well as lamb, pork, or a mixture of
lamb and pork. The other 10% is made up of spices and other ingredients. Not more than 30% of the meat content may be fat. The
ground meat, spices, vinegar and water are mixed and encased in a casing. Casings can be sheep, hog or collagen and are supplied
in various sizes. I personally prefer sheep casings 18 to 26 mm even though it is slightly more expensive. I find them stronger and
more consistent in size and they do not ‘pop’ when feeding the meat mixture into the casing.

The spices added to the wors, consists of black pepper, dried coriander seed (ground), nutmeg, cloves (ground) and all spice. Salt
and vinegar is added to the meat and spices to act as a preservative and then stuffed into casings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Boerewors An alternative to trying to mix and match the different spices in the correct ratio one can purchase a wide range of spice
mixtures from either Freddy Hirsche or Crown National in either 1kg or 1.1 kg packaging. Again, shopping around is well worth
finding the best price as it differs between suppliers. Approximate cost is 10 to 16 GBP per kg.

A kilogram of boerewors stuffed into 18 – 26 mm casing measures approximately 90 cm in length for those wanting to accurately
cost making your own. So, let’s get down to business.

Ingredients:

1. 1 Kg of meat. A mixture of 700 g of beef and 300 g of pork or 300g of lamb cubed into about one-inch pieces to feed into
the mincer for mincing. The mincer usually has 2 or 3 grinding plates for fine, medium and coarse finishes, I prefer the coarse finish
as it does not ‘mash’ the meat too fine. For this exercise I actual purchased a mixture of minced beef and pork from the supermarket
too ‘speed’ things up. I personally like to add about 50 - 100 g of hand cubed pork rind (chopped finely into about 5mm blocks), but
that’s a personal preference. Also, as a variant 50 g of bacon lardons for a ‘smoky’ taste.

2. Optional extras to taste - like cheese, chilly or garlic

3. About 1.2 meters sheep casing, washed and rinsed in cold water for about 30 minutes.

4. 30 to 36 g of boerewors spice. Please note the spices are very concentrated and I found under spicing is definitely better
than over spicing!

5. 30 ml of cold water and 30 ml of malt brown or cider vinegar.

1. . 2. 3.

Method:

Mix the ingredients in a large bowl and refrigerate for about an hour. Fit the correct nozzle/ funnel to the mincer/ grinding ma-
chine. Feed the casing onto the nozzle and tie a knot in the end of the casing. Stuff the machine with the wors mixture. Switch
machine on and feed the mixture into the casing whilst guiding the wors in a circular shape on a plate. You can hang the wors for
about 1 – 2 hours if you wish to get rid of any moisture but it is not necessary. Hope you enjoy and remember to have fun and a
good laugh.

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