How would you describe italian sausage?!

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Italian sausages contains minced pork garlic and most importantly a spice called fennel. If you crush that and mix with onions, garlic a, salt pepper and minced pork you are very close to an Italian sausage

Making your own fresh Italian sausage is seriously easy. If you can make meatballs or meatloaf...then you can make your own Italian sausage.

This recipe does not require you to stuff the meat into sausage casings. You can do so if you wish, but with so many recipes calling for loose Italian sausage, it's often not worth the effort.

Italian Sausage Recipe

?2lb ground pork
?1Tbls salt
?1 Tbls ground fennel seed. Start with whole fennel seeds, and use your spice grinder attachment on your blender to grind them up, or do it manually in a mortar and pestle.
?1 1/2 Tbls sweet paprika
?1Tbls finely minced fresh garlic
?1Tbls sugar
?1tsp black pepper
?3 Tbls red wine vinegar
Mix all the ingredients together...and you have Italian sausage! You can use this mix right away, but it will get better after about 12 hours in the fridge.

Use this Italian sausage in your favorite spaghetti sauce, or instead of ground beef in lasagna. Multiply the recipe as needed, and if you make more than you need, it will freeze very well.

wow ... interesting question ... Interesting because:
1) In lasagna you don't have to use sausages but "ragù alla blolognese".
2) In Italy there are a lot of different kind of sausages, at least one for any "regione" (20 in Italy).
The recepi posted here are tipical of the southern areas and lasagna are tipical of Bologna, located in the north of Italy.

This is "a" ragù recipe:
Ingredients for 6:
50 g golden onion
30 g carrot
40 g celery
700 grams of lean meat of beef (minced)
50 g bacon, chopped
1 small glass of red wine
100 grams of tomato paste
extra virgin olive oil
meat broth (including nut)
salt and pepper
nutmeg (I don't use this in any case use just a little)

Mince the vegetables and put them in a pan with a little of oil.
Sauté over medium heat then add the bacon and after few moments, the flesh.
Continuing to moderate heat, stirring, to brown the meat and mix with a wooden spoon.
At this stage the fire under the pot should be determined so that the meat is dry.
A low flame would made the meat became boiled, while a too hight flame will burn it.
As soon as the meat take color and is completely dry, sprinkle with red wine allowing it to evaporate almost completely.
Add the tomato paste a bit of hot broth and bring to the end of cooking, stirring occasionally and adding more broth if too dry.
At the end add salt, pepper and nutmeg.
As a variation, instead of broth you can add milk.

Remember that to have a real Italian Lasagna you have to follow the whole original recipe...

Here is a usefull link ...
http://www.youtube.com/user/yellowsaffron#p/u/47/3uZlrwAN7QA

Buon appetito !