I wrote this back in 2012. I’ve amended that post to reflect the changes I’ve made along the way:

Making Toulouse Sausage, like most things related to curing and sausage-making, is fairly simple, or should be. After all, we all know that a Toulouse sausage is a pork and bacon sausage made with wine and garlic. That’s what the supermarket’s sell to us and they can’t be wrong…

…or can they? Well, many people think they are, including Gascon charcutier Dominique Chapolard, source of many of the recipes featured at the ‘Kitchen at Camont’ cookery school in SW France, who tells us that the ingredients are simply pork with salt and pepper – the simplest of sausages that relies on the quality of the meat that it’s made with.

This view is supported by the butcher in the small town of Brax which lies just to the west of Toulouse, the sausages’ home. Jane Grigson in her book ‘Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery’, concurs, but adds a pinch of saltpetre; some add varying amounts of bacon, which will have a similar effect to the saltpetre. Others maintain that it should have no water, no colouring, no preservatives or additives. All agree that it should be ground coarsely and more than one source says that a #10 (10mm) mincer plate should be used.

Ian Hoare, an accomplished chef and (then) owner of the excellent La Souvigne bed and breakfast accommodation in Forgès in the Limousin, supports this view, saying:

“Toulouse sausages are the standard fare round our way. They are seasoned only with salt and pepper and stuffed into standard sausage casings, though twisted fairly long at around 3-4 to a pound. The French never link in threes and hang them.”

“When I make a cassoulet, I deviate slightly from the ‘standard’ Toulouse sausage by adding a pinch or three of sugar and some garlic to the mix before stuffing. Some very authentic cassoulet recipes called for sausages seasoned like that.”

I read that the French Government have a issued a Red Label to certain producers of the sausage. Regrettably, my lamentable lack of fluency in the French language makes it very difficult for me to access their websites to find out what the specification is – that is, if they publish it online. Certainly, the saucisse-toulouse.fr website supports the view that the only seasonings are salt and pepper, as do producer Maison Escudier. Others list salt and ‘spices’, and many of them list sugar in a couple of forms: sucrose and dextrose.

What none of them have in their ingredient lists is garlic or wine.

Given the above, I chose to make two versions of ‘my take’ on Toulouse sausage. If not authentic, I hope that the first will be judged as at least ‘in the spirit’ of a true Saucisse de Toulouse. I made the first with just salt and pepper and a little sugar, and another, let’s call it a Lautrec sausage to avoid confusion, with the addition of fresh garlic and very small amounts of two of the four spices found in the classic French spice mix Quatre Épices.

And so on to the recipes…

Toulouse sausage – Saucisse de Toulouse

1000 g Pork shoulder and belly to give 30% fat content
16 g Salt
3 g Black pepper, ground
8 g Sugar, white

Grind the meat/fat using a large plate on your mincer/grinder; a #10 (10mm) plate is ideal. Mix in the other ingredients until the mixture turns from minced pork into a nice sticky sausage meat, 3 to 5 minutes. Stuff into casings of your choice. Needless to say, different sources insist on different-sized casings; all agree that they should be below 3 cm. Many sources mention just leaving the sausage in a coil.

All of us actually prefer the less authentic version below:

Lautrec Sausage

To the Toulouse mix above, add:
1 g Garlic, granules or powder
0.25 g Nutmeg, ground
0.25 g Ginger, ground

The method is the same.

There’s a calculator below for other amounts of meat.

My daughter thinks that this version is absolutely superb. The casings pictured are too large for the type of sausage and I made a right mess of stuffing them using the ‘funnel type’ hand stuffer shown; that was soon consigned to the bin!