Tuna sausages fish sausages

[Full100 0]

Hi, good day, Can anyone here give advice as it relates to a good binder for fish sausages. I have been experimenting with tuna to make summer sausages. I am looking for a good binder without having to use any pork oe beef fat. Thanks.

[Dave in AZ]

Full100 0 welcome, I see you just joined and this is your 1st post!

Stanley and Adam Marianski have some fish content in their book Home Production of Quality Meats and Sausages.

Your question is confusing… you say without having to use pork or beef fat. But a binder only binds fat and water to protein. So, if you are using tuna, what is the fat being used? If no fat, then what are you trying to bind?

If you are just trying to get water bound to meat, then by far the #1 binder is various sodium phosphates. There are 5 or 6 uses all different chemicals, but generally referred to as sodium phosphate. Sodium tripoly phosphate STPP is common. Sometimes referred to as cold phosphates also. Walton’s sells both versions in different minimum amounts, can’t really tell exact composition, but will work well to bind water.

Walton’s also sells one called SureGel that is whey proteins (probably NFDM), phosphates, and gelatin. It works well and does have the phosphates needed to bond water.

P.s. i think if you are making a tuna sausage, that is so far outside the bounds of what defines a “summer sausage”, that you can’t really use that term without just confusing everyone. It is like saying you want to build an airplane, but one that only goes underwater… it’s not an airplane anymore. Same thing, summer sausage has a loose definition (pork/beef/venison, 25% fat or so, particular spice mix, fermented or faked with acid, smoked).

So, maybe you can tell a bit more about the fish sausage without fat you’re trying to make, ingredients and rough percentages, cooking method, flavors? If I try to tell you anything about summer sausage, I can tell it won’t help you with a nofat tuna

[Full100 0]

Dave in AZ Thank you for your reply.

[Dave in AZ]

Full100 0 will be interested to hear what you’re making, I looked in my Marianski books, including their one on drying and curing fish, and saw nothing like 60mm diameter chub of a fish based sausage.

[Full100 0]

Dave in AZ Got it

[salmonmaster]

Dave in AZ this is a real good question. I was wondering the same thing myself. Not for summer sausage, but for salmon snack sticks. I’ve made them before, they came out good, dry, but good. Salmon and tuna, do contain a fare amount of fat. A different kind of fat, but it is still a fatty fish. I was wondering why a binder, sure gel etc. wouldn’t bind to fish fat too.

[salmonmaster]

Full100 0 welcome to the community!

[processhead]

There are a number of emulsified fish sausages that are common in Asian cooking, however no one would confuse them with what we commonly recognize as summer sausage.

[dawg]

Full100 0
Welcome to the community. I don’t have an answer to what you are asking but I’m interested in what and how you make it. Just a different protein. Now just to figure out how to make it.

[salmonmaster]

dawg it would be interesting to figure out. It wouldn’t be a true summer sausage, but a summer sausage shape. Would just need to figure out how to bind it together, keep the moister in. Maybe a low heat smoke for a few hours, then into sous vide at maybe 135° for a few hours or something. I’m going to make some salmon snack sticks in the near future, maybe I’ll give a salmon sausage a go at the same time. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And I have plenty of salmon to experiment with.

[Dave in AZ]

There used to be a fish dumpling used in Korea in soups, that was a ton of binder like soy protein, potato starch, and ground up fish. Then you just toss lumps of it into boiling soup and it cooks up. I’ve made that a few times, and could see stuffing it into casings and cooking like a bratwurst in SV. I’d just cut it up into soup still probably, so no issue with moisture. But basically the same kind of meat filling.

When Ive made that, it was like 70% fish, whole eggs, flour, potato starch, corn starch, or rice flour. I just do it with leftover fish.

[Dave in AZ]

Full100 0
Just found this in a Marianski book:

Fish Sausage Fish sausage made with oil instead of pork fat. Meat Metric US raw fish 1000 g 2.20 lbs. Ingredients per 1000 g (1 kg) of meat: salt 18 g 3 tsp pepper 4.0 g 2 tsp nutmeg 2.0 g 1 tsp coriander 2.0 g 1 tsp cumin 2.0 g 1 tsp turmeric 2.0 g 1 tsp red pepper, ground 0.5 g ⅓ tsp ginger, ground 0.5 g ½ tsp olive oil 100 g 0.22 lbs. flour 60 g ½ cup bread crumbs 60 g ½ cup Instructions: 1. Grind boneless, skinless chunks of fish through ¼” (6 mm) grinder plate. Fish should be partially frozen for easy grind. 2. Mix salt, flour, oil, bread crumbs, spices and fish together adding as much water as necessary. When making more sausage use an electric mixer. 3. Stuff into 32-36 mm natural or synthetic casings of your choice. 4. Refrigerate and fully cook before serving. Notes: Sausage should have a slight curry flavor as all above spices are used for making curry powder. Turmeric will add a yellowish color but it may be omitted from the recipe. Cornstarch, flour or milk powder can be used. Sausage may be cooked in water and will become a ready to eat sausage. Cooked rice can be used as a filler. Pork fat can be used instead of oil.

[salmonmaster]

Dave in AZ I was thinking of a soya protein binder to. If you wanted it like a SS , you would have to be able to slice it, that’s what I would want, and that would be the problem. The longer, and hotter you cook it, the more it wants to flake. So I would think a small grind, almost emulsified, a lot of binder, and a low heat cook might work, maybe.

[processhead]

From what I recall, the Asian fish sausage recipes usually call for corn starch or rice starch as the binder.

[cdavis]

Full100 0 welcome aboard

[Idaho Smokey]

I am not a sausage maker, but figured that there is enough of a knowledge base here that I would add an idea and let the knowledge base shoot me down, or come up with a good idea. When I was a kid my mom made Salmon and tuna patties. I didn’t pay any attention to how she did this since they were NOT my favorite dinner treat. I do know that she used breadcrumbs and eggs as a binder. I did find a tuna sausage recipe that uses breadcrumbs, egg whites, and 1 whole egg to bind it together. This is a fresh sausage. They said that it was an emulsified sausage with a texture like a hot dog and is served with a sauce. I imagine that the sausage it’s self would be fairly dry.

[gus4416]

Full100 0 welcome glad to have another knowledgeable person on board

[salmonmaster]

Idaho Smokey I think the fresh sausage would be easy enough to do. I make salmon patties about the same way. Eggs, breadcrumbs, a little flour or cornstarch. The trick would be to make it into a cured type sausage, that you could process, smoke, sous vide, etc. and then use later. I’m assuming that was the original intent of trying to make a summer sausage type product.

[salmonmaster]

Idaho Smokey I think the emulsified part would be right, and like you said, it would probably be dry. So you would have to get the right binder, to keep it moist, and process it at the lowest, safe temperature you could to keep it moist.

[dawg]

salmonmaster
Summer sausage is probably wrong word for it. But something similar would be worth a try. I like the idea of a smoked, salty stick made from fish as a change of pace. During harvest I rotate between sticks, jerky and SS a lot. I think you all are right about emulsifying it and adding something for a binder, cure and slow smoke it would be alright.