Grabouw Boerewors Recipe

Living in the USA, one of the things we miss the most from South Africa is "boerewors." "Boerewors" is an Afrikaans word for "farmer's sausage".

It is a type of sausage made from course ground beef and pork, cured in red wine vinegar, and seasoned with a spice mix. There are many different spice mixes, but our favourite is Grabouw spice.

This article contains the recipes both for the boerewors mixture itself, as well as the Grabouw spice.

Boerewors

You will need a meat grinder of some sort in order to make the sausage stuffing. We used a kitchen mixer with a grinding attachment for a few years before we bought a dedicated sausage grinder/stuffer.

Ingredients

• 8.8lb / 4kg beef
• 4.4lb / 2kg pork
• 2.2lb / 1kg fat (or fatty bacon)
• 5 to 6.5 fl oz / 150 to 200ml vinegar (we prefer red wine vinegar)
• casings (we prefer natural hog casings)

Instructions

1. Cut the meat into 1-inch / 2.5cm cubes
2. Let the cubes sit for long enough for the fluids to drain out, and drain
3. Mix the spices (see below), add vinegar and spices to meat and fat, and mix thoroughly
4. Put the spiced meat mixture into the fridge for at least 2 hours or more (overnight for best results)
5. Grind the mixture with a 8-10mm grinding plate (6mm / 1/4 inch is about as fine as you want to go)
6. Stuff the mixture into the casing, to a width of about 1.5 inch / 3.5cm

Grabouw Spice

For about 13lb / 6kg of boerewors. This works well with the recipe above.

Ingredients

• 15 tsp ground coriander OR
• 5 Tbsp coriander seeds (we like to roast them first), ground
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp pepper
• 5 tsp salt

Instructions

If you want to, roast the coriander seeds, and then grind them. Mix all the spices together thoroughly.