Friday, November 28, 2008

Sausage Day


Some may call it Black Friday, but for us, the Friday after Thanksgiving is Sausage Day.

Luke was a big help this year. He helped cut and season the meat, and helped push it through the grinder. He's becoming quite the little sous-chef.

This year, Ed brought down about two pounds of frozen venison. I decided to create my own recipe for breakfast sausage, since I was tired of all the old ones I've been making.

This time I just used the meat and spices I had on hand:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scott's Venison Breakfast Sausage

2 lbs. venison
1 lb. ground beef
12 oz. pork ham fat
1 tsp. sage
1 tsp. juniper berries (secret weapon to cut gaminess of wild meat--SHHH! Don't tell anyone!)
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. marjoram
1/2 tsp. rosemary
1/2 tsp. coriander
1/2 tsp. black peppercorns
2 whole red chile peppers (like Serrano), or 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. mace
salt to taste

Slice all the meat and fat into one inch cubes. Set aside. Place all the spices (sage through mace) into a spice grinder and grind until it is a coarse powder. Rub the seasonings into the meat and grind through a coarse disk. Form one patty and fry to taste the seasonings. Add salt to taste. Grind the meat again through a fine disk. Form into one pound loaves, wrapping each with wax paper, and freeze until ready to cook.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. Chop the meat with a sharp cleaver or butcher knife.

2. Place all the meat in a large bowl.

3. For lean game meats like venison, you will need at least a little added fat. This is cured ham fat, so watch the salt when using this stuff. It's pretty salty already.

4. Grind all the spices together in a spice grinder.

5. Then add the spices to the meat.

6. Work the spices into all the cubed meat.

7. Now you're ready to start grinding the meat through the coarse grinding plate.

8. Plops of happiness.

9. Before grinding through the second finer plate, be sure to fry up a small patty to check seasonings. In this case, we added a touch more sea salt.

10. The finished patty. Delicious! A skillet full of love! Notice how non-greasy the patty is. This is healthy stuff, folks!

© Copyright 2005-2014, Scott E. Harris. All Rights Reserved.
Please do not reproduce or copy without the permission of the author.