Charcuterie: Breakfast sausage and chicken, basil and tomato

Well I just finished putting the meat grinder to dry from being cleaned.

Made up two different sausages today. Both from the Charcuterie book and pretty much to the t on following directions.

Chicken, Basil and tomato -
Texture came out great, but the red wine vinegar came through way tooo strong. Hoping letting this sit over night will let things mellow a little and the flavors blend a little more.

Breakfast sausage -
Added in about 1.5t of nutmeg. Then I split the ingredients in half after grinding and mixing. One batch got about 1/4 C of good Maple syrup and the other did not. The syrup batch came out great as did the other batch.

Good stuff overall!

I still have about another 5-6lbs of pork shoulder and am thinking I might take the "Basic Sausage w/roasted garlic" recipe and throw in some roasted red pepper and maybe some thyme. However, for tonight I am done!

If the concern is the maple syrup adding too much liquid to the mix, try maple extract (which is a much more concentrated liquid) or maple sugar.

Hmm. I wasn't concerned with the amount, really what would just give me the best flavoring.

For about 2.5lb of meat (already grinded and blended), I was thinking perhaps 1/4C of maple syrup. What do you think?

Well, if you want strong maple flavoring, then more maple and less or no brown sugar, I suppose.

1/4 C sounds reasonable as a starting point; fry it up and see what you think. (Of course, if it's too much, too late! But it probably won't be.) I don't know, I don't have a real strong feeling beyond that. Let us know how it comes out.

The Spice House has a maple sugar seasoning they call Gateway to the North, which they specifically recommend for seasoning breakfast sausage.

Mike G wrote:Well, if you want strong maple flavoring, then more maple and less or no brown sugar, I suppose.

1/4 C sounds reasonable as a starting point; fry it up and see what you think. (Of course, if it's too much, too late! But it probably won't be.) I don't know, I don't have a real strong feeling beyond that. Let us know how it comes out.

I agree with Mike, fry up a bit for taste which should give you the starting point. I would bet 1/4 cup is going to end up being the correct amount per pound.

Well I just finished putting the meat grinder to dry from being cleaned.

Made up two different sausages today. Both from the Charcuterie book and pretty much to the t on following directions.

Chicken, Basil and tomato -
Texture came out great, but the red wine vinegar came through way tooo strong. Hoping letting this sit over night will let things mellow a little and the flavors blend a little more.

Breakfast sausage -
Added in about 1.5t of nutmeg. Then I split the ingredients in half after grinding and mixing. One batch got about 1/4 C of good Maple syrup and the other did not. The syrup batch came out great as did the other batch.

Good stuff overall!

After making about 10 adjusted batches of breakfast sausage, I finally came up with a recipe I liked. My starting point was the recipe in Charcuterie but what I ended up with, barely resembled the original formula. I wasn't thrilled with the ginger or the fresh sage in the original. That recipe produced a tasty sausage but it wasn't what I think of as breakfast sausage. This recipe has only a slight maple note but it's definitely noticeable. I'm pretty sure the maple sugar in the recipe is from Spice House but I'm not 100% sure. Here, sage is the dominant note and that's pretty much what I was seeking. I love this sausage with eggs and it was an excellent addition to my Thanksgiving stuffing last year, too.

For a 5-pound batch:

5 pounds fatty pork shoulder
4 T dry, rubbed sage
3 T salt (morton kosher)
2 T maple sugar
1 T minced garlic
4 t freshly-ground black pepper (toast peppercorns first)
2 t red pepper flakes
1 C ice water

(follow method described in Charcuterie)

=R=