Fresh Pork Sausage Recipes

QUICK & EASY PORK SAUSAGE

Steps:

• TO MAKE BASIC PORK SAUSAGE RECIPE: Place ground pork into a large bowl. Measure and distribute ingredient items evenly over pork. Wearing kitchen gloves, combine mixture using hands until thoroughly blended. Brown pork sausage in skillet, or cook according to recipe directions.
• TO MAKE VARIATION SAUSAGE RECIPE: Add specified additional ingredients before mixing. Brown in skillet, or cook according to recipe directions.

GARLIC AND FENNEL SEED SAUSAGE RECIPE

Steps:

• Set the bowl into which the meat gets ground on ice.
• Assemble the grinder attachment onto the Kitchen Aid
• Take a portion of the meat out of the fridge/freezer. We divided our meat into 3 batches so we could have 3 different sausage flavors; each batch was 2.5-3 lbs. The specific recipe above is for one of these batches.
• Make sure everything is very, very cold. This will make the grinding process easier and is better for health and sanitation reasons (bacteria multiplies in warmth). I cut the pork into slices, laid it on a sheet pan and put it in the freezer for about half an hour. This made it very firm and much easier for us to cut into the 1" cubes. We then laid the cubes of meat back on the sheet pan for another 1/2 an hour to get them firm again. I also put the metal grinding blades in the freezer.
• Follow the instructions with the kitchen aid and be careful. The wooden pusher comes in really handy. If you are short, like we are, you may have to stand on something to get enough leverage to push down on the meat.
• Make sure you have a good mix of meat and fat as you push it through the grinder. Watch your fingers!
• Once the ground meat and fat are in the bowl, combine with seasonings and liquid using using the paddle attachment and bowl of the Kitchen Aid mixer. Mix on medium for about 2 minutes and chill the ground meat again until very cold.
• NOTE: We ground the meat into the bowl, added our seasonings, then mixed it with the paddle attachment for about 2 minutes as per the instructions in Charcuterie. What we did not do was season the meat before grinding it, as the book suggests. I don't think skipping this step changed anything as we let the seasoned ground meat rest overnight.
• Once the meat was seasoned, we cooked up a little patty so we could taste it and check. This is an important step. With each batch, we added seasonings to correct to our palate.
• Put the casings on the extruder tube. This was a bit arduous as the natural casings have variations which make it difficult at times to slide them onto the tube. Many jokes of questionable taste were made during this process.
• The stuffing process definitely had a learning curve to it. This is where it pays to have two people; one to push the meat into the extruder and the other to pull the sausage off at the same rate it's being extruded. It is possible to twist the sausage into links as it comes off, but this is not a skill we mastered the first time around. Instead, we let it coil into one long length and then formed the links later.
• To link the sausages, tie off the end and twist a length (4' to 6") of filled sausage one direction. To make the next sausage, twist the next length in the opposite direction. Repeat.

HOMEMADE PORK SAUSAGE

Steps:

• In a bowl, combine all ingredients; mix well. Shape into eight 4-in. patties. In a skillet over medium heat, fry patties for 3-4 minutes per side until browned or until no longer pink in the center.

FRESH PORK SAUSAGE

Steps:

• Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Gather sausage mixture together in a ball, cover, and refrigerate overnight. Sausage may be frozen for up to one month.