derryX’s Breakfast Sausage

I wanted to start my sausage making career by making an American classic, breakfast sausage. The beauty of this is that it doesn’t require being stuffed into hog casings, and, in fact, might benefit by being kept bulk. It is also the first recipe in Bruce Aidells’s Complete Sausage Book: Recipes from America’s Premier Sausage Maker, which was given to me as a Christmas gift. I veered away from the recipe ever so slightly, so what you’ll find below is my version.

Bear in mind: this song was playing on loop the whole time.

I placed a special order with Falvo Meats for a pork shoulder butt (7.2 lbs) and some pork back fat (2 lbs).

I cut the shoulder into strips that are can fit into my grinder. I also distributed the pieces of back fat throughout so it would incrementally be included in the grind.

I ground all of this up using the medium (1/4 inch) die.

I laid out the spices (listed below).

• 2 tablespoons of crushed red pepper
• 10 teaspoons of kosher salt
• 5 teaspoons of organic raw sugar
• 5 teaspoons of ground black pepper
• 5 teaspoons of ground sage
• 2 heaping teaspoons of dried thyme
• 2 heaping teaspoons of cayenne pepper

I tossed these spices in the biggest bowl I have, and I got the meat and 1 and 1/4 cups of water on deck.

By hand, I combined everything for a good 3 minutes. And I ended up with a little over 9 lbs of bulk sausage (to be frozen into 11 oz packages).

To see how I did, I coated a small patty in a small amount of olive oil and grilled it on a nonstick pan.

Once it was all browned up on both sides, I tasted it.

The sausage was nice and juicy, and was significantly spicier than stuff I’ve tried in the past. As far as seasoning, salt and pepper was spot on. Since there’s a significant amount of salt, sugar and spices in the mix, I was sure that a night in the fridge would help to slightly cure and mature the flavors, and that would give me enough time to get ingredients together for a perfect application for this sausage meat: the battle of the croissants in battle “sausage, egg, and cheese…” [coming soon]