Garlic-Pork Sausage with Herbes de Provence
Homemade sausage is fun and easy to make but requires a few specialty tools. The first thing to tackle is the ground meat. I like to use a coarser ground meat for this sausage recipe, so I prefer to grind it myself. Most of the pre-ground meats available in the markets and ground quite finely and are suitable for smooth stuffings like those used in breakfast sausages or hotdogs. For a coarser and more rustic sausage, you want to finish with a medium grinding plate. I usually double grind my meat through a coarse plate first, and then a medium plate. Make sure your meat is very cold when you go to grind it…I usually freeze it for 30 minutes after I cut it into reasonable sized pieces to fit the grinder throat.
Above is the food grinder that I use in my kitchen at home. In addition to grinding meats, it also works as a sausage stuffer and a cold press juicer. These units are reasonably priced and make the job much easier. I have the grinding and stuffing attachments on my kitchen aid stand mixer that I have used for years, but they are rather cheaply built and cumbersome to use. However, the kitchen aid setup will work for small quantities of grinding and stuffing if you already have those components on hand, but I would highly recommend the stand-alone grinder if you are making a new investment.
Sausage casings are another unusual item you will need to make sausages. Most sausages are made with natural (edible) casings which come from cleaned and trimmed small intestines of various animals. Small sausages like breakfast links are made from sheep casings while Italian Sausages and Bratwursts are made from Pork (Hog) casings. Beef casings are even bigger and are used for making larger sausages like salami. For this recipe, I will be using Pork (Hog) casings.
When you buy casings, they will come in various sized packages and will be packed in salt to preserve them. The package I recommend below provides enough casings for about 25 pounds of meat. The first step is to soak the casings for at least 30 minutes. The package says 10 minutes, but I prefer a little more time to let them rinse and soften. After soaking, pour out the salty water and cover the casings with fresh water. With the faucet running gently with cold water, take the casings one at a time and rinse the inside by holding an open end up to the stream of water. The casings will fill with cold water. Move the water through the length of each casing to remove excess salt and lubricate the interior of the casings.
We make these sausages on our Foodie trip to the Provence region of France. For these trips, I carry along a manual sausage stuffer…for obvious reasons. This “gun” style sausage stuffer works in a pinch, but is cumbersome and inefficient. Although it does make for a great social media photo! In the photo on the right you can see me working the casing onto the stuffer tube. The electric grinder/stuffer I recommend below comes with three various sized stuffing tubes for the various sized casings; smallest for sheep, middle size for hog and the largest one for beef casings. Lubricating the casings with water will make it much easier to feed them onto the tube.
One of the really nice features of this electric grinder/stuffer is the included foot pedal which frees up both hands to handle the sausage as it comes out of the tube. One hand is placed on the tube and controls the flow of the casing while the other hand cradles the sausage, slowing the pace to properly fill the casing and twisting it into proper sized sausages. One pro hint here is to twist each link in opposite directions which prevents the previous link from un-winding.
To enhance the flavor of these sausages even further, I like to put them in one of my smokers. I have two options at home; cold smoke and hot smoke. I usually cold smoke my sausages for about 4 hours before boiling them. The other option is to hot smoke them in either my Traeger grill or stovetop smoker (see below). I prefer to hot smoke at the last minute (after boiling them) just before serving and eating the sausages.
Tools and food products I used in this recipe
Garlic-Pork Sausage with Herbes de Provence
Course: EntreesCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium8
servings20
minutes10
minutesIngredients
1 1/2 pounds coarsely ground pork butt
3/4 pound coarsely ground beef chuck
1/2 cup finely diced yellow onion
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
4 teaspoons Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons herbes de Provence
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Directions
- If you are grinding your own meat, run your pork butt and beef chuck through a food grinder fitted with a coarse plate first and then through a medium plate. Mix all of the ingredients together well and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Adjust seasoning if necessary: Take a small sample of the sausage and form a patty. Sear in a hot pan on both sides to cook through. Adjust seasoning and salt if necessary.
- Put the sausage meat into a sausage stuffer and fill into pork (hog) casings, twisting as necessary to create 6-inch long sausages.
- To get the most intense flavor, I have a smoker that I am able to set as low as 90-degrees F., so I am able to “cold smoke” them for 4 hours with cherry chips.
- Poach the sausages in simmering water to an internal temperature of 158-degrees F. and shock them in cold water to stop the cooking.
- If you don’t have the ability to cold smoke, a hot smoker (stove top or outdoor model) works well at this point to impart a “smoky” flavor. Otherwise, cook over a gas or wood-fired grill, or simply sear them in a sauté pan and finish them in the oven.
- Serve over a bed of Ratatouille.