Sausage

For those readers out there that don't feel as though there is much actual homesteading going on at the Miller homestead, this post is for you!  For many months I've had a bunch of lower-quality meat sitting in my freezer that was all that was left of a deer harvested from Miller Homestead North.  I'd been half-heartedly looking for sausage casings at some local butchers to avail.  I finally decided to get serious and just order them from the internet.  Between the prep work, grinding, mixing, stuffing, and clean-up, it took me about 5 hours to make about 12lbs of sausage.  Yikes, they'd better be tasty!  I used all 9lbs of the remaining venison, and three pounds of ground pork in order to add some richness and juiciness. I turned that 12lbs of meat into 36 sausages.  I made bratwurst (a seasoning blend that came with the sausage casings), italian sausage (some of a seasoning blend that came with the casings plus some garlic, red wine, and cayenne pepper), and chorizo (a from-scratch internet recipe, minus the oregano).

Here they are drying on the counter.  Bratwurst back left, italian front left, and chorizo on the right.

I had reasonable confidence in the flavor of these sausages, but I was a bit concerned about the texture.  Most of the information I had seen on the Internet said to trim off all the silver-skin and connective tissue on the meat, though some people seemed to think that wasn't necessary.  I planned on removing it, but as I got into the trimming, there was so much of it and it was interwoven so much into the meat that I wouldn't have  had any meat left if I did try to cut it off.  I ended up just cutting off large, easy to remove pieces of connective tissue, left the rest, and hoped for the best.

Here is the finished product the next day.  Italian on the left, chorizo in the middle, and bratwurst on the right.

Good news!  No trace of any chewiness from any connective tissue.  Also, it is quite tasty!  The italian could use some more fennel (weird that I would actually want more fennel in something), but it tastes quite good.  The bratwurst might be a bit salty for me, but others (like my wife) like stuff saltier than I do.  The chorizo is probably the best, in my opinion.  Very good paprika flavor with a hint of smokiness and moderate spiciness level.  The downside to these sausages is that they are all rather dry.  There may have been a bit of over-cooking, but I think its mostly due to the leanness of the meat.  I'd seen some recipes that called for 50/50 mixes of venison and pork or 30% pork FAT with 70% venison.  I went with 75% venison and 25% ground pork, so I there is considerably less fat in these sausages than most sausages.  Sliced up and put in a sauce, I don't think you would notice the dryness.  Even alone, they are very much acceptable, which is good, because I have 33 more links in my freezer now!