Hot Italian Sausage

[lyndalou]

I would like to try my hand at making hot sausage. I have some ground pork and think I'll add some finely chopped garlic. fennel seed. hot pepper flakes and salt and pepper. Is there anything else that I should put into this?

I will be making patties with it, if I can figure it out.
Thanks in advance

 

[Pam Leavy]

That sounds good to me. I have a recipe but can't find it. Let us know how it turns out.


Pam

 

[Caine]

1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 teaspoon crushed anise seeds
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried minced onion
2 teaspoons salt
2 pounds ground pork


or try


1½ lb. ground pork
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1½ tsp. ground paprika
1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1/4 tsp. anise seed
1/4 tsp. fennel seed
1½ tsp. crushed red pepper

or, if you are really adventurous, try

2/3 cup salt
5 cups ice water
3 tb. fennel seed
2 tb. coarse black pepper
1 tb. sugar
2-1/2 tb. crushed red pepper
1 tb. anise seed
2-1/2 tb. coriander
25 lbs. boneless pork butt, ground

 

[lyndalou]

Thank you so much, Caine. Can't wait to try the first 2, but doubt that I'll make the third. l

 

[auntdot]

We love to make sausage.

One suggestion, take a bit of the raw sausage mix, make a patty, fry it and give it a taste.

Then you can adjust the seasonings.

Recipes are just dandy and we generally follow them, but ingredients do vary in potency and so the taste test is, at least for us, a necessary part of the process.

Keep in mind though, when you taste the patty, many of the flavors of the herbs and spices you have added will not become fully apparent until the mixture sits for a day or two before cooking.

For example, if you think the sausage is not very hot, it does take a while for hot pepper flakes to release their zip into the surrounding meat.

And if the patty seems a bit salty, the final product may well not seem so (the meat will absorb and dilute a lot of the salt).

You have to kinda get a feel for the process.

Although what you are tasting will not fully reflect the final flavor of the sausage, this step is the last chance you will have to adjust the flavorings before stuffing the mixture into casings. Even if you are not going to use casings, it is the best time to adjust the seasonings.

Just a step we take when we make sausage, and one we find gives us a better product.

After you have tried a few batches of Italian sausage, there are a lot of others you might wish to try.

Good luck and hope this helps.

 

[kleenex]

Red pepper flakes are nice, but it would be even nicer if you used real hot peppers instead.

Jalapeno's, thai, Scotch Bonnets, Habanero's easily come to mind.

 

[thumpershere2]

I make suasage out of ground venison and it turnes out great. I use about the same ingredients as above. Of course I had a sm amount of prok too because venison is pretty dry alone.