The Meatwave

I go straight into hoarding mode at the first sign of cooling air. My summer freezer, once bare except a bag of ice and a container of homemade ice cream, starts filling with meats to get me through the fall and winter. One thing that's hard to live without during the cold winter months is a good breakfast sausage—perfect for a cold, lazy winter morning with some eggs and toast. Of course, whatever you don't freeze right away is prime for grilling while there's still light and the mornings are more brisk than frigid.

Before making breakfast sausage, I never really considered what made it taste the way it did—breakfast sausage was just a flavor definition in its own right. To demystify this sausage, I turned to Alton Brown, whose recipes I've often used as building blocks, but in the case of this recipe, I've found no reason to veer from he's already perfected.

Diced pork butt and fat back formed the base of the sausage, which was tossed with a mixture of salt, black pepper, sage, thyme, rosemary, brown sugar, nutmeg, cayenne, and red pepper flakes. The pork was then given a rest in the fridge to let some of those diverse seasonings sink in.

The meat then got a single pass through the small die of a grinder, where all the seasonings became incredibly well embedded into the pork. As with any sausage, it's best to grind into a bowl set in ice water to keep the meat mixture as cold as possible to prevent the fat from melting.

A taste patty confirmed the seasonings were right on. When making homemade sausages, this is an incredibly important step as it's your last chance to get seasonings right before forming patties or stuffing the sausage into casings. I learned this the hard way when I didn't test one of my earlier sausages only to find out I left out an important ingredient after I completed all of the stuffing.

Hog casings are my go-to for finishing up the sausage process—who doesn't like the snap of a hot casing, followed by juicy innards—but breakfast sausage is one I actually prefer in patty form. On almost all of my sausage recipes, the act of stuffing seems to induce fear to at least one person (it really shouldn't), so this should be a welcome change for some.

At this point the sausage can be frozen and enjoyed as you need them throughout the entire winter. It can be hard to wait for something so delicious though, so I recommend taking a few out to the grill right away.

The high heat creates a a great crisp and brown crust, and without the fat splatter mess that plagues the skillet method. What comes off the flames is a delectable mixture of sweet, spicy, fresh, and meaty that makes any fall or winter morning feel complete.

Published on Tue Oct 25, 2011 by Joshua Bousel

You Might Also Like