Homemade Sausage

My husband's best friend is an avid hunter and quite successful at hunting. Last week he gave us two "hams" from a deer. I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of venison. However, two years ago my husband shot a deer and he suggested that we make breakfast sausage with it. Making the sausage was really fun and the it tasted great. So with this new gift we made lots of sausage.

 

My husband is the butcher in our family, both of his grandfathers were butchers. So he trimmed the fat and connective tissue off the meat and I cut it onto pieces that would fit into the grinder. Deer meat is extremely lean. You must add some other kind of fat to it. My husband went to the carnceria and asked for pork fat. What he got was this really nice belly fat. I trimmed the skin off (now I know why they made footballs out of the tough stuff) and cut into grinder size pieces. We decided we wanted a 20% fat sausage. So my husband, who is also the mathematician figured how much of each we needed. We put the meat in the grinder and began to crank. Yes, we have the old fashioned kind of grinder and wouldn't have it any other way. The kids loved helping.

We made bulk Italian sausage, breakfast sausage, and ground meat with fat for making chili and tacos.

Breakfast Sausage
2 lbs of ground meat
3 tbsp of fresh finely chopped sage
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp fresh cracked pepper
1/2 tsp cracked red pepper flakes
1/4 cup brown sugar

Mix all ingredients together with your hands until well incorporated. Brown and eat immediately or freeze for later use.

Bulk Italian Sausage
3 lbs of ground meat
1/4 cup of water
1/4 cup red wine
1 tbsp sea salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fennel seeds
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp basil
1 tsp minced garlic

Mix all ingredients together with your hands until well incorporated. Brown and eat immediately or freeze for later use.