By Luke Clayton
Joe Dunn from Crandall, TX was on hand with his
smoker for this years annual “Sausage Grinding”.
Photo by Luke Clayton I guess my childhood roots still run pretty deep. When I was a youngster growing up in rural Red River County, my dad picked a cold, clear winter day for what he called his “annual sausage grinding.” We would butcher a couple of hogs in the morning hours and make sausage in the afternoon. I no longer raise domestic hogs but still stock the freezer with plenty of pork from the wild. My dad would have a tough time believing the woods in Texas today are full of wild hogs, many corn-fed from frequent visits to deer hunters’ corn feeders.
Keeping the tradition alive, I began making sausage at home back in the seventies and expanded a bit on my dad’s basic blend of breakfast pan sausage. Country pan sausage is tasty, but so is Chorizo (Mexican sausage, great for making breakfast tacos), smoked hot links and summer sausage.
I found many of my friends were interested in making sausage at home and turned the event into a social endeavor. We ‘pool’ our game meat and spend an hour or so boning the meat, getting it ready for the meat grinder. With a big campfire blazing and a pot of coffee bubbling, we enjoy a leisure day of fun and fellowship, rather than the intense work sessions I remember as a youngster. Today we enjoy making sausage at home as much for the fellowship as the meat, but it was serious business back when I was a kid.
As in any task-oriented project involving several people, sausage making requires a bit of planning. I always supply the seasonings, casings for stuffing the links and summer sausage and have a good idea of who is bringing what. It’s important to have a little fat in the sausage as well and the lean provided by the choice cuts from venison and wild pork. I usually have some pork trimmings from the butcher to add to the blend. The sausage we ‘crank out’ is much leaner than any that can be purchased at the grocery and, to my way of thinking, much tastier. Maybe this is because we ‘test’ fry a little sampling of each sausage blend before it gets the final approval.
Rather than mixing all the spices, I prefer to buy pre mixes from Allied Kenco Sales in Houston (www.alliedkenco.com). These folks have everything from the meat grinders to the hard-to-find items, such as casings for making smoked links. We use several plastic tubs and begin our morning by grinding all the meat. I’ve found a large capacity hand grinder with an adapter that hooks to an electric drill, making it automatic, works best. Many of the smaller electric grinders simply do not have the ‘umph’ to get the job done. Nothing would be worse than having a grinder break down when all the meat is defrosted. I keep the handle to the old grinder handy as a back up. If all else fails, if one can supply the “horsepower” by turning the crank, the meat will get turned into sausage.
So, even if you have your venison and pork in the freezer, it’s not too late to begin your sausage making tradition. Simply defrost the meat and either grind it yourself or take it back to the processor for grinding, then add the seasonings. Begin with a small amount of sausage until you get the hang of making sausage at home, by next fall, you’ll be a bona fide “Sausagemeister.” There are several excellent books that will help you get started in making sausage at home. Go to the Allied Kenco Web site to find them.
Other game cooking tips:
Chances are pretty good you have some duck breasts in your freezer from this past season. Try this recipe and I can assure you that you will never again “discover” containers of freezer burned waterfowl that for some reason, keep getting ‘overlooked.’
Duck breasts, when marinated in a 50-50 solution of Soy Sauce and Cola overnight are excellent eating. I like to place a piece of jalapeno pepper in the boned-out duck breasts, wrap with good bacon and smoke until thoroughly done. Some folks might like duck served rare, and most of the cook books suggest it be served this way, but to my way of thinking, this is exactly what makes people say, “No, I don’t like duck, the last I had tasted like liver!”
I hunt ducks near my home two or three times a week and have become pretty good at determining the most flavorful species. The best eating species, according to my taste, include Wood Ducks, Mallards, Teal, Pintail and Widgeon; but, when marinated in Soy Sauce and cola and smoked, Gadwall and even Redheads are excellent. |
