Delta's favorite food blogger Hank Shaw makes...
French Style Duck Sausage
These French style sausages come from Toulouse, where they are the classic ingredient in cassoulet, that hearty bean, duck confit and pork extravaganza that is a hallmark of any self-respecting French cook’s winter repertoire. The sausages are normally pork, but this is my waterfowl-centric version.
Traditional Toulouse sausages are minced by hand rather than ground — a fine option I do myself from time to time. But the sausage is also wonderful made with duck and pork fat and run through your coarsest die on your food grinder. Incidentally, this is a great use for snow or Canada geese, as well as skinned diver or sea ducks.
What makes a Toulouse sausage unique? First the coarseness of it, but also its simplicity: It requires black pepper and garlic, that’s all. Many versions, such as the one Paula Wolfert describes in her masterful book The Cooking of Southwest France, include nutmeg. Mine does, too, and if you can manage to grind your own nutmeg on the spot, you will notice a difference compared to pre-ground.
These links are excellent grilled slowly over hardwoods, roasted gently in a 325-degree oven, and, of course, as an element in cassoulet or other winter stews.
NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with making sausage links at home, you can of course leave out the links and use this as a loose sausage. My suggestion would be to make it into meatballs.
Makes about 5 pounds, or 15-20 sausages
- 4 pounds duck or goose meat (a little skin and fat is OK)
- 1 pound pork fat
- 1/2 cup white wine, chilled
- 35 grams (about 2 tablespoons plus a teaspoon) Kosher salt
- 5 grams (a scant teaspoon) Instacure No. 1 (this is a curing salt and is optional in this recipe)
- 25 grams (about 2 tablespoons) chopped fresh garlic
- 20 grams (about 2 tablespoons) ground black pepper
- 1 whole nutmeg, freshly grated
- hog casings
- Chop the meat and fat into chunks of about 1-inch across, mince any skin you are using, then mix the garlic and all the spices together and toss with the meat and fat.
- Chill the meat and fat until it is almost frozen by putting it in the freezer for an hour or so.
- Take out some hog casings (available at any butcher shop and in some good supermarkets) and set in a bowl of very warm water.
- Grind through your meat grinder (you can use a food processor in a pinch, but you will not get as good a texture) using the coarse die. If your room is warmer than 69 degrees, set the bowl for the ground meat into another bowl of ice so it stays cold.
- Add the wine and mix thoroughly either using a Kitchenaid on low for 60-90 seconds or with your (very clean) hands. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly. Once it is mixed well, put it back in the fridge for 30 minutes or so while you do some clean-up.
- If you are not making links, you are done here. Package the sausage any way you’d like: Patties, logs, or whatever. Seal them well.
- For links, stuff the sausage into the casings all at once before you make individual links. Twist off individual sausages by pinching the casing down on either side of the soon-to-be-sausage and twisting it in one direction. I like my links about 6-8 inches long. Here’s the trick: The next set of sausages you pinch down on, you need to twist in the opposite direction from the first set. Alternate like this all the way down the casing. Or you could tie them off with butcher’s string.
- Hang the sausages in a cool place for 4-8 hours (the colder it is, the longer you can hang them). If it is warm out, hang for one hour. Once they have dried a bit, put in the fridge until needed. They will keep for at least a week in the fridge.
- If you are freezing the sausages, wait a day before doing so. This will tighten up the sausages and help them keep their shape in the deep-freeze.
Visit Hank Shaw's Website: http://www.honest-food.net/blog1/
