Venison sausage recipe?

[BobCat]

A friend gave me some venison yesterday (frozen in gigantic meat popsicle block :scared4 and so I am interested in cooking it all up. Got a recipe for sausage? :hungry:

 

[BobCat]

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYltVzeZQTs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[Duckfat]

If you don't have a copy of "The Venison Sausage Cookbook" by Webster it may interest you. While not specifically about Venisoon "Charcuterie" by Ruhlman is also excellent. Is there a specific type of sausage you want to make?
For a quick and easy fix you can always grind the venison and just mix 50/50 with that ever bulk sausage you have or like.

Dave

 

[PierreRodrigue]

Sausage Recipe
6 1/2 lbs of trimmed venison
3 1/2 lbs of fatty pork shoulder or trimmings. You want a 20% fat mix when you are done
3 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons black pepper
3 tablespoons onion powder
3 tablespoons Accent
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon paprika<BR
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon crushed mustard seed
2 teaspoons cure (Prague powder or Instacure 1)
2 cups ice water
Cut all the meat into 1-2 inch cubes, then grind it though the mediu plate of your meat grinder.
Take all the spices and cure and mix them well into the 2 cups of ice water.
Pour the water and spice mix into the ground meat and work it all in by hand for at least a couple of minutes to ensure a homogenous mix.
Stuff the sausage into 32-35mm natural or collagen casings and prepare the links for the smoker.
Once the smoking process is completed, package the links and either keep them in the fridge for up to 3 days or freeze them for up to 4 months. Click here for smoking directions.
This recipe is also very good when made as a fresh sausage. If you choose that option, you would obviously leave out the cure, but you may want to add 2 tablespoons of liquid smoke for flavor.

 

[PierreRodrigue]

Venison SausagesInspired by this book -- Charcuterie, the art of smoking, salting and curing, a whole bunch of us have become obsessed with home smoked bacon, homemade and stuff sausages, dry cured items, etc. Many of us have taken parts and parcels of the recipes and come up with our own creations. You'll find out about our obsession on this topic: CharcuterieMy father-in-law gave me two deer this season. Recognizing that the freezer is not a safe deposit box, and recognizing that venison and sausage are a natural, this is what I did.I wanted something quite different from what most meat markets here do with venison and sausages.
3-1/2 lb diced venison, all tendons and sinew removed
1-1/2 lb diced pork back fat, skin removed
1/4 c minced sage (packed)
2 T toasted fennel seeds
1-1/2 T granulated or minced garlic
3 T Morton's kosher salt (scant 3 T.)
1/2 c diced dried cherries
1 c red wine
10 feet hog casings
1. If your casings are dried and packed in salt, remove 10' from the package, rinse with water. Open up the opening and flush water down through the casings. Soak in water in the fridge overnight.2. Soak the cherries in wine for a couple of hours. Drain, reserving wine. Put wine in fridge. You'll want the wine to be very, very cold!3. Combine venison, fat, sage, fennel seeds, garlic, salt and drained cherries.4. Follow instructions in the book to grind, bind and stuff. Make sure that everything is as cold as possible as you grind and bind! You could also just grind and bind and fry the sausage as patties.These sausages were wonderful grilled to an internal temperature of 150 (F).

 

[jmforge]

has anyone ever used beef fat for venison sausage? Pork fat tends to have a lot of rich piggy flavor which is a bit different from Venison. Not a bad thing, mind you, but I wonder if some people might have an issue with that?

 

[Duckfat]

Beef fat is very common. In my area all buthers when processing large game ask if you want pork or beef fat added to burger/sausage etc.

Dave

 

[jmforge]

I thought that I remembered that from when my brother and cousins had their deer processed in Kentucky.

Beef fat is very common. In my area all buthers when processing large game ask if you want pork or beef fat added to burger/sausage etc.

Dave

 

[DeepCSweede]

has anyone ever used beef fat for venison sausage? Pork fat tends to have a lot of rich piggy flavor which is a bit different from Venison. Not a bad thing, mind you, but I wonder if some people might have an issue with that?

We stick with pork - usually shoulder roasts that aren't super fatty. Occasionally we will throw in a slice or two of bacon if the pork shoulder is too lean. Usually a 25-30% ratio to the venison. We usually make 25-35 lbs of sausage at a time but based on eyeing up Pierre's recipe ours seems to be pretty close to Pierre's except I use brown sugar and more mustard seed and crush the black pepper pretty coarse.

Unfortunately, my dad is up north at our cabin and he is the maintainer of our log for sausage making so I don't have the recipe available.

A couple of recommendations, if you are grinding do not over grind because it will get an almost sawdusty texture if you do. We grind both the pork and venison together with a 1/2" plate, mix the seasonings with a sausage mixer with paddles and then stuff the sausage with the grinder with either the 1/2" plate or a kidney stuffing plate. Also, we usually shoot to take them off with an internal temp of 150-155 and then let them cool before refridgerating / freezing.

 

[BobCat]

Charcuterie, did not think to search for this, :O. Thanks so much for the info everyone. Plan to get down to business this weekend!

 

[DeepCSweede]

Oh and one more thing after mixing, we generally like to let the mixture sit overnight to let the cure and the spices work into the meat before smoking. Good luck and have fun with it.

 

[PierreRodrigue]

+1! It makes a difference!