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A Caterer’s Guide to Fresh Veggie Platters (Crudité)

Fresh seasonal vegetables for entertaining or easy snacking at home.

I spent the last 10 years catering. Nearly every event, from formal fully staffed weddings to casual business luncheons with food delivered, ordered a fresh veggie platter (or crudité). Over the years I came to love and take pride in this simple dish. I love the flexibility of it. Incorporating the best of local produce and seeing how these platters evolved throughout the year as vegetables came in and out of seasonality. And in a hectic kitchen, building these platters took on a meditative aspect for me.

As I write this, we’re in the depths of the pandemic and it’s looking like my catering days are behind me. But someday, I will make food for other people again and in the meantime, it makes me happy to open my fridge and find these beautiful fresh vegetables, prepared with care and ready for easy and healthy snacking. Veggies prepped in this way will last a solid 5 days in the refrigerator, making it well worth the effort to stock up on a big container for the family to nibble on throughout the week.

5 Elements of a Perfect Platter

Quality of the Produce

First and foremost, quality matters with this dish as the vegetables are not cooked or seasoned. The best quality produce will be the stuff that is in-season when you buy it. I won’t buy tomatoes in the winter or spring months because I know I’ll be disappointed. If you shop at a Farmer’s Market or a local farm stand, every item there will be worthy of a crudité platter. If you are shopping at the grocery store, refer to the Seasonal Vegetables Table in this post to make the best choices and use a discerning eye to pick out the freshest vegetables.

Color

Pick out vegetables of assorted colors. Rainbow carrots add visual variety as do mixed sweet peppers, easter egg radishes, thin slices of Chioggia beets. Spring platters tend to be greener and more muted with asparagus, peas, endive, baby turnips, etc and summer platters feature bright warm colors that mimic the weather.

Texture and Shapes

The best cruité platters are rich with textures and shapes. I’ve seen a lot of platters where carrots, celery, and bell peppers are cut into uniform rectangles and then sorted in piles by vegetable type. These platters leave me feeling a little sad.

I like to retain as much of the natural shape of the vegetables as possible and embrace a little chaos by mixing them all together. It’s my way of paying respect to the ingredients and the natural order of things. I cut whole baby carrots and radishes lengthwise, retaining a little stem and a little of the taproot. I use whole endive leaves and display peas in their pods.

On a practical level, mixing the vegetables together instead of sorting by type means that at large events, people can grab an assortment with one tong-ful instead of holding up the line while they pick through each pile. When facing down 200 hungry people, these become important considerations.

The Sauce

Any dipping sauce or thick salad dressing works for these vegetables, be it store-bought hummus or home-made buttermilk ranch. I tend to prefer creamy-lemony dipping sauces or a warm garlicky bagna cauda sauce for winter and spring vegetables and hummus, or roasted red pepper tahini for the summer and fall vegetables.

At the restaurant, the sauce for these seasonal platters was dictated by whichever sauces and salad dressings were on the menu at any given time. I just used what we had on hand.

Garnishes

If you are making a platter for your own home that you plan on eating over several days, you may decide not to use any garnishes but if you are taking a platter over to a party or serving a crowd it can be fun to dress it up. Here are some simple ideas to garnish the platter:

  • Edible flowers – there are a lot of different kinds. I use calendula, chive blossoms, sage blossoms, rosemary blossoms, and rose the most because I have all of these growing in my garden and at any given time, one of these is in flower.
  • Vegetable Slices – Cross-sections of beets, radishes, and colorful carrots cut so thin they are slightly transparent and sprinkled around the platter is one of my favorite go-to garnishes. If your knife skills are good you can do this just with a knife, otherwise, you’ll want to use a mandolin. My most used vegetables for this are the Chioggia Beet (red and white striped interior that doesn’t bleed), and red/pink/purple/watermelon radishes.
  • Chopped herbs – I’m not a big fan of chopped parsley as a garnish but chopped lime green celery leaves from the center of the heart and chives sliced into 1/4 inch long pieces or minced in cross-sections….
  • Spices – A spinkle of za’atar over your hummus, ancho chili powder over Roasted Red Pepper Tahini or intense and dramatic black nigella seeds over light-colored winter/spring vegetables add visual appeal to your platter.
  • Ice curled vegetable slices – Certain vegetables, when thinly sliced lengthwise, will curl when submerged in ice for a couple of hours. Asparagus peelings, thick carrot peelings (not the skin peelings but the inner part), green onion, and bell pepper all work well for this.

How to Choose Your Veggies

Vegetables that works the best for crudité are crunchy and crisp when raw. Starchy vegetables like potatoes or leafy greens like swiss chard don’t work as well, though sometimes I’ll boil off little potatoes the size of golf balls and serve those.

This dish is all about the quality of the produce and the best quality will be locally grown produce that is in season. If locally grown isn’t an option for you, the second-best bet is to buy the best looking in-season produce from the grocery store.

WINTERSPRINGSUMMERFALL
Endive
Cauliflower
Little Potatoes
Cabbage
Radicchio
Tokyo Turnips 		Endive
Asparagus
Broccoli
Cabbage
Baby Carrots
Little Lettuce Heads
Shelling Peas
Radishes
Snow Peas
Tokyo Turnips		Endive
Green Beans
Yellow Wax Beans
Carrots
Cauliflower
Cucumbers
Peppers
Tomatoes
Corn Pinwheels
Endive
Cauliflower
Radishes
Cabbage
Peppers
Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Radicchio

How to Prep Your Veggies

Each vegetable should be cleaned and cut in a way that highlights its natural shape.

Vegetables must be completely dried after washing them before they are added to the platter. Vegetables that are wet during storage will quickly turn slimy. Water and moisture can also spread germs. So if you are serving a group or your kids have dirty hands, the germs from those hands can travel to the whole platter if there is excessive moisture. Of course, the best practice would be to use tongs instead of bare hands.

Endive – Cut the base of the core and peel the individual leaves off. Endives are in season all year. I use these to add loft and volume to the platters and fill in empty spaces. There are two varieties, one is light green and the other is red. The red variety is particularly striking on the platter but harder to find. If you are making the platter for snacking on throughout the week, you may want to omit these as the leaves have a shorter shelf life than all the other vegetables.

Cauliflower – Cut the florets off in bit-size pieces. Stems can be sliced in rounds or sliced paper-thin as a garnish.

Little Potatoes – Small marble potatoes or variegated colors can be boiled for 10-20 minutes or until fork-tender, cooled, dried and served whole.

Small Cabbage – Remove whole leaves or slice cabbage lengthwise into wedges held together by the core. Works best for cabbages the size of two fists held together or smaller. Or bigger cabbages where the out leaves have been used for other uses until all that is left is a small cabbage. Red, Green, or Napa are all good.

Small Radicchio – Prep the same as the cabbage, but soak wedges or leaves in water for 20 minutes or so to cut back some of the bitterness. Some varieties or more bitter than others. Make sure the pieces are fully dry before adding them to the platter.

Asparagus – Trim the woody end off until you reach the tender part. Either halve lengthwise if thick or peel the bottom half with a vegetable peeler. Peelings can be soaked in ice water to curl and used as a garnish. If cut, place on platter cut side up.

Broccoli – Cut the florets off in bite-size pieces. Stems can be sliced in rounds or sliced paper-thin as a garnish.

Carrots – Ideally 6 inches long or less. Peel white, yellow and orange carrots. Wash purple and red carrots (peeling sometimes peels off the color of these). Cut the tops off leaving about half an inch of stem and half lengthwise. For larger carrots, I cut them in half and then cut those in half again on a big bias (diagonal). Place on the platter cut side up.

These are baby carrots.

A note on the “Baby Carrots” you buy in the store. The “baby carrots” that come already peeled in a bag and are rounded on both ends are not actually baby carrots. They are large carrots that have been whittled down into that shape for reasons I do not fully understand. Often there is water in the bag with them and they border on slimy when you open them up. Prepped ready-to-eat vegetables that have been sitting in water for a long time just kind of give me the heeby-geebies so I do not use these. I also have a general distaste for anything that pretends to be something it’s not. I’m not into faux leather, faux stucco, or faux wood, and don’t get me started on faux meat.

Little Heads of Lettuce – Prep the same as cabbage.

Shelling Peas – Open up lengthwise. Discard the empty half. Serve the other half with the peas in it.

Radishes – Cut the tops off leaving about half an inch of stem and halve lengthwise. Place on the platter cut side up. Mixed colors of white, red, pink, and purple look really nice. Also good choices -the mild Icicle Radishes that are long and white and the French Breakfast Radishes that are half red and half white. Watermelon radishes tend to be really spicy and can be a bit woody, same with the Black Radish. These are good for slicing paper-thin and using as a garnish. Black radishes are best cooked, in my opinion.

Snow Pea – Leave whole.

Tokyo Turnips – These are often erroneously referred to as “baby turnips”. Tokyo turnips are white through and through, remain small when fully mature, and are sweet-bittersweet and crunchy when raw. I love these little turnips. Cut the tops off leaving about half an inch of stem and halve lengthwise. Place on the platter cut side up.

Green Beans and Yellow Wax Beans – Trim the stem end off. Serve raw or blanched for 1-2 minutes.

Cucumber – Cut lengthwise, remove the seeds with a spoon. Slice into 4-inch strips or semi-circles.

Peppers – Small sweet peppers (length of your thumb) can be halved. Place on the platter cut side up. For larger peppers, halve them, remove the seeds, remove the white pithy parts with a pairing knife and cut into strips.

Cherry Tomatoes – Leave whole. Try to find an assortment of some nice heirloom cherry tomatoes.

Corn on the Cob – Blanch for 5 minutes. Slice the cob into 1-inch rounds.

I hope this post inspires you to stock your fridge with beautiful locally grown fresh veggies. I’d love to see the platters you make. You can post pictures on our Facebook page or tag us in your Instagram posts.

This post was originally published on January 10, 2021

Duck Confit – Easy, convenient, and utterly delicious!

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

“Confit” is a traditional French method for preserving meat. Tough cuts of meat are seasoned and slow-cooked in fat until tender. They are then cooled in the cooking fat which creates a sterile air-tight seal. Refrigerated, confits can last for weeks or months depending on the salt content. Duck confit is typically made from duck legs. You can technically make confit out of whole ducks or duck breasts but, in my opinion, duck breast gets kind of powdery in texture when cooked to the same degree that the legs want to be cooked to.

I consider duck confit a kitchen staple. It may sound extravagant and decadent but it is actually very practical and easy to make. Once the confit has been prepared, it is quick and simple to heat up by pan-frying or roasting in a hot oven, making it a perfect ingredient to have on hand for busy weeknights, date night dinner on-the-fly, holiday feasts, and dinner parties. It’s perfect for entertaining as many duck legs can be quickly heated in a hot oven at one time. When reheated, the duck skin becomes perfectly crispy and the meat is melt-in-your-mouth tender. Duck confit pairs well with baked white beans or “Cassoulet”, mushrooms, green beans, potatoes, risotto, hominy, winter squash, bread pudding or Thanksgiving stuffing, pasta dishes, breakfast hash, and poached eggs. Shredded and pan-fried it is like duck carnitas – perfect for street tacos. You cannot go wrong with duck confit!

When I owned the Restaurant and Charcuterie, duck confit was one of the items I always had in stock for retail and it was always on our menu in one form or another. I had one customer tell me that my duck confit was better than “Bouchon’s.” This was probably the best compliment I ever got as a chef.

Wild Game and Duck Confit

This is a great recipe for wild duck. It turns even the toughest game birds into a tender tasty delicacy. I have known many duck hunters over the years that breast out their birds and leave the rest of the animals in the field. This, to me, is a complete shame as there are few things in life as good as duck confit! If you know any duck hunters looking for ideas on how to use the whole bird, send them my way. Duck livers and heart are also delicious and I’ll have pâté recipes that use them coming soon.

This recipe and process for confit can also be made with goose, pheasant, and turkey. Just make sure your baking dish is deep enough to allow the legs to be fully submerged if you are using a larger bird.

About this recipe

This recipe makes 10 lbs of duck legs or about 20 individual portions. This may sound like a lot but considering how long the shelf life is and all the things you will want to make with duck confit, this is only 5 meals worth for a family of 4 and even fewer meals if you choose to share with friends for the holidays or turn some of this into duck rillettes, which you should definitely do (see recipe for details).

If you would like to make a smaller batch, simply scale this recipe down and use a smaller container for baking the legs. For example, for a five-pound batch, multiply all ingredients by 0.5.

This recipe takes time. Think of this as “slow food”. The time is mostly passive though so don’t be intimidated by the long prep time or cooking time listed in the recipe.

Confit Variations

You can use this recipe formulation to make confit of goose, pheasant, chicken, turkey, and other game birds as well as pork belly portions.

Whole Bird: I have made turkey confit with a whole turkey twice. The first time, I cooked all the pieces in the same container. The breast was dry and powdery, the legs were amazing. The second time, I separated the legs and the breast and cooked them to different temperatures. The breast to 155 F, the legs to 180 F. I used a leave-in probe thermometer for this. A tool every cook should have. Then when it was time to reheat it, I combined the breast and legs on a sheet pan and roasted it at 450 F until crispy on the outside. This worked perfectly and I would highly recommend separating the breast from legs when confiting whole birds.

Goose, Pheasant, Wild Turkey: These may need to add more time. Make sure containers are deep enough to allow goose legs to be completely covered with fat.

Chicken Leg Quarters: The leg and thigh quarter of chickens make an excellent confit and is much more affordable for everyday eating. These cook quite a bit faster and are less forgiving if overcooked.

Seasoning Variations: The seasoning in this recipe is very simple so the duck can be used in a variety of ways and different cuisines. If you would like a bolder seasoning mix, feel free to experiment. Add star anise, ginger, and orange zest for a festive holiday batch or try ginger, onion, and garlic for an Asian-inspired batch. Do not change the ratio of salt and curing salt to meat though.

Pork Belly or Pork Shoulder Confit Portions: Use lard or oil instead of duck fat. Bake at 200 F for 4-6 hours. Cut belly or pork should into individual size portions about 4-8 ounces.

Confit and Food Safety

This is an easy and accessible recipe for any home cook to make. There is however one important food safety consideration to keep in mind: botulism. Botulism is a toxin created by the spore-forming bacteria Clostridium Botulinum. This bacteria is prevalent in our environment, does not die during normal cooking temperatures, and when allowed to live in a non-acidic, anaerobic environment (canning jars, vacuum seal bags, meat packed in fat) at room temperature it produces this toxin.

To control for this and eliminate the risk, utensils and packaging materials should be sterile and the confit should pass through the temperature zone of 130 F-41 F within 4 hours if you choose not to use the curing salt, or 15 hours if you do use curing salt. What this means is that you will want to actively cool this product down. After about an hour (once it has naturally cooled from 180-130 F), you will want to put it in a cool place (like your garage in the winter or a screened-in porch with a fan blowing on it) for another 2 hours, and then package it into smaller faster-cooler containers like vacuum-sealed bags or jars to refrigerate. Placing a large vat of hot duck confit into a packed refrigerator with no airflow will not help it cool faster and it may raise the temperature of the rest of the food in the fridge so wait to refrigerate this until it has cooled to room temperature. If you do not have the cooling space required to cool this product down within 4 hours, either make a smaller batch, use the curing salt to give you a larger cooling window, or wait until the weather cools down and you have adequate space to make this project safely.

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Duck Confit

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 3 days
  • Cook Time: 12 hours
  • Total Time: 84 hours
  • Yield: 20 servings 1x
  • Category: Charcuterie
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: French
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Description

This is a delicious, incredibly versatile, and convenient kitchen staple to have on hand.  Slow cooked duck with crispy skin and tender flavorful meat.  A great recipe for wild game birds or store-bought duck.  This is a long (mostly passive) project.  Plan on cooking and packaging your duck confit over the weekend.

Ingredients

Scale

10 lbs duck legs

88 grams (10 Tablespoons Diamond Crystal Kosher) salt 

12 grams Pink Curing Salt #1 (2 level teaspoons) optional, add this amount more of reg. salt if omitting

2 grams (1 teaspoon) whole cloves 

2 grams (1 teaspoon) whole peppercorns

5 whole bay leaves

24 grams (2 Tablespoons) brown sugar

1 bunch fresh thyme sprigs (no need to pick off the leaves)

3 garlic cloves, crushed

Instructions

French the leg bone (optional)

Using a pairing knife, cut around the circumference of the leg bone right below the joint (about 1/2 inch from the end of the leg bone).  Make sure you cut through all the tendons and ligaments.  This step makes for a better presentation.  It’s for appearances only and you can totally skip this if you want to.

Season the meat

In a small mixing bowl, combine all the seasonings.

Place the duck legs in a bin large enough to fit them all with some room for moving them around.  Combine the legs with the seasonings and using your hands, rub the seasoning over all the duck legs.  It will seem like there is hardly enough seasoning for the legs.  That’s ok.

Refrigerate the legs for 3 days.  Sometime on day 2, rearrange the legs so that the ones on the bottom of the bin are now on the top of the bin.  There will be some brine that has accumulated in the bottom of the bin.  Using your hands, rub this brine over the legs. Cover and refrigerate until the end of the third day.

Prepare to cook the duck legs.

Preheat your oven to 180 F.

Place the duck fat in a pot and heat it on the stove until the duck fat is completely liquid and hot but not hot enough to fry something, around 180-220 F if you want to temp it.  If you don’t have a thermometer to temp the oil, you can use your senses; when the oil is hot it will have some motion to it, it will dance around in the pot, it will occasionally release large bubbles and you will start to smell it.

Rinse and dry the duck legs. I would do this by setting the tub with the duck legs in the sink and filling it with water and then swishing the duck legs around the water to remove the whole spices.  Then remove the duck legs and lay them out on a sheet pan lined with paper towels.  Dab paper towels on the top of the legs so that both sides are dry.

Pack the duck legs very tightly in a single layer into a 4-inch full size hotel pan or 2 standard home casserole dishes (total of 16 qt oven-safe dish).  Or pack the legs into a double layer in a 6 inch deep half hotel pan (12 qt oven safe dish).  Do not pack the legs in more than 2 layers.  The tighter the legs are packed, the less duck fat you will need. 

Pour the hot duck fat over the duck legs.  The legs should be completely submerged.

Cook the duck

Place the duck in the oven uncovered.  Cook for 10-12 hours or so until the duck is fork-tender but not falling apart.  I do this overnight.  In the morning or at the end of 12 hours if the duck is not fork-tender, turn the heat up to 225 F and continue to cook for another 1-2 more hours.  It’s done around the time it fills your home with the smell of duck confit.

If you are paranoid about running the stove overnight, you can cook it at a higher temp for less time, 200 F for about 6-8 hours.

Cool and Store the Duck

Remove the duck from the oven and set on a rack to facilitate cooling.  If possible, place it in a cool garage with a fan pointed at it until it has cooled to room temperature, the fat is still liquid but has turned cloudy or opaque.

Packaging Options

There are 4 ways to package the duck for long-term storage.  At this point, all containers and utensils that you use for the following steps should be sterile.

1) Vat of Confit

Tip the duck-filled baking dish up a little by putting a coaster or hot pad under one side and using a turkey baster suck up the aspic from the lower end of the baking dish.  Aspic is the non-fat callogen-rich liquid that rests at the bottom of a dish of confit.  When cooled the natural gelatin in this flavorful broth will make this liquid a solid gel.  Aspic is good stuff – worth saving for soups, sauces or rillettes.  Place the entire dish of duck in the fridge and grab duck legs out as needed over a period of 3 months (if using the curing salt or 1 month if you omitted the curing salt).  This method of packaging is really only good if you have lots of fridge space and plan on using all the ducks in a fairly short amount of time.

2)Vacuum Seal

Place 1-4 duck legs in vacuum seal bags, ladle in some fat (make sure not to get any of the aspic that is sitting on the bottom of the dish), and vacuum seal.  With curing salt, a tightly sealed vacuum bag will last 4+ months in the fridge and 6+ months in the freezer (though with such a long shelf life there really is no need to freeze it).  Without the curing salt, vacuum-sealed duck legs will last 1-2 month in the fridge and 6+ months in the freezer.  Aspic left in the bag will decrease shelf life.

3) Ziplock bags

Place duck legs in freezer-proof ziplock bags, ladle in fat (make sure not to get any of the aspic that is sitting on the bottom of the dish), and use a straw to suck out as much air as possible when sealing the bags.  With cure, these duck legs with last about 1 month in the fridge and 6 months in the freezer.  Without cure, these duck legs will last about 2 weeks in the fridge and 6+ months in the freezer.

4) Make Rillettes

Using gloved hands and a mixing bowl, remove duck meat from the bones while it is still warm to room temperature.  There is a really sharp small bone that you need to watch out for and make sure you don’t mix in with the meat.  Gradually ladle in a mixture of fat and aspic.  Mix in with your hand.  Continue ladling and mixing until the duck confit mixture is fully shredded and fairly wet.  If you squeeze it your hand, some fat and aspic will drip out.  Taste and season if desired.  It should be very flavorful, on the verge of tasting too salty.

Pack this mixture into sterilized 1/2 cup or 1 cup jars.  Refrigerate until chilled.  Then, melt down some extra remaining duck fat and pour it over the top of the rillettes to completely cover.  Place a lid on the jars and refrigerate for up to 1 month (with cure) or 2 weeks (without cure) or freeze for up to 6 months.

To serve rillettes, allow it to come up to room temperature and serve with crusty bread, cornichons, and your favorite mustard.  

  

Equipment

Spicy Apple Breakfast Sausage. Make Your Own!

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

Pork and apples- there is something magical about those two ingredients combined. Whether it’s a pork chop with an apple cider glaze or applewood smoked bacon, you just can’t go wrong. It was this classic pairing that inspired me to create this seasonal sausage recipe years ago. And for years, this sausage variety was included with every Fall package that went out to my club members at the Restaurant and Charcuterie. This seasonal breakfast sausage is a little spicy and a little sweet with apple, sage, brown sugar, and hot chili flakes. The perfect side to pancakes or eggs, or addition to your Thanksgiving stuffing.

Home-made breakfast sausage is the best. For this recipe, you don’t need a bunch of special sausage-making equipment. You can buy high-quality ground pork (20-30% fat) and mix up a small batch quickly in your stand mixer or by hand.

You will notice that this recipe, like all my sausage recipes, is set for 10 pounds of meat. This is for easy scaling and consistency. If you are making sausage links, any smaller quantity, in my opinion, just doesn’t justify the mess and effort. But for this sausage, I always leave it in bulk form for patties, and a 2 lb batch is fast and easy to whip up in your stand mixer and totally worth it. Simply multiply all ingredients in this recipe by 0.2 for this smaller size batch.

MIXING OPTIONS AND BATCH SIZES

If you don’t want to invest in a bunch of specialized equipment to make sausage, stick to 2lb batches (5 lbs absolute max) of bulk sausage recipes.

Sausage making can be an equipment-intensive process.  And having the right equipment for the size batch you want to make is essential to a successful batch of sausage. I’ve spent a lot of time in kitchens being resourceful and making things without “recommended” equipment and for most things, you can totally get away with that. But because sausage needs to be cold when you’re mixing it, and because your equipment and meat mixture will warm as you work with it, it requires that you have adequate fridge or freezer space and that you either can mix it all in one batch or spend a lot of time waiting between batches for equipment and ingredients to cool back down.

For a 2lb batch of bulk sausage, you can simply use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.  Easy!! And you should make your own sausage because it’s fun and when you grind your spices and use fresh herbs and other high-quality ingredients it tastes way better than store-bought. I do not recommend doing more than 2 lbs in your stand mixer though (even if you split it up among multiple 2lb batches) because you can blow out the motor. I learned that the hard way😩.

For batches up to 5 lb, you can use your hands and a large mixing bowl but note: this is harder than it sounds!  I would recommend kitchen gloves and a steely disposition as the meat mixture is very cold and you need to mix it for about 5 minutes.  Have you ever plunged your hand in ice water and seen how long you can leave it there?  It’s like that.

For batches over 5lbs, I recommend buying a meat mixer like this one for $180, which can handle up to 20lbs at a time.

If you are new to making sausage, I recommend checking out this thorough step-by-step guide, “How to Make Sausage“.

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Spicy Apple Breakfast Sausage Formulation

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No reviews
  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: n/a
  • Total Time: 0 hours
  • Yield: 11 lbs 1x
  • Category: Sausage and Charcuterie
  • Method: Mixing
  • Cuisine: American
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Description

A perfect Fall breakfast sausage with fresh apples, sage, chili flakes, and brown sugar.

Ingredients

Scale

10 lbs pork butt, trimmed and cubed OR high quality ground pork between 20-30% fat.

(see note below about scaling recipe)

DRY MIX

70 grams (8 1/3 T) salt

4 grams (1 1/2 t) ground allspice

10 grams (4 1/2 t) red pepper flakes

8 grams (6 2/3 t) dried sage

12 grams (3 3/4 t) ground black pepper

15 grams (3 3/4 t) brown sugar

FRESH INGREDIENTS

1 lb apples, peeled and ground or minced (can do this step with the meat if grinding your own)

LIQUID MIX

3/4 cup apple cider

1/4 cup water

Instructions

If grinding your own meat:

Trim your pork butt and note the final weight.  Scale the recipe based on the quantity of meat you have after trimming (see note below).

Mix the cubed pork with the dry mix and diced apples and grind everything together (except the liquid mix) into a chilled mixing bowl. 

Begin mixing the sausage mix for one minute then slowly add the chilled liquids while mixing.  Continue mixing for 4-5 minutes after all the liquid has been added.  When it’s done the sausage meat will look tacky or sticky.

If using ground pork

Grate or mince the apple with a box grater or food processor first and set it aside to be added with the liquid.

In a chilled mixing bowl, combine the ground pork with the dry spice mix.  Mix for 1 minute.  

Add the liquid while mixing and the minced apple and continue mixing for 4-5 minutes longer.

To Finish

You can check the texture and seasoning by cooking 1 Tablespoon of the mixture in a frying pan and tasting it.

Package the sausage meat in usable portions and freeze until ready to use or stuff into sausage casings for links (optional).  (See How To Make Sausage for detailed step-by-step instructions to filling and twisting sausage casings.)

The sausage (and all sausage) is best if allowed to sit in the fridge for a day or so before serving to allow the flavors to mingle.

To serve this sausage, make patties and pan fry or brown in a skillet.

Equipment

Notes

BATCH SIZES AND MIXING LOGISTICS

Sausage making can be an equipment intensive process.  For a 2lb batch, you can use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. 

For batches up to 5 lb, you can use your hands and a large mixing bowl but note: this is harder than it sounds!  I would recommend gloves and a steely disposition as the meat mixture is very cold.  Have you ever plunged your hand in ice water and seen how long you can leave it there?  It’s like that.

For batches over 5lbs, I recommend buying a meat mixer like this one for $180, which can handle up to 20lbs at a time.  

TO SCALE THE RECIPE

All my sausage formulations are meant to be scaled.  Why? Because unless you are buying ground meat, you will end up with all different amounts of trimmed meat for making sausage.  Pork shoulders range from 5-10 lbs at the store and you’ll lose 5-10% trimming it up which means when it’s all said and done you’ll have 4.2 lbs or 9lbs or some other random amount.  If you use wild game or a farm animal that you harvested you will likely be making sausage with a random amount of trim as well and you want to use it all. 

To scale the recipe, divide the amount of meat you have by 10.  Multiply all ingredients in the recipe by that number.  For instance – if you have 23 lbs of trimmed pork butt, multiply all ingredients in the recipe by 2.3 (23/10).  If you have 2 lbs of trimmed pork butt (or store-bought plain ground pork), multiply all ingredients in the recipe by 0.2.

WEIGHT VS. VOLUME

I included the volume weight of the spices for your convenience and because I know many home cooks that do not use a scale.  That being said I highly recommend using a scale for any of my sausage and charcuterie formulations, especially if scaling the recipes.  A scale is also super handy for baking, and for seasoning large roasts to perfection.

How To Make Chicken Marsala and Italian Scaloppine.

A scallopine (or scallopini) is a type of Italian dish consisting of thinly sliced meat, dredged in flour in a rich sauce. Everything is done in the same pan. The sauce is usually some sort of wine reduction with vegetables and herbs added to it. Sometimes cream is added. Chicken Marsala (Scaloppine di pollo al Marsala) is made from thin chicken pieces sauteed with mushrooms, garlic, and dry marsala wine. Chicken Piccata, another well-known scaloppine, is made with chicken, mushrooms, garlic, capers, and artichoke hearts in a lemon wine sauce. Similar preparation. The flour that the meat is dredged in helps thicken the sauce as does the cold butter stirred in at the very end.

I was 15 when I started cooking the line at Natalie’s, a second-generation Italian Restaurant in a small town just north of Boston. Chicken Marsala was one of the first dishes I learned to make and it was probably the reason I fell in love with cooking in restaurants. As a kid in a kitchen, making Chicken Marsala (and other Scallopine type dishes) was fun! It was the kind of dish that shot flames a foot high and begged you to toss the ingredients into the air with the shake of the pan. It was action-packed and a little dangerous! You had to mise en place your ingredients because once you got started there is no time for chopping, and “mise en placing” was what the pros did. On a commercial range with everything prepped, it came together in 5-10 minutes. And when there were 6-8 pans of all different scallopini going at once, timed for different tables, that’s when a young cook finds out what they are made of. One either enters a flow state or panics. I was hooked on the adrenaline.

At home, on a non-commercial range, this dish will feel less exciting than it does on a fast-paced line in a restaurant kitchen. And that’s ok (maybe even a relief). You are unlikely to shoot flames as long as the booze lands in the pan and it will take about 30 minutes from start to finish including prep time. That being said, their still enough action to keep you in the moment. The chopping can all be done in the morning or before guests come over making it a quick and easy meal for weeknights or dinner parties. Just note that 4 servings are about all you can fit in a 12-inch skillet. If you are making Chicken Marsala or any type of scallopine for more than 4 guests you’ll want to split it between 2 skillets.

Steps to making Chicken Marsala and other Scaloppine-type dishes:

  1. Mis En Place all your ingredients – chop garlic, chop parsley, chop mushrooms and all other vegetables, thinly slice and dredge your meat in flour. Open the wine, measure out the broth, etc. Have everything at your finger tips ready to go.
  2. Heat the pan, dry, until it is piping hot.
  3. Add the oil. If the pan is hot enough, the oil will immediately start dancing around.
  4. Shake the excess flour from the meat and carefully lay the pieces in the pan. They should all be in a single layer.
  5. Once golden brown on one side, flip. When golden brown on that side, remove the meat from the pan and set aside.
  6. Add the garlic, and almost immediately, the mushrooms and any other vegetable that is going in. (the pan is very hot and the garlic will burn in seconds if you’re not careful)
  7. Add the wine, reduce by half.
  8. Add the tomato sauce and broth (or whatever other liquid you are using). Stir. Place the chicken back in, the top of the chicken should be uncovered by liquid.
  9. Continue cooking until the chicken is completely done and the liquid has reduces by about half again.
  10. Remove from the heat. When the boil stops, stir in a couple thin slices of cold butter.
Mise en place is a must for this dish!
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Chicken Marsala

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Description

A delicious scallopine of chicken, mushrooms and garlic in a rich Marsala wine sauce.  Serve with a side of pasta, rice or crusty Italian bread.

Ingredients

Scale

2 large chicken breasts, butterflied and cut into 2–3 pieces each.

1 cup flour for dredging

10 garlic cloves, minced

1 lb mushrooms sliced

3/4 cup dry marsala wine

3/4 cup marinara sauce

3/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup minced parsley

3 T oil

1 T cold butter thinly sliced

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

  • Mise En Place all your ingredients – chop garlic, chop parsley, chop mushrooms, dredge chicken pieces. Open the wine, measure out the broth, etc. Have everything at your fingertips ready to go.
  • Heat the pan.
  • Add the oil. If the pan is hot enough, the oil will immediately start dancing around.
  • Shake the excess flour from the meat and carefully lay the pieces in the pan. They should sizzle right away.  If not, let the oil get hot first.  The chicken should fit in a single layer.
  • Once golden brown on one side, flip. When golden brown on that side, remove the meat from the pan and set aside.
  • Add the garlic, and almost immediately, the mushrooms and any other vegetable that is going in. (the pan is very hot and the garlic will burn in seconds if you’re not careful)
  • Add the wine, reduce by half.
  • Add the tomato sauce and broth (or whatever other liquid you are using). Stir. Bring everything back to a boil.  Taste it and add salt and pepper.  Place the chicken back in, the top of the chicken should be uncovered by liquid.
  • Continue to cook on high until the chicken is completely done and the liquid has reduces by about half again.
  • Remove from the heat. When the boil stops, stir in the cold butter and parsley.

Notes

If you are using a gas stove, especially one with high BTUs, and the flame comes into contact with the marsala wine it will ignite the entire pan.  This can happen if you shake the pan when adding the wine and it sloshes up to the rim.  There is no need to worry so long as you have plenty of space between the stove and the range hood or kitchen cabinets.  The flames will quickly extinguish.  If you are worried though, you can throw a cover on the pan and that will put the flames out.

Simple Cilantro-Honey-Lime Vinaigrette

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

This dressing is delicious all year but I especially love it during the winter months when the citrus, cilantro and honey do a heavy lift to brighten winter plates. This dressing is delicious with avocado, grapefruit, red onion and hearts of palm served over butter lettuce – one of my all-time favorite salads. It’s a perfect sauce for duck confit tacos, grilled scallops or fish, roasted root vegetables, or a summer salad of fresh corn, cherry tomatoes, pickled red onion and cotija cheese.

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Cilantro-Honey-Lime Vinaigrette

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 5
  • Total Time: 5 minutes
  • Yield: 2 cups 1x
  • Category: Condiment
  • Method: mix
  • Cuisine: Spanish/Latin American
  • Diet: Vegan
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Description

This versatile, sweet and citrusy dressing will brighten your plate.

Ingredients

Scale

1 bunch cilantro, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons Lime Juice (or a combo of lime-grapefruit juice)

1 scant cup of canola oil

1/2 cup honey

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Instructions

Combine all ingredients except the oil in a blender or in a jar with an emersion blender.  Blend until smooth.  Starting with a couple drops at a time, add the oil in a slow and steady stream.

Equipment

Notes

I almost always use canola or another neutral oil for salad dressing.  I find extra virgin olive oil competes with the flavors in the dressing and can have a heavy feel to it once emulsified into the dressing.

Easy Smoked Pork Rillette: American BBQ meets French Charcuterie

American BBQ meets French Charcuterie

Pork Rillette (pronounced ree-yet) is a classic French charcuterie technique for preserving slow-cooked meat. Typically rillettes are made of heavily seasoned pork or duck cooked in its own fat (aka confit) or a fatty braising liquid until meltingly tender. Then it is chopped and shredded, mixed with more fat, packed into jars, and sealed with even more fat on top. Suffice to say, this is not a low-fat dish and I am 100% ok with that. The layer of fat on top effectively acts as a barrier to air making it possible to store rillettes in your fridge for weeks or even longer and they actually taste better after “ripening” for a couple of days or more in the fridge.

Smoked Rillette Canape with shaved turnip, pickles, onion, and mustard.

Rillettes are typically served at room temperature on crusty bread with pickles and mustard, similar to pâté. They are rich, flavorful, and satisfying and make the perfect quick lunch, picnic item, and party appetizer. You can make several jars to store for later or stock your freezer. From an effort to reward standpoint, rillettes pay off in a big way. And these rillettes, made with smoked pork are ridiculously easy to pull together, especially if you already have a big pork shoulder on the smoker.

I used to make rillettes for my Charcuterie Club members out of my commercial kitchen. Braising a 40 lb batch of pork shoulder, hand shredding that much meat, tasting, seasoning, tasting, seasoning, and packing over 100 little ramekins for vacuum sealing was …a project. It made me forget how easy this little gem of a technique can be when done on the small scale, casually, in the home kitchen. That was until the other day, when I smoked a bunch of pork shoulder and realized I had more leftovers than I was going to use. So I chopped some up, mixed it with the pork drippings, packed it into jars, and covered it with fat and voila, a perfect little snack for later in the week, or next week, or the week after – whenever I got around to them. These came together in 5 minutes max (not including the time to smoke the meat).

Since this was an impromptu project, I didn’t take detailed recipes notes for you, but you really don’t need them anyway. Here’s step by step instruction on how to make smoked pork rillettes.

HOW TO MAKE SMOKED PORK RILLETTES

YOU WILL NEED:

  • 1 lb Smoked Pork Shoulder (still warm off the smoker)
  • 5-8 Tablespoons Porky Juices
  • About 1/2 cup melted fat
  • 4-6 8 oz jars (8-12 4 oz jars)
  • Serves about 8-12 lunch portions or 20-30 appetizer portions.
  1. Smoke a pork shoulder low and slow until fork tender. Wrapping it in tin foil 1/2-3/4 of the way through cooking.
  2. Remove the pork from the smoker, set aside about 1 lb (about 3 cups) for the rillettes and let it rest in the tin foil (or in a mixing bowl to catch all the porky juices) until just warmer than body temp (about 1-2 hours).
  3. Chop the pork shoulder against the grain of the meat 1/2-1 inch thick. Then using your hands (I preferred wearing gloves for this), smoosh the meat into a mxing bowl.
  4. Add 5-8 Tablespoons of the fatty pork drippings. Smoosh between your hands some more.
  5. Taste and season. It should be heavily seasoned. It will taste less salty when eaten at room temperature than it doesn now while it is warm. Depending on how you seasoned your smoked pork, you may also want to add garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, a pinch of cayenne or piment d’espellette, ground black pepper, herbs de Provence or any of your favorite seasonings here.
  6. Continue mixing with your hands until it seems fairly smooth and evenly mixed. You are going for a spreadable paste. Taste again and adjust as needed. It should be very flavorful.
  7. Pack into clean jars (4-8 oz jars are ideal). Cover with plastic wrap and transfer to the fridge until cooled.
  8. Melt about 1/2 cup of fat (lard, bacon fat, butter, duck fat) into a liquid measuring cup with a little pour spout or you could use olive oil if you are in a pinch (but it wont travel as well). Using the back side of spoon, smooth out the surface of the rillette. Pour the fat over and cover by at least 1/8 inch. Make sure there is no meat sticking out and tilt and rotate the jars so the fat reaches the wall of the jar all the way around.
  9. Put a lid on the jar or re-wrap with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for weeks or the freezer for months.
Seal Pork Rillette with melted fat, then transfer to fridge.

TO SERVE RILLETTES

  1. Pull the rillette out of the fridge for 30 minutes or 1 hour. They are best enjoyed at room temperature when the fat layer on top is soft and everything is nice and speadable.
  2. Serve with your favorite accoutrements. Baguette, cornichons and dijon are traditional if your seasonings lean French. However, if you have embraced the flavors of American Smoked Pork, you may want to serve your rillettes with Chow Chow Relish or pickled red onion or sweet and spicy pickled jalapenos.

Hearty Southern Ham and Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Green Chili and Honey

If you live outside of the South, you may rarely encounter Black-Eyed Peas (also known as cowpeas and southernpeas). It’s worth searching them out. Like many of the best Southern dishes, black-eyed peas were brought to this continent with Africans during slavery, and over time they were interwoven with New World ingredients to create dishes that are iconic to our regional cuisines. Hoppin’ John is a famous Southern dish of black-eyed peas traditionally eaten on New Year’s Eve with cornbread to bring good luck for the coming year.

Black-eyed peas are more of a bean than a pea, really. They have a uniquely nutty flavor. They hold their shape well when cooked and I find they cook much faster than other beans, even without soaking. High in fiber, protein, and iron, these legumes are worth working into your meal repertoire. This soup is hearty and comforting. With smokey ham, spicy green chilis, and a touch of honey, this hits all the flavor points. This delicious meal is easy to throw together and at less than $2 per serving it is a budget-friendly meal perfect for serving a group.

Variations:

  • Add chopped collard greens, corn or summer or winter squash
  • Spice it up more with cajun seasoning or hot sauce
  • Serve it with rice
  • Substitute tasso for the ham
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Southern Ham and Black Eye Pea Soup with Green Chili and Honey

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 2 1/2 hours
  • Total Time: 0 hours
  • Yield: 3 1/2 quarts 1x
  • Category: Soup
  • Method: Simmer
  • Cuisine: Southern
  • Diet: Gluten Free
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Description

Smokey, savory, spicy and slightly sweet, this hearty and comforting soup will be your new favorite.

Ingredients

Scale

1.5–2 lb Smoked ham shank

1/2 lb dry black eye peas, soaked (see note)

10 cups of water, plus more if needed

1 bay leaf

5 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves)

1 can mild (or hot) diced green chilis

2 Tablespoons honey

5–8 large carrots

5 celery stalks

1 large onion

1 green bell pepper

Instructions

Simmer the ham shank in water with the bay leaf and thyme for 2 hours while covered.  Alternatively, you could put these items in a crockpot on low in the morning and let it slow cook all day.  Remove the shank and set aside.

Strain the broth (optional).  Add the black eye peas, carrots, celery, and onion.  Bring up to a boil and simmer for 25 minutes.

Add the green chilis, green bell pepper, and honey and simmer for 10 minutes longer.  Season generously with salt and pepper and hot sauce to taste.  Check the beans, if still crunchy, simmer for a bit longer.

This soup (and in my opinion all soup) is best served the next day.  Enjoy it with cornbread or buttered rolls.

Notes

To Soak Beans

Place them in a container covered with more water than you think you need in the fridge overnight OR put in a pot with water, bring to simmer, cover, remove from heat and let sit for 2 hours.

If you don’t use enough water, or your container is tall and narrow, the beans will rise up and out of the water as they soak and expand and you’ll have a bunch of unsoaked crunchy beans.  Can’t tell you how many restaurant cooks I’ve seen make this mistake.

Hemp Seed & Honey Tort: An easy, “healthy-ish” Fall dessert

The links in these recipes are for products that I use and recommend.  

I was recently going through my freezer and noticed I had a ton of hemp “hearts” or hulled hemp seed. And since it is starting to feel a little like Fall and I always think of this tort in the Fall, I decided to dust off my kitchen aid and tart pans and to whip up a new version of this versatile and easy nut tort.

Every good Chef and Home Cook has a handful of recipes up their sleeve that they can easily adapt to every occasion, using ingredients on hand. This is one of those recipes for me. I first encountered a version of this meringue-based tort many years ago in the Williams and Sonoma “Savoring Italy” book. These are among the most dog-eared recipe books in my library and I highly recommend them. The original recipe was for a Hazelnut tort. Super simple and delicious. As I often do with dessert recipes, I reduced the amount of sugar and immediately began thinking of variations. I have made countless variations of the master recipe. Some version of this tort was always on the menu at the restaurant. Almond Tort sprinkled with powdered sugar and served with fresh berries, pistachio tort covered with chocolate ganache, walnut tort, and so on.

This cake uses only a handful of ingredients. Whipped egg whites provide the structure. There is very little flour and no leavening agent. The flour can be substituted for oat flour or another gluten-free flour if you like.

Nut Tort Master Recipe

1 cup sugar

8 egg whites

2 cups nut meal

1 teaspoon extract (vanilla, lemon, almond, etc)

1/3 cup flour (or oat flour for Gluten Free version)

pinch of salt

About this Version : Hemp Seed and Honey Tort

This variation on the classic nut tort is a humble home cake meant to be enjoyed with coffee or tea or an afternoon snack.

Hemp Seeds are a nutritional powerhouse. One of those ingredients that didn’t seem to exist when I was a kid and now suddenly they’re everywhere. No….they won’t get you high. Not even a little relaxed. They are, however, high in Omega 3 and Omega 6, fiber, Vitamins E & B, zinc, iron, and a bunch of minerals. They are also a complete protein.

Hemp “Hearts” are a fancy name for hulled hemp seed. These little seeds are easy to work into dishes. Sprinkle them in oatmeal, add them to cookie and pancake mixes, blend them up in your smoothies.

For the tort, I pulsed some of them in the food processor and left some whole for texture.

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Hemp Seed & Honey Tort

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 10 minutes
  • Cook Time: 25
  • Total Time: 35 minutes
  • Yield: 10 servings 1x
  • Category: Dessert
  • Method: Baking
  • Cuisine: Italian
  • Diet: Vegetarian
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Ingredients

Scale

3/4 cup minced walnut

1 1/4 cup hulled hemp seeds, pulsed in food processor

8 egg whites

1/8 teaspoon salt (pinch)

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup flour (or sub oat flour for gluten free)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 F (not convection).  Oil a 10 inch tart pan, sprinkle it with flour and then discard the excess flour.  NOTE: you could also use an 8inch cake pan with a well-oiled parchment bottom or a spring form pan but if the cake cooking pan is narrower than 10 inches you will need to add 10-15 minutes in cooking time.

In a large mixing bowl combine the hemp seed, walnut meal, about 1/3 of all the sugar, and the flour.

In a stand mixer or with a handheld mixer, beat the egg whites, slowly adding the remaining sugar and then the honey, until stiff peaks form.  Stir in the vanilla extract.

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

Using a spatula, transfer about 1/3 of the egg white mixture to the nut meal and stir well to combine and “lighten” the mixture.

Gently fold in the remaining egg white mixture.  Do not over mix this.

Pour the mixture into your prepared tart pan or similar cooking vessel, smooth over the top, and bake for 25 minutes turning once halfway through.

Now Bake at 350 F.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.  Once cooled, remove it from the pan.

Truffle Carbonara Recipe – The Ultimate Indulgence!

The most decadent version of carbonara.

This carbonara is decadent, rich, and earthy with dry-cured bacon, parmesan, leeks, and a generous amount of shaved black truffle.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that most of my recipes are easy and accessible for the home cook. This recipe is easy, but I do recognize that truffles are not the most accessible ingredient. That being said, I’ve been stuck inside with my family on this Labor Day Weekend because of hazardous wildfire smoke, I randomly came into a windfall of truffles courtesy of Staci, aka The Truffle Huntress, from Tesoro Mio Truffle Ranch, and this is my escapism. So indulge me in this completely impractical, decadent version of carbonara.

If this recipe looks fun but you don’t have access to a fresh truffle, feel free just to use it for inspiration and play around with adding other fancy (or not so fancy) mushrooms (porcini, oyster, beech, chestnut, portabella, etc) when you sauté the leeks and garlic. You could also try using truffle salt or truffle oil. Just be aware that a lot of truffle oils are made from synthetic “truffle flavor”.

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Truffle Carbonara

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  • Author: Kara Taylor- Home Cooks Guide
  • Prep Time: 5
  • Cook Time: 15
  • Total Time: 20 minutes
  • Yield: 2–4 servings 1x
  • Category: Pasta
  • Method: Stove top
  • Cuisine: Italian
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Description

A decadent carbonara with black truffle, leeks, dry-cured bacon, and parmesan.

Ingredients

Scale

1/2 lb pasta

1/2 cup pasta water (set aside after cooking pasta)

1 cup chopped leeks

1/2 cup chopped dry-cured bacon (or store bought)

3 egg yolks

1/2 cup grated parmesan

3 garlic cloves

1 T thyme

shaved fresh truffle

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and add the pasta.  Cook according to the package directions.  Measure out the pasta water for the sauce and set aside before draining the pasta.

Meanwhile over medium heat, sauté the bacon until crispy.  If the bacon is on the leaner side, you may need to add 1 Tablespoon oil to the pan.  Use a slotted spoon to transfer the bacon to a paper towel.  Leave the bacon fat in the pan.

In a small bowl, combine the egg yolks and the grated parmesan and stir well.

Sauté the leeks and garlic with the fresh thyme leaves over medium heat until tender and transparent.  About 5 minutes. Add a splash of the pasta water. NOTE: Pasta water should be hot but not boiling at this point.

Remove from the heat, then gradually add the egg mixture while stirring constantly.  Then stir in the rest of the pasta water and continue stirring until the sauce is smooth.  Add the cooked noodles (noodles should still be hot too) and combine well with the sauce.  Season with salt and pepper.

Shave truffles onto the pasta and stir, reserving a couple of shavings for garnishing the plate.

Serve and add the reserved truffle shavings on top.

Enjoy!!

 

How To Make Sausage

Big batch of Andouille at The Farm Table

In 2010, when I was 25, I began a little company called Smokey Ridge Charcuterie. I made hand-crafted fresh and cooked sausages, pates, bacon, duck confit, and other specialty charcuterie products. It started with an apple sausage recipe that I launched out of a little farmstand in an area of Northern California called Apple Hill. After the farmstand closed for the season that first year, I expanded the sausage varieties and products that we offered and began selling them at regional farmer’s markets. We gained quite a following and launched a club where several hundred loyal customers could give us their credit card numbers to make 6 packages per year filled with whatever types of sausages and charcuterie I felt like making at the time. This arrangement was a chef’s dream. For 10 years I made sausage by hand for club members, customers, and restaurant goers. Between 2010 and 2020, I hand twisted over 100,000 lbs and sold around $1 million of sausage, and I have developed several dozen tried-and-true sausage recipes. My secret to the best sausages is simple: high-quality meat, well-trimmed of any undesirable bits, fresh ground spices, fresh herbs, and 7 grams of salt per pound (unless it’s a chicken sausage).

In 2020, the restaurant closed, a casualty of the Covid Pandemic. And like millions of chefs and restaurant workers everywhere, I took this as a cue to exit an industry that I’ve had a love-hate relationship with since I was a kid working my first job. Long story short, I have a bunch of amazing beloved recipes and years of know-how that are no longer being used commercially and I want to share them with the world, starting here with this in-depth guide to sausage making – my way.

I’ll go into detail about these steps below but here’s a cheat sheet for quick reference.

EQUIPMENT

Before I get into the steps of sausage making, I want to spend a second on equipment. Sausage making is fairly intensive when it comes to equipment. If you are planning to make a small 2 lb batch of bulk sausage – go ahead- buy already ground meat or use the grinder attachment and mix with your stand mixer. If you plan on making batches of sausage bigger than 5 lbs, you really should invest in some equipment. These are my recommendations for economical home-grade equipment suitable for 10 lb batches (all my recipes are 10 lb batches):

Cimeter

A cimeter is a long curved knife that is really handy for breaking down cuts of meat. Something about the curve of the blade lets you easily separate whole muscles without cutting through them. I recommend a 10-12 inch cimeter for breaking down pork butts. A Victorinox is a decent economical choice.

Grinder

I recommend a stand-alone grinder, not an attachment to your stand mixer. I have this one from butcherpacker.com. It costs $160, has 3 grinder plates, and can grind 10-20 lbs of meat fairly quickly without overheating. It came with attachments for stuffing sausage which you could definitely try out to start. I prefer a separate sausage stuffer but if you only make sausage a couple of times per year, this one machine would probably suffice for grinding and stuffing. It also grinds breadcrumbs, tomatoes, etc.

Mixer

I recommend a hand crank mixer like this one with a 20lb capacity for $180 from homedepot.com. You may be tempted to use your household stand mixer but I would strongly advise against it. A stand mixer can only handle about 2 lbs of sausage at a time and is prone to overheating. If you are making a 10 lb batch that would be about 25 minutes of hard work for your mixer and you’ll risk blowing out the motor.

Stuffer

If you plan to make sausage regularly, I highly recommend a vertical sausage stuffer with a 5-15 lbs capacity like this one. There are several brands to choose from and several capacities. I used to use Cabela’s in a 20 lb capacity when I was just getting started, before switching to a hydraulic sausage stuffer that could stuff hundreds of pounds in a day. The smaller the capacity the more you’ll have to refill it, this can be a pain if you are doing really large batches. These stuffers have gears that help press the meat through the canister and out the sausage tube at the bottom. Look for one with all stainless steel parts.

Whatever you do, do not get the old-fashion cast iron manual stuffers. These are really hard to use, especially with drier sausage types.

Other things you’ll need:

  • Sheet pans to contain the links when twisting.
  • Mixing bowls- for dry spices, for fresh ingredients, for liquids, and for meat.
  • Casings
  • Sausage poker (can use a needle)
  • Lots of fridge/freezer space to store ingredients and to cool equipment parts.
  • Lots of clean, sanitized counter space.

HOW TO MAKE SAUSAGE

1) Select the Meat

The general rule of thumb is to aim for 25-30% fat in your sausage meat mixture. You can make leaner sausage and you can make fattier sausage, but 30% fat is the standard. Fat is essential in achieving the bind (more on that later) and pork fat is the best. Pork butt (which is actually shoulder, don’t know why they call it butt) with a 1/2 -1 inch fat cap is perfect for sausage all by itself. Or you can mix lean and fatty cuts like pork loin with pork belly. You can mix different types of meat too, for instance, venison with pork belly or pork back fat.

It’s possible to make all-beef, all lamb and all venison sausages, but in my experience, it is difficult to get the perfect texture without using pork fat. Pork fat is softer and makes for a better bind and better final texture. It is also more cost-effective. Unless you are avoiding pork for religious purposes, I highly recommend using pork belly, pork back fat, or plain old pork butt as the main source of fat for your sausage.

If you want to make leaner sausages without sacrificing the bind and texture, you can make the standard 30% mix and then use a substantial amount of diced or course ground lean as an internal “garnish” folded in.

For poultry sausages, use boneless skinless chicken thighs with some fat left on them, duck breast with fatty skin on or a mixture of fatty duck or goose with leaner poultry like turkey, and chicken breast (as in my Turducken Sausage – recipe will be posted soon). Poultry fat is less saturated than pork fat and tends to liquefy and separate from the meat when cooked. To improve the texture I add dry-milk powder to all my poultry sausages at a rate of 1-3 grams per pound.

Can You Use Frozen Meat?

Yes! Ideally, you would only be using the highest quality fresh meat for sausage making and charcuterie. However, if you are using your own harvested meat trim or buying specialty meat products like duck breast, chances are you will be using frozen pieces. I have made tons of sausage using frozen meat products with great success. If you are making raw cured sausages like saucisson sec or salami, you should only use pork that has been commercially frozen to kill trichinosis.

The important thing is to make sure the meat has only been frozen one time, is well-sealed, and was frozen at a low temperature. Properly frozen meat is frozen at temperatures of -10 F or lower. Commercially frozen meat from the grocery store or a food service vendor is frozen at these low temperatures. A high-quality, high-efficiency, newer chest freezer will freeze and hold food around -10 F, provided you are not overloading it with room temperature foods to freeze all at one time (in which case it will slowly pass through the 32F- -10F and freeze with large ice crystals, damaging the cell structure of the meat). Jamming 10 lbs of venison into the small freezer section of your kitchen fridge will not freeze at these low temperatures and is not recommended. Snow-like ice crystals and pooled icy liquid indicate freezing and thawing and refreezing and is no bueno. Also bad news is white freezer-burned pieces of meat. Small amounts can be cut off, but if a large portion of the meat surface is freezer burned it will taste oxidized and cardboard-like.

2) Trim the Meat

Thoroughly trimming the meat is, in my opinion, imperative to a high-quality sausage. I think most people believe that sausage is where all the undesirable scrap pieces can go. I know for a fact that many butchers take this position. I do not. In my process, meat trimming takes up about 30% of the entire sausage-making time in the kitchen, followed by about 15% mixing and grinding and 55% filling and twisting casings.

Meat should be trimmed of glands. These are located in the shoulders and legs in triangular pieces of fat between muscles. In the legs, it is just below the bottom round. In the shoulder, the gland is located between the coppa (aka cottage roll) and the rest of the shoulder flap. If you are buying pork shoulder or Boston butt in the grocery store, chances are it has already been trimmed of glands. However, if you are buying cases of primal or subprimal cuts of meat from a food service vendor or are butchering your own animals, you will need to do this yourself.

Meat should also be trimmed of bone fragments, thick tendons, connective tissue, and excessively bloody veins and arteries. Run your hands over the cut of meat to feel for small bone fragments that were left behind during butchering and remove these if present. If using boneless shoulder cuts or boneless legs, sometimes there will be a small piece of bone left where the shoulder blade or hip was removed. For chicken thighs, feel around the perimeter of each thigh to remove small pieces of chicken bone. Chicken thighs are the most tedious piece of meat to debone and the main reason why I made only a little bit of chicken sausage despite it being constantly in high demand.

Thick tendons should be removed. You can get away with being a little lax on this if you are making a finely ground sausage, after all, unlike glands, there is nothing inherently gross about tendons (aka collagen). However, if you are making a course ground sausage or medium ground sausage, the tendons will result in unpleasant crunchy bits that make the eater wonder “what is this?”. Which is never good thing to wonder when you’re eating sausage.

3) Scale the Recipe

All my recipes are from my commercial recipes that were developed for 100 batches. My “Master Recipes” have been scaled back to 10 lbs of meat, primarily, because this is an easy number to scale. In my opinion, if you are making links, any lesser amount would not justify the set-up, clean-up, and effort. Furthermore, 1 standard hog casing uses roughly 10 lbs of sausage mix. However, if you are making bulk sausage, a two-pound batch is totally acceptable in which case, simply multiply all ingredients by 0.2. Or use my pre-scaled “Small Batch” Recipes which are scaled and adapted for 2 lbs and include volume measurements (instead of weights only). The Small Batch recipes are less precise and I do not recommend scaling these to larger amounts. Use the Master Recipes if you want to scale it up.

Unless you are buying meat already ground, expect to scale the recipe as the amount of meat you end up with after trimming is almost guaranteed to be off by 10-20 %. If you end up with 8.5 lbs of meat after trimming, simply multiply all ingredients in the recipe by 0.85. If you end up with 12 lbs of meat, multiply all ingredients by 1.2. When scaling a recipe, do the math all at once and write it out. That way you don’t run the risk of scaling all ingredients except one, because it just slipped your mind. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this happen in the kitchen.

Master Recipes

Small Batch Recipes

4) Prep your Spice and Liquid Mixes

When making sausage, you will end up with 1)a bin of meat, 2) a container with dry spices, 3) a container of fresh ingredients like garlic and fresh herbs, 4) a container of liquid and 5) a container of casings soaking in water (if using). These components can be prepped ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.

The dry spice component will include salt, sugar (sometimes), and dry spices. Whenever possible spices should be fresh ground. Buy spices in whole seed and grind them at home for the best-tasting sausage. It really makes a huge difference. Even better, toast them first in a dry pan. Bulk spices can be bought for cheap at sfherb.com, and other online retailers or bulk foods store. Once the dry spices are all measured out, you can go ahead and combine with the trimmed meat bin. It saves space in the fridge and lets the flavors soak in.

Keep the fresh ingredients separate from the dry spices until ready to grind. Otherwise, the salt will pull liquid out of these ingredients and wilt the fresh herbs and make the mixture wet. These are things like garlic cloves, fresh onions, and fresh green herbs. If you are grinding with a medium or fine die you can leave the garlic cloves whole and other vegetables coarsely chopped. However, if you grinding through the large die, you will want to mince everything beforehand.

Combine the liquids in a separate container.

If you are planning to make links with natural casings, soak the casings with water in a separate container.

5) Grind

It is very important that the meat stays cool during grinding and mixing. Cool all removable parts of the grinder in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes prior to grinding. If you are making sausage in a powerful commercial grinder this is less of an issue because you are doing such a large amount of meat and the meat moves through it so quickly it just doesn’t have a chance to warm up. However, if you are making sausage at home, some grinders are painfully slow. Motors get overworked and hot and this can become a major issue for your sausage making.

Most grinders come with a fine, medium, and course die. It is really a personal preference which die you use though some sausages are traditionally done with one or the other. The medium die is good for most varieties of sausage including bulk breakfast, bulk Italian, and bratwursts. Course die is good for the sausages that you see with the big chunks of pork belly/fat studded throughout like Andouille. Course die is also good for grinding meat to be used as an internal garnish folded into a finer mix. The fine die is for smoother types of sausage, like bockwurst or hot links.

NOTE: You can buy ground pork or other ground meat if you want to take a shortcut. If you do this, I recommend getting it from a butcher shop and specifying the cuts and fat ratio that you want.

6) Mix

Mixing is the step that transforms your meat mixture from a ground hamburger-like texture to a juicy sausage by creating the “primary bind”. This is a bind between meat protein, fat, and salt. This is the most important and most fraught part of sausage making. This is where things can get really f’d up. The good news, it’s hard to over mix and easy to err on the side of caution.

Return all your meat to the fridge or freezer to get it nice and cold. It could even have some slightly crunchy frozen bits on the top. This is especially important if it took a long time to get through the grinding process.

Place your seasoned meat and fresh ingredients (if the recipe calls for any) in the mixer, turn the mixer on, and mix for 1 minute. Slowly add the very cold liquid and mix for another 4 minutes. The meat mixture should look tacky and sticky. This indicates the bind has formed. Keep mixing until this happens.

You can mix by hand if you don’t want to invest in a mixer. Make sure your meat is very cold as your hands will warm it up. This works for quantities of 5 lbs. or less. For large batches, this becomes a real workout and the coldness of the meat on your hands will test your toughness.

If you undermix the sausage or if the meat gets warm during this process, you will ruin the texture of the finished product. I’ve done it before with a 100 lb batch and it’s a really sad thing when it happens. You cannot really overmix sausage (unless it mixes for so long that it gets warm), but you can under mix it!

Now You Have Bulk Sausage

At this point, you have bulk sausage. Think Sausage patties, spaghetti sauce, stuffed mushrooms or peppers, scrambled eggs, and soup. Bulk sausage is a versatile ingredient to have on hand in a variety of flavors. There is nothing wrong with stopping here. Simply bag up your sausage in user-friendly quantities and freeze until ready to use. Alternatively, you can fill and twist links.

7) Twist the Links

To make sausage links you will need 1) your casings 2) your sausage stuffer, sanitized and set up with the nozzle that fits your casings and 3) lots of completely cleared and cleaned counter space and couple of sheet pans or 2 inch hotel pans. Links can be ordered off of butcher-packer.com or sausagemaker.com as can all of your equipment.

Types of Casings

  • Natural Casings: These are the only kind of casing that I use. I like the tradition behind them…. and I like the pop. Natural casings are made of intestine, bung or stomach. They come either packed in salt or in brine. If packed in salt, they need to be soaked in water for a minimum of 30 minutes though more time is better up to 12 hours. Change the water out a couple of times. If packed in brine, rinse the casings before use. Either way, you will want the casings stored in fresh water while you are making sausage so they don’t dry out and become fragile. If using another kind, simply follow the directions for that specific kind of casing.
  • Collagen: Comes in either Fresh Collagen for fresh sausages or Smoked Collagen for smoked sausages. The fresh collagen is more fragile and doesn’t hold up to smokehouse hanging so if you use these make sure to purchase the right ones for the type of sausage you are planning to make.
  • Fibrous: These casings are most often used for Summer Sausage, Salami and Mortadella types. They are not edible. You will remove them prior to eating the sausage. Fibrous casings are very tough and durable. You can fill them to capacity without them breaking and will end up with a sausage product of uniform diameter.
  • Alginate (vegan): As the name implies, these casings are made from algae. They are vegan friendly. Which begs the question, Why? As it happens, I just learned about alginate casings when I was cooking up a package of store bought brats that were encased with an unrecognized gelatinous thing. It’s unusual that I encounter something in the sausage sphere that is entirely new to me so I was intrigued. However, the gelatinous alginate casings had no pop, which is in my opinion, the best part of a brat.

2) Fill the sausage stuffer with the sausage meat mixture.

3) Place the casing on the nozzle so that about 4 inches overhang Begin slowly pressing the sausage meat out of the stuffer. Once the sausage reaches the end of the nozzle and begins to fill the casing, pause, tie a knot in the casing, then continue pressing until the casing is completely and evenly filled or the sausage stuffer is empty.

4) Now it’s time to twist the sausages. Start with the knotted end. The other end should have no knot in it yet. Using your thumb and index finger on each hand, squeeze the casing at the length of one sausage. Twist it. Now, skip the length of one sausage and pinch off the 3rd sausage. Twist it in the same direction as the first. Continue twisting every other sausage in the same direction. When you get to the last sausage in the link, tie a knot.

It will take a while to get a feel for this. If you fill the casing too tight it will pop when you twist. The slower you press, the tighter the fill will be. If you fill it too loose, it will require a lot of twists before it is tight and will end up much shorter. Gauging how fast you should press and how long your sausages should be based on how tightly your casing is filled to achieve uniformed sausage lengths is an art that comes with lots of practice.

If the casing pops while twisting, just pull out the meat from that one popped sausage and continue twisting. The meat can be added to the sausage stuffer for the next casing or set aside for bulk sausage. You’ll trim out the empty casing segments later.

5) Pop the air bubbles. You can buy sausage pokers at butcher-packer.com or sausagemaker.com or you can use a needle. Just prick each sausage all over quickly. Go all the way through. Don’t be timid about this, you won’t hurt them. Some air bubbles you cannot see.

6) Hang the sausage in the fridge or your freezer. This tightens and dries the casings. If you don’t have space to hang the sausage, you can lay them out flat over a rack on a sheet pan. If you are vacuum sealing your sausages, freezing them beforehand keeps the meat from being pulled out of the casing during the vacuum sealing process. You can also poach or smoke sausages before packaging them and freezing them.

8) Package or Cook Your Sausage

To store sausages – pack them tightly into a quart size freezer ziplock bag and squeeze as much air out as possible. Then freeze until ready to use. Alternatively you can vacuum seal or wrap with plastic wrap and butcher paper.

Fresh uncooked sausage is good for 3-5 days in the refrigerator. Poached or smoked sausages are good for up to 7 days in the fridge, or 4 weeks if vacuum sealed.

For tips and tricks for cooking sausages, check out this post. How To Cook Sausage Links Perfectly