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Whether it's used as a topping on pizza, as an ingredient in freshly baked lasagna, or simply fried and made a part of your morning breakfast, sausage is a food loved by many. Just about any type of meat can be made into sausage and one popular ingredient for those who make sausage at home is venison. Venison is another word for deer meat and while some think it is gamey, venison, if seasoned properly, can be extremely tasty.
Making venison sausage is not incredibly difficult as long as you start with the right ingredients and tools. -
Here's a list of ingredients and tools you should gather before making your venison sausage.
• Meat grinder: Meat grinders come in electric and manual models and either one will work fine.
• Sausage stuffer: Depending on the type of meat grinder you have, most will offer the ability for an add-on that will allow you to stuff sausages. The sausage stuffer is merely a tube that the meat is fed through to be placed in the casing to create the sausage.
• Sausage casings: Sausage casings are what the meat is fed into and make up the form of the sausage. They can be purchased in local delis and are widely available online as well.
• Sausage spices: Just about any spices you can think of are fine to add to your meat. If this is your first time making venison sausage, you may choose to separate small bits of meat and spice them individually and quick-fry them to taste. This will help you decide which combinations of spices are to your liking.
• Deer meat: Certainly we couldn't leave out deer meat when making venison sausage. Most folks will separate their meat into lean, fat and mixed portions to ensure they have a consistent amount of ingredients in each sausage.
• Mixing bowl: This will be used when adding spices to the meat before you fill the casings. -
The first step is to create piles of meat to be used in making sausage. One pile should be completely lean, the other fat and still a third should be a mixture of the two. This will allow you to add a consistent mixture of meat and fat so your sausages have a uniform taste. A quick tip to remember is that sausage is supposed to be fairly high in fat content and once you grind your meat, you're looking for a lighter versus darker color. If the meat you grind is too dark, be sure to add some more fat to the mix and grind again.
Now it's time to grind the meat using the meat grinder. Have a bowl ready to catch the meat and start feeding it through your grinder. Depending on the plate you're using for your grinder you may have to grind the meat a second time to get it to the consistency needed to be able to be run through the sausage stuffer.
Now that the meat has been ground, it's time to add the spices. As stated previously, this is a completely subjective part of the process and you can use any type of spices that you wish. You may want to separate out small pieces of meat and spice them individually and quick-fry them to taste to see what best suits you. Once you have decided on a particular spice blend, go ahead and add it to the rest of the meat and mix it thoroughly.
Once the spices have been added to the meat, simply add a sausage casing to the end of your sausage stuffer and begin feeding the meat through the sausage stuffer into the casing. You can either twist the individual sausages as you make them or wait until the entire casing has been filled and twist and separate at that time.
Once all of your sausages have been made, it's time to cook them up and enjoy. Making venison sausage, while a somewhat messy and prolonged process, is well worth the trouble when you taste the succulent result of your homemade sausage creation.
