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Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Along with the hot dog, andouille is the quintessential American sausage. And like the hot dog, it too has its origins in Germany, even though with a French name it sounds counterintuitive. So far as I can tell, andouille sausages in Louisiana are a product of early German immigration — and when I mean early I mean the 1750s, when Louisiana was part of France. Both Germany and France still have versions of andouille, but the American variety has been evolving independently for centuries, and no longer resembles its ancestors.
Andouille is a Cajun food, most at home in southern Louisiana, but it also appears a lot in New Orleans Creole cooking, too. It is almost always smoked and heavily seasoned. What makes an andouille unique? Typically onions, garlic, cayenne or other hot chiles, black pepper and usually thyme. But remember, there are as many versions as there are cooks, and Louisianans guard their recipes closely.
Normally andouille is a pork sausage, but I rarely work with domestic meats. So my homemade version is a melange: Venison, bear meat and pork fat. Why? It’s what I had lying around in the freezer. Frankly, andouille is so heavily spiced and smoked you can make it with whatever meat you have on hand.
There is no reason you can’t just eat an andouille sausage: A link served with green peppers, minced celery, onions and Creole mustard would be damn good. But it is typically tossed into other dishes, like gumbo or jambalaya.
Any Louisianans out there? How is your andouille different? I’d love to hear about your variations.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
andouille sausage
Andouille is one of my favorite sausages to just eat. It has so much flavor it really doesn’t need much more than a hero roll and maybe some Creole mustard, but andouille it almost a requirement for Louisiana dishes such as gumbo, jambalaya and red beans and rice. It kicks up pasta dishes and can make an otherwise tame soup bold and beautiful.
Although fresh versions do exist, if you are looking for that authentic andouille flavor, you’ll need to smoke your sausages. Pecan or hickory wood are classic fuels, but apple or walnut or even oak will be fine. Once smoked, these will last in the fridge a week or so, and they freeze very well. Remember these will be cooked sausages, so once you decide to use your andouille you’ll just be reheating them, not cooking them.
For hunters: If you are starting with frozen wild game, you can thaw it, make these sausages, smoke the links and then refreeze them. So long as you cook them to an internal temperature of at least 150 degrees, the texture of the sausages will not suffer.
TIP: If you are not familiar with making sausages at home, I wrote a basic tutorial on how to make sausage on my friend Elise’s website, Simply Recipes.
5 pounds, about 20 links.
Prep Time: 45 minutes, including chilling time for the meat
Cook Time: 4 hours, smoking time
- 1 cup onion, diced
- 1 tablespoon lard or peanut oil
- 3 1/2 pounds venison, pork, beef or other meat
- 1 1/2 pounds pork fat
- 36 grams kosher salt, about 3 tablespoons
- 4 grams Instacure No. 1, about a heaping teaspoon
- 25 grams dry milk, about 1/3 cup
- 3 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
- 2 teaspoons cayenne
- 2 tablespoons sweet paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon clove
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 2 teaspoons dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon powdered mustard
- 1/2 cup red wine or beer (put in fridge to keep it cold)
- Hog casings
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- Heat the lard or peanut oil in a small saute pan and cook the onions over medium heat until they are soft, translucent and slightly browned on the edges. Remove from the pan and let cool.
- While the onions are cooking, take about 10-15 feet of casings (typically three lengths) and submerge them in very warm water.
- Put your grinder, a large bowl, and the paddle attachment to your stand mixer in the freezer.
- Make sure you remove as much silverskin as possible from your meat. Cut the meat and fat into 1-2 inch chunks and toss with the salt, Instacure, dry milk, garlic, cayenne, paprika, clove, allspice, thyme and powdered mustard. You need the Instacure No. 1 as a safety measure when you smoke the links; if you don’t plan on smoking them, you need not use this. You need the dry milk to help the links hold onto their moisture: If you skip this, they will still taste good, but they will shrivel up when you chill them. Put everything in a container and freeze for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Grind the meat and fat through the coarse die. (If you are using the KitchenAid Food Grinder set the mixer on the No. 4 speed) Andouille is most typically a country-style, coarse sausage. If you want, you can even hand-mince the meat yourself. TIP: Hand-mince 1/4 of the meat and fat mixture to get a more interesting texture for your sausage.
- Add the chilled red wine or beer to the bowl and mix on the lowest setting for 90 seconds to 2 minutes. This turns what was essentially flavored ground meat into a cohesive sausage. The look of the meat will change as it binds to itself, and will look more like thick batter than ground meat and fat.
- If you are making patties, you’re done. Store each patty between pieces of wax paper and then wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then foil, before freezing. If you are making links, load up a sausage stuffer with the meat and fat. Rinse the casings by running warm water through them: You want to flush some salt and check for any holes in the casings. Thread an entire casing onto the stuffer and fill it slowly. Coil the filled casing as you go. Fill all the casings before making individual links.
- To make individual links, tie off one end of a casing. Compress the sausage inside it to fill that end link. Pinch off a length of link with one hand, and another link with the other to create a second link next to the end sausage. Flip this second link over to create the sausage. Gently compress the meat in both the end link and this second one. Flip the second link over several times to tighten it. Move down the coil and create two more links. This time, flip the link back toward you to tighten it. Repeat this process down the coil until you get to the end. Tie off the end link. Repeat with all the other casings.
- Hang your sausages to dry for an hour or more. Hang for 1-2 hours at room temperature, or up to overnight where your temperatures are below 55 degrees. I use a standard clothes drying rack to hang my links. When the sausages are hanging, use a large needle to pierce any spots on the links where there is air trapped underneath. Sterilize the needle in the flames of a gas burner or with a lighter until it glows. You need to pierce any trapped air or your links could burst when you cook them.
- Once the sausages have hung, smoke them for at least 3-4 hours. If you hot-smoke your links, pull them when they reach an internal temperature of 150-160 degrees. If your links don’t get to that temperature in time, you can either smoke them longer, or you can finish the cooking in an oven set at 200 degrees. Once they’re fully cooked, let them cool before freezing.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser
Beauty.
On a whim, I ran untrimmed venison through a good sharp hand grinder yesterday (a foreleg shank) and it was a beautiful thing. Point being, silverskin isn’t as big a deal as one would think if the grinder has the teeth and balls to cut it. It makes the sausage a lot richer and gives a better snap on the bite. I ran beef neck tendon through a grinder along with some other trim and it really added to the recipe’s texture.
Andrew: True dat. But you need a quality grinder to do it. I’ve found the Kitchenaid grinder not up to the task.
I love seeing all the variations. I use red wine vinegar instead of wine or beer, more paprika, a little chopped italian parsley, and no milk powder. Then hot smoke it. Sometimes I’ll add in some chopped roasted red bell pepper too, just for kicks.
Some day I’d love to get into making my own sausage, I really would. That’s even more true after seeing those gorgeous beauties up there. I need my daughter to grow up a little more first though. Saving the recipe for sure! Many thanks.
I’m pretty sure Jackrabbit and andouille would make a fine gumbo! Just saying!
Oh man Hank, you’ve got me drooling. I love New Orleans cuisine and andouille is near the top of the list. If I’m not mistaken, there are a lot of similarities between andouille and linguica no? A little more of this and a little less of that possible to tweak to the Portuguese palate?
Tom’s comment above is right on the money. Rabbit would make a fantastic gumbo. I’ve had it with pigeon as well which ROCKED. Make your roux DARK though to stand up to the flavor of the meat.
Here’s a couple of ideas from my blog for something to do with that andouille if you grow weary of eating it straight:
Jambalaya: http://thedamntrueexperiment.blogspot.com/2012/03/man-can-cook-17-jump-out-da-gym.html
Gumbo: http://thedamntrueexperiment.blogspot.com/2011/05/man-can-cook-9-gumbo-du-fontenot.html#more
I pound a lot of ducks in my hood, I’m always looking for another fun way to use the “fish eaters’… What are your thoughts on making Andouille sausage with duck and pork?
Kevin: It would work perfectly, I suspect. Just skin those ducks, remove all the fat, and replace it with sweet, delicious pork fat!
Hank,
these look great! Can I use instacure #2 inplace of #1?
Fishguy: No, you can’t substitute. Instacure No. 2 is for long-cured products. It is like a time-release pill in that it slowly protects the meat by releasing nitrite over time. Instacure No. 1 is nitrite, Instacure No. 2 is nitrate. Nitrate degrades over time into nitrite. Do not mix the two.
You may have just bumped 4 or 5 things of my list to make to add these sausages.
Couldn’t you substitute Instacure #2 for #1, but not vice versa, so long as the salt bill wasn’t too high?
Andrew: No. One is sodium nitrate, the other is sodium nitrite. You cannot use them interchangeably.
Hank, love reading your blogs. First time to post. I thought what made an andouille an andouille was the grain of meat used, or less processed. I’m from Louisiana and I’m working in Illinois. I laugh when people pronounce it (anduelly).The L is silent. ; )
Now this recipe excites me a lot! I’m gonna have to make it this coming weekend for sure.
Andrew
CURE #1
Some Other Names:
Pink Salt;
Tinted Cure Mix (TCM);
Tinted Curing Powder (TCP);
Prague powder #1;
InstaCure #1;
Modern cure;
D.Q. powder;
FLP;
L.E.M. cure;
Sure Cure;
Fast Cure;
Speed Cure
This premix is use in meats and sausages that require a short curing time, and will be smoked, cooked or canned. It is a blend of salt and sodium nitrite, and of course it has the curing properties of sodium nitrite. The salt is added as a carrier and to make it easier to measure. In the United States it is dyed pink, so chefs and the home user will not mistake it for salt or sugar. Though it goes by several different brand and generic names, they all have the same formula of 93.75% salt, and 6.25% sodium nitrite (1 pound of salt plus 1 ounce of sodium nitrite).
Cure #1 can be used as a dry brine (dry cure) or in a wet brine (pickle). It provides the same curing properties of sodium nitrite, and is considered a quick cure, because it starts curing immediately upon contact with the meat. As mentioned earlier, this type of cure is used for curing meats for a short period of time that will be cooked, smoked, or canned. This includes poultry, fish, ham, bacon, luncheon meats, corned beef, pates, sausages and other products too numerous to mention.
NOTE: This is not interchangeable with cure #2, or any of the Morton brand name cures. Also do not mistake this for recipes calling for sodium nitrite, which means pure sodium nitrite.
Use as directed, more is not better and it can be toxic. To ensure that the cure is distributed more evenly in your sausage, mix it with the liquid that your recipe calls for, or mix it with the meat prior to grinding.
Use as follows:
Cure per pound of ground meat/fat:
Amount of Meat/Fat Amount of Cure
Vol. Wt.
1 lb. 1/4 tsp. .05 oz.
2 lbs. 3/8 tsp. .08 oz.
3 lbs. 1/2 tsp. .10 oz.
4 lbs. 3/4 tsp. .15 oz.
5 lbs. 1 tsp. .20 oz.
10 lbs. 2 tsp. .40 oz.
15 lbs. 1 Tbsp. .60 oz.
20 lbs. 1 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. .80 oz.
25 lbs. 1 Tbsp. + 2 tsp. 1.00 oz.
50 lbs. 3 Tbsp. + 1 tsp. 2.00 oz.
100 lbs. 6 Tbsp. + 2 tsp. 4.00 oz.
CURE #2
Some Other Names:
Prague powder #2;
InstaCure #2;
Modern cure #2;
D.Q. powder #2
his cure is a blend of salt and sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate. The salt is added as a carrier and to make it easier to measure. In the United States it is dyed pink, so chefs and the home user will not mistake it for salt or sugar. It goes by several different brand and generic names, but they all have the same formula of 89.75% salt, and 6.25% sodium nitrite, and 4% sodium nitrate (1 pound of salt, plus 1 ounce of sodium nitrite, plus .64 ounce of sodium nitrate).
Cure #2 has the same curing and food preservative properties as sodium nitrite, and the extended curing time of sodium nitrate. It is specifically formulated to be used for making uncooked dry cured products that require several weeks to several months to cure. Dry curing meat or sausage properly cannot be done with Cure #1 which contains sodium nitrite only; it dissipates too quickly.
Cure #2 can be compared to the time release capsules used in medicines – the sodium nitrites start working immediately, while the sodium nitrates slowly reduce over time into sodium nitrites. Thus allowing for the much longer curing times required to dry cure, which can take up to 6 months. Generally used in such sausages as pepperoni, hard salami, geonoa salami, prosciutto hams, dried farmers sausage, capicola and others that do not require cooking, smoking, or refrigeration.
NOTE: This is not interchangeable with cure #1, or by any of the Morton brand name cures. Nor is it interchangeable with sodium nitrate or saltpeter which is measured differently and has different curing times. Also do not mistake this for recipes calling for sodium nitrate or sodium nitrite, which means pure sodium nitrate or pure sodium nitrite.
How to Use: Measures the same as cure #1 (see above).
Use as directed, more is not better and it can be toxic. To ensure that the cure is distributed more evenly in your sausage, mix it with the liquid that your recipe calls for, or mix it with the meat prior to grinding.
Just as cure #1, when using cure #2 additional salt needs to be added to your sausage. Cure #2 can be used as a dry brine (cure) or in a wet brine (pickle).
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How about bacon grease in place of lard/oil?