This is a fine-grained, almost emulsified sausage reminiscent of a real Polish Kielbasa, but with my own flavor combinations and duck as the dominant ingredient, instead of pork or beef. These sausages are good on the grill, but are better simmered slowly in beer with some sauerkraut. You can use goose meat here, too – snow goose would be perfect.
Makes about 5 pounds, or 20 sausages
Prep Time: 90 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
- 3 1/2 pounds duck or goose meat
- 1 1/2 pounds pork shoulder (make sure it’s fatty)
- 1/3 cup fresh marjoram or oregano, chopped
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 35 grams kosher salt, about 2 heaping tablespoons
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons ground mustard
- 1 tablespoon caraway seeds
- 1 cup red wine, chilled
- hog casings, 3-4 standard lengths (about 1o feet total)
- Cut the meat and fat into 1 to 2 inch chunks and chill until it is almost frozen by putting it in the freezer for an hour or so.
- Take out some hog casings and set in a bowl of very warm water.
- Combine the salt and all the spices except the caraway seeds and mix into the meat and fat. You can let this rest in the fridge for an hour, or up to overnight.
- Grind the meat and fat through your meat grinder (you can use a food processor in a pinch, but you will not get a fine texture) twice, first using the coarse die, then the fine one. If your room is warmer than 70°F, set the bowl for the ground meat into another bowl of ice to keep it cold.
- Add the wine and the caraway to the mixture and mix thoroughly either using a Kitchenaid on low for 60 to 90 seconds or with your (very clean) hands. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly. Once it is mixed well, put it back in the fridge and clean up your work area.
- Stuff the sausage into the casings all at once. Fill a whole casing before making links. Twist off links by pinching about a 5-inch length of filled sausage down and twisting it, first away from you — then, with the next link, towards you. This helps keep the links tight. Or you could tie them off with butcher’s string.
- Hang the sausages for an hour, or up to 8 hours if you can refrigerate them hanging. Use a needle to pierce the skins where there are any air pockets, and gently compress the meat in the skins to remove any stubborn air pockets. Once the sausages have dried a bit, put in the fridge until needed. They will keep for a week. If you are freezing the sausages, wait a day before doing so. This will tighten up the sausages and help them keep their shape in the deep-freeze.
Fresh Sausage Recipes
You can find dozens of recipes for fresh sausages using all sorts of meats, here on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook!
I used early season Canada honker shot in Minnesota for a couple of your sausage recipes. The birds early condition was not conducive to plucking and roasting. The best recipe I tried was the one using orange zest. Very good indeed! Am I cheating myself out of something by just making the sausage and storing the sausage in “burger” tubes and cooking as patties later? I still enjoyed the patty; but avoided the casing stuffing step. This does limit me as to cooking options. Thanks for your continued good work Hank!
Tony: You aren’t cheating yourself, but links are very good. If you end up making many batches of goose sausage, consider making one into links.
Hey Hank
I have about 5 lbs of duck from a recent hunt in Tennessee that I’d love to use in this recipe. This will be my first time making links out of anything so I’m hoping you can provide some clarity on one element. After the wine and caraway has been added to the mixture, what is the method by which you should get the material into the casings? Are you saying it goes back into the grinder (with the die removed and a sausage head on the outflow) in order to get it to then flow into the casings?
Thanks!
PS – Can I use some of the mixture for patties as well or will this recipe only work for links?
Lenny: If you don’t have a sausage stuffer just make patties. The so-called stuffing attachments on grinders can ruin the texture of your sausage by overworking the meat and breaking the bind you worked hard to achieve.