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
- 2Â tablespoons minced garlic
- 35 grams kosher salt, about 2 heaping tablespoons
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ground black pepper
- 2Â 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.
Homemade Sausage Recipes
You can find dozens of recipes for fresh sausages using all sorts of meats, here on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook!
Hey Hank,
A bunch of your sausage recipes reference “fatty pork shoulder,” and to “make sure it’s fatty.” What is your suggestion on how to pick the right shoulder? How does one go about selecting a cut that meets the right fat requirements? Also, should we assume that we are not including the fat cap on recipes that call for fatty shoulder, and to solely use the meat? I would really appreciate more clarity in regards to using “fatty” shoulder?
Thanks,
Matt
Matt: Yes, the fat cap is what you want. You basically want the shoulder cut to be about 1/3 to 1/2 fat to meat.
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.
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.
Thanks Hank, I will play with the fat content to see what that does. Sausage making is a very cool process and I look forward to trying different things. The fat content is something I have almost no experience with. Thanks for the advice.
Hank,
Thank you for this recipe! As an avid Texas duck hunter, there is never a shortage of wild duck meat. The problem is cooking it properly so others will eat it willingly and regularly. This was my 1st attempt at making sausage and it turned out GREAT! I have a wide variety of ducks with the majority being divers and spoonies. This solved all my problems. I can keep the good ducks for fancy cooking and the rest go into sausage that I know will be eaten. I can also take other’s freezer ducks and turn them into something very edible that won’t get thrown out. Conservation!
One question, the sausage turned out to be very rich in flavor, is there a way to tone down the richness?
Thanks for your site! I would love to read some of your hunting stories.
Brady: Maybe reduce the amount of fat a little?
Makes the best sandhill crane we have ever had. Thanks for the awesome recipe!
I am trying this recipe with sandhill crane. Will let you know how it turns out.
Hank- I’m not sure you will even see this, but I thought I would ask anyway. This will be my first attempt at a duck sausage. I have about 3.5lbs of Muscovy breast with skin on. My questions…
***do I use the duck skin?
***if so do I then use more of a less fatty piece of shoulder?
I think those are my main questions, very nervous and thanks for your time.
Tim
Tim: Nope, render the fat out of the skin and use it for cooking potatoes. Go with straight meat + pork fat for the duckiest results.
Wow! These sound fantastic! I have some duck meat a coworker had passed along to me. I think I will have to try this recipe!
So, now you have your sausage…what do you do to cook it? Are they best to be boiled in beer then grilled? Just grilled? I have some lovely duck sausages and am looking for the best way to prep them. Can’t wait to give your recipe a try as well, when I’m a little more courageous.
Well there are recipes where Polish fresh sausage (kie?basa bia?a)is braised in a wine sauce, but again, I have never run across a Polish kie?basa where wine was used as an ingredient. If you can enlighten me as to which Polish kie?basa is made with wine I’d be grateful.
Legnicki: Really?! I see lots of Polish sausage recipes with wine. The oregano I used because I did not have marjoram, which is more common with Polish links. If you have marjoram, use that instead.
Hank, that looks like a fine recipe for a sausage using game meat. But, which Polish sausage is it reminiscent of? I have never run across a Polish sausage with wine or oregano.
Thank you Hank
Rossano: For this recipe I use really fatty pieces of pork shoulder. If you use 100 percent pork fat, change the ratio to 4 pounds duck or goose to 1 pound fat.
I need clarification. Do you use just pork fat or pork meat with fat? You last comment said pork fat but the ingredient say pork shoulder. Please clarify which. Thanks
Dave: Pork fatback is what I use, but you can use fat from shoulder or pork belly, too.
When you call for pork fat, is that a fatty piece of pork butt or plain and simple fat?
Holy Crap Hank! These are some good sausages. I made mine with Canada Goose It’s sublime. My whole family agrees that this and the go to duck sausage (also made with Goose) are now some of our favorite game foods period. The flavor just starts when you eat it and there oars some serious after tones. Thanks now I’m going for the duck dogs. can’t wait. Thanks!
Last year as in less than 12 months old? If they were well-sealed and you can see no freezer burn, they should be fine. I would partially thaw them and debone while the meat is still a little stiff — that way you can go right to cutting it into chunks for grinding. If they are more than 12 months old, they should still be OK, but the quality will suffer — make a spicy sausage to mask it…
I raised a few ducks last year and still have a couple left in the freezer. They were gutted and skinned, not plucked. I am wondering if I can still make sausage with them, and if I should partially or fully thaw them first.
Thanks!