I like to call this fresh venison sausage my “A Zone” sausage. It’s a California inside joke, as the state, in its infinite wisdom, makes us hunt blacktail deer in the Coastal Range mountains in August, when temperatures can soar beyond 100°F. The bright side? Once you get the meat cooled down and ready to cook with, you happen to be blessed with summer’s ingredients.
No juniper, rosemary or winter flavors here. No sir. This sausage is all about our Mediterranean summers: Fresh garlic, lemon zest, white wine — and lots of fresh basil.
If you have not made sausages before, or want to bone up on basic technique, I wrote a simple tutorial on my friend Elise’s site, Simply Recipes, that can be found here.
Makes about 5 pounds
- 3 1/2 pounds venison (or antelope, elk, moose, or beef)
- 1 1/2 pounds pork shoulder
- 34 grams kosher salt (about 2 tablespoons)
- 15 grams cracked black pepper (about a tablespoon)
- 25 grams fresh chopped garlic (about 2 tablespoons)
- Zest of a lemon
- 3 grams celery seed (about 1/2 teaspoon)
- 1/2 cup white wine
- Juice of a lemon
- 6 tablespoons of fresh chopped basil
- Hog casings
- Take out some hog casings and set in a bowl of warm water.
- Chop meat (and pork fat, if using) into 1 inch chunks. (Optional expert step: Mix the salt with just the meat and grind it very coarsely, like with a 10 mm or 12 mm plate, and refrigerate it overnight. If you don’t have such a large plate, chop the meat into 1/2 or 3/4 inch pieces and do the same thing. This will create a tighter bind in the finished sausage.)
- When you are ready to grind everything, Mix the meat, fat, lemon zest, celery seed — half the black pepper, garlic and basil. Why only half? You’ll want to add the rest right before you do the final mix on the sausage. This keeps the spices larger, altering the sausage’s texture, making eating it more interesting. Chill the meat until it is 37°F or colder by putting it in the freezer for an hour or so.
- Grind through a medium-coarse plate (6 mm or 7 mm). If the mixture is still below 37°F, immediately grind 1/2 the mixture through the fine plate (4.5 mm). If it’s too warm, freeze it all until it’s cold enough. You are doing this extra grind to make the texture of the sausage more interesting — you can skip it if you want.
- After you are done grinding, freeze the sausage until its between 28°F and 32°F. When it’s ready, add the rest of the black pepper, basil and garlic, plus the wine and lemon juice, then mix thoroughly either using a Kitchenaid on low for 60 to 90 seconds or with your (very clean) hands for 2 minutes. This is important to get the sausage to bind properly. Once it is mixed well, put it back in the fridge while you clean up.
- Stuff the sausage into the casings. Twist off links by pinching the sausage down and twisting it, first in one direction, and then with the next link, the other direction. Or you could tie them off with butcher’s string. Make sure you pierce the casing wherever there are air pockets, gently squeezing the links to remove any air.
- Hang the sausages in a cool place for up to 4 hours (the colder it is, the longer you can hang them). If it is warm out, hang for one hour. Once they have dried a bit, put in the fridge until needed. They will keep for at least a week in the fridge. 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.
Hi Hank,
I found your basil and garlic fresh sausage recipe, plus your bay leaf and garlic recipe. While I want to make these two recipes, I wonder if might be able to help me with the measurements for another variation of garlic sausage? My parents made a garlic sausage all of my younger years. Thank you in advance for any help you might be able to provide me. They used fresh pork, fresh venison or beef, fresh garlic, salt and black pepper. We had an old iron sausage stuffer to load the hog casings. We did not smoke our sausage. I wish I had a picture of that large sausage stuffer to share with you and other folks. Looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you once again,
[email protected]
This was my first attempt at making home made sausage. I used mule deer and the flavours were fantastic ! Fresh lemon and basil and garlic worked really well together. I followed all steps exactly as listed. Just need to work at getting the finished product a little firmer. But overall I was very happy with my results and your directions. Thanks for your efforts on an excellent site !
Would this be a good sausage for smoking? Maybe some apple or light hickory smoke with a tsp of prague #1..
Chris: You could, but I wouldn’t. I like the fresh flavor of the basil and I don’t think it would be good with smoke.
My sausage came out a little too dry for my liking, so can I regrind the sausage in the casing and add some cure? Or is the saying true “once it’s stuffed it’s stuffed?”
Eldon: Once it’s stuffed it’s stuffed.
Hank, I don’t have a refrigerated unit to hang the sausage, can I rest them on a rack in the fridge? Any suggestions?
Thanks
Going to try some of your recipe hope thing go well get to you soon frank
Hank,
Sorry to bother you again but am I looking for a nice fatty 1.5 lb pork shoulder or do I need additional fat in addition to the shoulder? Thanks.
Beth: So long as the pork should is very fatty, you’re fine. Remember you need at least 20% fat for the batch, and 30% is better.
Hank,
I just found a venison leg roast from 2014 in my freezer. I’m hoping it might be okay for this recipe? Also, I don’t own a stuffer so I’m wondering if you’ve ever tried leaving this sausage loose and cooking it up as a Mediterranean-style burger? Or maybe with some pasta? Thoughts on this?
Beth: It’ll be fine, but remember you need pork fat, too. And yes, I’ve left it loose several times. Great for meatballs and pasta sauce.
Hank,
If I am planning on smoking these, should I add Instacure?
Eric: You don’t have to, but it helps. If you don’t, just smoke hotter, like 200 to 250 degrees.
Hank,
I just made this and it’s fantastic. Nice change of pace from the typical fennel sausage. I used some pureed frozen basil from last summer. All I had was celery salt, and I can detect it in the sausage. Really great addition and one that definitely enhances the flavor.
How long and at what temp would you smoke these for if the meat was previously frozen before and I want to re freeze the sausage once made?
Bill: Length of time is up to you. I’d go no less than 2 hours. You want the internal temperature to hit at least 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
I have some deer meat that has been in the freezer for the past 5 yrs. I defrosted it and it’s not freezer burned and it does not smell bad. Should I use it?
Chad: Whoa. That’s a powerful long time. Maybe cook a little first and taste it? It could be good, but I’ve never worked with anything that old before.
Hello Ive been trying to incorporate fresh basil into a sausage recipe. would this recipe work with pork?
Absolutely!
Jon: Yes, with a caveat: The texture might suffer. A better solution is to cook the sausages before refreezing, either by smoking or poaching in hot (160 degree) water for 20 minutes. Then you can cool them off and refreeze, and when you want to eat them, all you need to do is reheat.
Hank, if the venison was frozen before processing, (using some burger), can they be refrozen?
Eric: I prefer these to be coarse sausages, so I grind only once with the coarse die. But there is no reason you can’t grind it finer.
First let me say this is my *favorite* website, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and creativity. My question is, in Step 6 should the sausage mix be ground just once with the coarse die, or a second time using a somewhat finer die after re-cooling the mix before moving to Step 7? Thank you again!