Favorite Meal: Second Breakfast
 | Author:
Eileen Clarke - Rifles and Recipes
Author: Rifles and Recipes |
My Favorite Meal in Hunting Camp: Second Breakfast
Eileen Clarke
Rifles and Recipes
My husband and I disagree on what animals are more fun to hunt, and the most rewarding way to hunt—he being a mule deer fanatic who needs to be moving constantly; I prefer sitting silently in whitetail cover. But there are two things we absolutely agree on: making sausage with the game we hunt and Second Breakfast, that classic hunting camp feast that absolutely deserves to be capitalized and deserves a zesty sausage like this one. What else? A big skillet of scrambled eggs and waffles dripping with butter and syrup.
Fusion Knockwurst
Makes 1 ½ pound of sausage (multiply at will)
Mace is available at most supermarkets, though usually in a smaller container than nutmeg. The fusion? It's the Chipotle Tabasco, though if you look up ’fusion’ in the dictionary it just says, “They were both on the spice shelf and tasted good together.” The combination makes this sausage zing.
Ingredients
1 pound ground venison
8 ounces ground pork fat
½ cup grated yellow onion
2 teaspoons cream
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¾ teaspoon ground mace
2 teaspoons Chipotle Tabasco Sauce (not the original red Tabasco please)
1 1/2 teaspoons non-iodized salt
1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
¼ cup beef broth
Prep & Cooking
1. Mix together the venison and pig fat in a large bowl. Combine just 1 teaspoon of the salt with the rest of the ingredients (except the broth). Add to the ground meats. Mix thoroughly by hand, place in a resealable plastic bag. Seal and refrigerate. Let the flavors develop for an hour or two.
2. Now, taste-test it. Roll a teaspoon of sausage into a ball, set it in a microwaveable coffee cup and nuke it 15-20 seconds (no pink inside). Do you need more salt? Go ahead and add ¼ teaspoon. Taste it, again. More? Don’t forget the broth will have salt too, and you can always add salt at the table. Much harder to subtract it. (Have enough time to finish? Go on to step 3. If not, stick it back in the fridge until you do have more time.)
3. Flatten the sausage mix in the bag and place it in the freezer until it reaches 28˚F, about 3-4 hours. Check with a meat thermometer; it will be fairly stiff, and have frost inside the bag.
4. Break the mixture up, drop it into your stand mixer bowl (with the paddle attached, not the hook). Add the broth and mix on low for 6 minutes.
Many people have given up on sausage because the texture was never right. Hand mixing is not enough. (Unless you’re Superman.) Salt needs time, but also continuous hard-core kneading to break down the collagen and bond meat molecules to fat. When you can lift the beaters and the meat does not budge from the paddle, that’s the bond. That’s sausage. (The tapered bottom on a Classic KitchenAid mixer helps facilitate positive contact when making these smaller batches.)
Cooking
Shape into patties and cook on medium high until the pink is gone from the middle, about 170°F.
Eileen was game care and cooking columnist for Field & Stream and Successful Hunter. Her book, Sausage Season, has a lot more detail and photos about the science of sausage texture, % of fat to use, as well as 75 sausage recipes, how to case, and recipes for uncased sausage like breakfast burritos, breakfast-in-a-cup, tasty soups and a New Year’s Day Hoppin John. It’s on sale right now at https://www.riflesandrecipes.com/406-521-0273. Need a video? https://www.youtube.com/@eileenclarke5936
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PhotoCredit: Photo Credits: Eileen Clarke
Image 1 Caption: Second Breakfast
Photo Credits: Eileen Clarke
