Home Farm Herbery’s Black Trumpet Mushroom Sausage Recipe©

Home Farm Herbery’s Black Trumpet Mushroom Sausage Recipe©

By Arlene Wright-Correll

This recipe can be doubled etc. to accommodate the lbs of meat you are using just recalculate the rest of the recipe.

Makes 10-12, 4.5-inch links or you can make them into patties

Ingredients:
 2.5 lbs. pork

 3.6 tsp. salt (we prefer Kosher or Sea Salt)

 1/3 tsp. white pepper

 ¼ tsp. garlic powder  

 1/8 tsp. nutmeg 

¼ tsp. Spanish paprika  

 1/8 tsp. cayenne 

½ tsp. dehydrated squid ink (optional, for color)

6.5 tbsp. Dried black trumpet mushrooms  

 (reconstitute dried mushrooms), then soaked in 13 tbsp. rice wine vinegar for 1 hour)

6.5 tbsp. whole milk

 ¾ cup of ice

1 lb. casing (ask for “24/26″ sheep casing—almost all butcher stores sell it.

Place the ground pork in a food processor

Add the spice blend (salt, white pepper, garlic, nutmeg, Spanish paprika, and cayenne) to the food processor. Mix until incorporated.

Add ice to the food processor while it’s running. This is what Home Farm Herbery calls a “cold immersion” sausage.

Next, add the milk in a slow stream while the machine is running.

Stop the machine at two distinct times during the mixing process. Take a big spatula, scrape down the sides of the machine, and fold the meat mixture with the spatula. This is to make sure all the meat is mixing properly.

Add the dehydrated squid ink to the machine. It’s up to you how much you’d like to add—the squid ink will only give the sausage a dark color, it won’t add flavor.

Once everything is incorporated, scrape the pork mixture out of the food processor and into a bowl.

Mix in more squid ink if you want an even darker color. You can use a spatula or your hands.

Take the black trumpet mushrooms from the rice vinegar in which they were pickling, and add them to the pork mixture. Don’t be afraid to get some of the vinegar in the mixture—it adds a nice flavor.

Mix the mushrooms into the pork mixture with a spatula. Don’t worry—you can’t over mix sausage. “You need to taste the mixture to make sure the seasoning’s right,” says Home Farm Herbery. We know its raw meat, but if you buy it from a good butcher, it’s safe to eat.

STUFFING THE SAUSAGE

Home Farm Herbery uses a hand-crank sausage stuffer. If you’re making sausage at home, you can buy a sausage stuffer attachment for your Kitchen Aid mixer.

Casing usually comes packed in salt when you buy it. Soak the casing in cold water to flush out the salt. Feed the casing onto the tube of your sausage stuffing machine, bunching it up towards the middle, and leave a bit of casing hanging off at the end.                                        

Put the pork mixture into the top of your Kitchen Aid machine. Turn the machine on and feed it through.

Go slowly until air begins to enter the casing and meat begins to fill the stuffing tube.

 When the meat has just started to enter the casing, tie off the end with a knot. Make it as tight as you can because you don’t want air pockets in the sausage.

Always keep one hand on the casing to guide it, and use the other hand to stuff the meat into the machine. Go slowly; if you don’t, the machine will heat the meat too much, which can create bacteria. Try to keep everything steady and consistent, and let gravity do most of the work.

When the entire length of the casing is stuffed, tear the casing off the tube.

 Now it’s time to make the sausage links, which should be approximately 4.5 inches in length. Place two fingers on the sausage, then take your other hand and place two fingers on the sausage at the other end. Pinch the casing with your fingers to close it on both ends, then twist.

Make about five revolutions. Repeat this process with the remaining length of the sausage.

When you’ve made all the links, tie off the end of the sausage.

SMOKING & BOILING THE SAUSAGE

Use your smoker if you have one or if you don’t you can do this.

For smoking the sausage, you will need two hotel pans (one perforated and one regular), as well as an egg crate, regular wood chips, plastic wrap, and a blow torch.

Put a piece of egg crate at the bottom of one hotel pan. Pour the wood chips over the crate.

Put the perforated hotel pan on top of the solid hotel pan.

Lift the top pan up and torch the wood chips. Once smoke is being generated and the wood chips are lit, place the perforated hotel pan back down to create a lid.

You’ll see the smoke coming up from the grates. Torch the wood chips a bit more if you’re not seeing enough smoke. Once the wood chips are lit, leave the sausage in the smoker for one hour.

Drop the smoked sausage links into a pot of boiling water, then turn the heat off. Stir the water around at the very beginning to make sure the sausages cook evenly. Let the sausages cook for three minutes.

Have an ice bath ready to put the sausages in once they’re cooked. Cooling the sausages in the ice bath will make the casing snappy. You can cut one of the sausages open to see if it’s thoroughly cooked.

 Cut the sausage into links.

You can eat the sausage as is, or reheat it on the grill.

May the Creative Force be with you,

Arlene Wright-Correll

Home Farm Herbery Store