every Christmas time the have a hanker'n to make a few sticks of a 65 year old family recipe of Venison Summer Sausage.
A little history how I came to start making sausage.............I grew up on a hog farm were my grandparents raise 250 head of Chester White Hogs & 200 acres of 7 different variety apples. My mom 2 sisters and another brother help around the farm. Dad was in the army in Viet Nam. He was career army, join 1957 retired in 1973. We all lived with my grandparent on the farm. We never saw much of dad until he retired. My grandparents also had a small butcher & meat curing business. Germans as they were they loved making sausage. My grandpa used to make the best summer sausage & apple smoked cured hams, my GOD!!!!!! We watch him and grandma make sausage , drink homemade apple wine and my brother & I would carry out sausages & hams to the smoke house. Me and my brother used to help them stuff, grained, skin out hogs. So threw out school I worked on that farm & butcher shop until grandpa died and the farm slowly was sold off to pay bills. Dad came home after the war was over and his duties were done. were he spent his time as Full Time Army National Gaurd until he retired again in 1996.
Now for the best dang summer sausage y'all ever ate.
Venison Summer Sausage
3 lbs Ground Venison
2 lbs Ground Beef
2 tblspn Salt
2 teaspn Curing Salt
2 tblspn Sugar
1 teaspn Ground Coriander Seed
1 1/2 teaspn Garlic Powder
3 tblspn Black Pepper, coarse
1 teaspn Ground Mustard Seed
1 teaspn Red Pepper Flakes
1 cup Non-Fat Dry Milk, powder
2 1/4 teaspn Liquid Hickory Smoke, more if ya want
1 3/4 cups Water, cold, this will make the meat mixture more workable
2 2" Fibrous Casings, soaked in warm water for 30 minute to make them workable
Combine venison & remaining 10 ingredients. Blend well. Make a test patty from meat mixture and fry in pan for taste. NOTE* this will NOT make final out come of taste. Close that it. Re-season if needed.
Install 3/4" stuffing tube to grinder. Slide fibrous casing on tube, began stuffing making sure to leave about 2" of casing left to tie off, twist and use butchers string to tie off end.
Refrigerate your sausage overnight to cue.
Preheat oven to 170 degrees, place your summer sausage on the rack (oven racks) and jar the oven door open with what ever available (oven door should be cracked open) for 1 hour. Remove what ever jar oven door open and close oven door and continue to cook until summer sausage reaches internal temp of 152 to 154 degrees. which will be fully cooked. Remove sausage from oven and rinse with cold water until internal temp drops to 120 degrees. “Blooming” Hang to set aside until room temp(about 2 hours) Now its ready to eat.
NOTE* you will need a thermometer to monitor the internal temp of the sausage. This makes 5 lbs
NOTE* place sheet pan under (lower rack) to caught drips, this will keep y’all out of the dog house with the wife. It wont mess up her oven with sausage drippings
Important notes*
when grinding meat, ginde your sausage meat coarse. All sausage meat is a coarse grind. Season your sauage meat after the grinding is over, not during the grind. When seasoning your sausage meat, fold your seasoning into the meat. The binder: Powdered Milk (yes powdered milk is the best binder there is)should be folded in to the meat the same time as your seasoning & curing salt. Now I let the sausage meat set for 24 hour so the seasoning can do there thing, incorperate in to the mixture.
Stuffing, dont use a grinder to stuff the casings, big no-no. Theres a reason why they make actual sausage stuffers. You want your meat chunky!, not like liverworst. This is were the powdered milk comes into play, it helps bind the chunky meat together. Make sure when stuffing your casings you stuff firmly against the casing. No air gaps, big no-no. Twist your casing a few turns, this will alow you the firmness you need and pushes out any air between the meat & casing. Then tight off with butchers string or ring them. Cooking can be done a few ways, easy way (and most of ya's dont own a smoke house ) so your wifes oven is the best next thing. If you follow this recipe, you will not go wrong. I assure ya this.
"Blooming", the big factor in summer sausage. You have to bloom the sausage after cooling , this does 2 important things (1.) pervents shrinkage, the meat pulling away from the casing, we call the "dreadful shrink" and (2.) add that nice mahgony color to the meat.
Note* the meat is firm against the casing before the cooking process starts? and notice the the meat after the cooking, the cooling & blooming process is over and the casing is sliced. The meat is still firm againsted the casing. The finish results are shown here.
I've writen 2 cook books on wild game cooking & currently finishing up a new book on the same topic. This book will be printed after the new year. I have old family sausage recipes in these cook books. I share this recipes with hunters so they can enjoy what wild game meat is really. "Dang Good Chew'n & Swallow'n"
Enjoy, I guarentee it will be the best summer sausage y'all ever ate.