Chicago Italian Sausage with Fennel

[PizzaGarage]

Here is my Chicago Sausage with Fennel recipe.  I've only found 1 commercial place that makes good sausage so I decided to make my own the way I like it!  You can scale the batch so here it is for 1 pound.  The sausage has a good hit of fennel, you can taste it, along with slight black pepper and a background of something that's savory but you get just a hint, sage.  Sage is not commonly used but I think it adds savory richness to the sausage.

1 lb fresh ground Boston pork butt ground
1.5 tsp fennel seed
1/2 tsp course ground black pepper
1/2 tsp ground fennel
1/2 tsp ground sage
1.5% salt   - convert lb to grams and it's 1.5% of that, use Morton Kosher.  So, 1.5% of the 1lb weight is salt.  No more than 1.5% and no less than 1%.
Sugar - the calculation is 10% of the Salt weight is sugar  - white.  Preserves color
40G cold water.

After cutting up the butts and squaring, add the salt and mix well.  Put in the fridge overnight before grinding (important step for flavor).  The reason for this step is to allow the salt to absorb fully into the meat, 4 hours is good, 8 hours is great and 12 is best and after 12 hours no more salt will absorb.  24 hours is just easier for me.
Your going to grind up all the meat then place in fridge for 1 hour to cool back down, then add water and seasonings.  Add the sugar to the water and dissolve.  Now, add in a little water and a little spice until mixed in well - this takes about 1-2 minutes including and important to KNEAD the batch just like a dough as you are adding in the water and seasonings.  When done place in fridge for 24 hours, then freeze if you like.  Don't skip any of it and make sure to add the water, the batch will tighten up just like a dough.  1-2 min and you are done.

You have to have SHARP knifes, forgot about it if you don't and the right knifes.  At a min you need 1 8" butcher knife high carbon steel and 1 6" boning knife high carbon steel.  The butcher knife is for chunking down the larger pieces, the boning knife for the smaller pieces.  I used Dexter knifes in the pic.

[PizzaGarage]

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[PizzaGarage]

Grinding. 

Before grinding, put meat in freezer (about 20 min) so the meat is really cold and almost starting to freeze.  This makes a better sausage texture and cuts the meat and fat properly.

[PizzaGarage]

Grinding. 

Before grinding, put meat in freezer (about 20 min) so the meat is really cold and almost starting to freeze.  This makes a better sausage texture and cuts the meat and fat properly.

2 ground meat pics, first one is before seasoning and second is after seasoning and kneading.

[Garvey]

Great recipe, great procedure.  Thanks for posting this.  I've requested that it be added to the sausage sticky.

Cheers,
Garvey

[PizzaGarage]

Here are some pics after 24 hours and cooked as well.

The water is important to mix in the spices and retain moisture and make the meat juicy.  You can see in the last pic just how juicy the sausage is when pressing down on it with a knife.  To me that's how I want my sausage to be on the pizza. I want plump and juicy, not dry and shrunk.

[mudman]

Wow looks great, thanks for sharing.

[novawaly]

This looks amazing. Thanks for the detail. Going to try this tomorrow on my pizza. Picked up boneless pork butt from the butcher and will cube and put in the salt bath tonight.


Just out of curiosity. It looks like your starting meat was similar to this, was yours bone in?:
https://www.lobels.com/berkshire-pork-bone-in-boston-butt/p/BPBIBB?ef_id=WW9jvgAAAFW4DB6X:20180508151737:s

I attached a picture of my butchers pork butt...it seems to be missing that layer of fat on the top (asked for 80/20). Do you think that'll be a problem?

[vtsteve]

That looks pretty lean to me... you might try to get some fatback to grind in with it.

[Little bean]

That looks pretty lean to me... you might try to get some fatback to grind in with it.

that is very lean you definately need more fat, as well as insanely expensive, in Cleveland I can buy Berkshire for just under that price that is beautifully marbled and has an outstanding layer of fat, no trimming necessary just cube and grind.  Shoulder that looks like that would be around 1.79- 1.89 a pound at the butcher. I guess that's what happens in New York.

[novawaly]

Finally got home to post some pictures of my actual cut:

Top:
https://imgur.com/a/VHMYeUP

Bottom:
https://imgur.com/a/qgjYsup

side:
https://imgur.com/a/EjnrnAd

Do you think the sausage will still come out ok? looks like no more than 90-10 at best.


Crazy to hear the difference in price..that def comes with the territory in NY. Trade off is we have some pretty good pizza options lol.

I might just have to start getting 5-6lb pieces online, making and freezing.

[Little bean]

Finally got home to post some pictures of my actual cut:

Top:
https://imgur.com/a/VHMYeUP

Bottom:
https://imgur.com/a/qgjYsup

side:
https://imgur.com/a/EjnrnAd

Do you think the sausage will still come out ok? looks like no more than 90-10 at best.


Crazy to hear the difference in price..that def comes with the territory in NY. Trade off is we have some pretty good pizza options lol.

I might just have to start getting 5-6lb pieces online, making and freezing.

90/10 is not really ideal, you really need that fat to bind, add moisture and add flavor, I would recommend getting some type of fat in there or else it will be very dry. You can try to make the sausage and I'm sure you will like it but as vtsteve said I'd reccomend getting some more fat in there. Sounds like you know what your doing and sausage takes time and love, you want it to come out as good as possible, look forward to seeing what you come up with! Yes the pizza in New York is definately better than our offerings, good trade off for you!

[Little bean]

If you have some bacon you can try grinding that in there as well, it will transform the flavor of the sausage a bit as it smoked but I believe it will benefit you more in the moisture department.

[Garvey]

I think you'll be ok for deep dish.  Some places use fairly lean sausage compared to what's put on Chicago thin. 

[novawaly]

I ended up going out to a few butchers and found one open at 9pm that had some berkshire pork butt (mind you at 10.99 a pound) with more fat on it - forgot to take a picture before I cubed it but this is what it looked like cut up. Def more fat that the intial cut.

https://imgur.com/a/jcXueks.

Will report back after it's finished in the overnight salt bath.

Thanks for the help everyone

[novawaly]

So just finished up the process. 

A couple thoughts/issues:

It came out ok for the most part but the biggest problem i had came when it came time to grind the meat. The meat kept getting stuck when using the smaller of the grinder attachments. I ended up having to use the courser attachment. I tried grinding it through that, putting the grinder parts and meat back in the freezer/fridge respectively, and running it through the smaller attachment an hour later but the issue persisted.  I had just hand kneed/add the water spices with the meat having gone through the course setting only.

My results came out OK. The meat had very good flavor and was juicy when i bit into it. I did still get hints of stringier pieces of fat in certain bites. Also, in comparing my pictures to PizzaGarage, i def wasn't getting enough fat in the pan when test cooking a few pieces and i didn't get the juice squeezing out on the cutting board either.

Im not really sure what effect the grinder issue had on the process and how much of this is just down to the fat content in my meat. (even though the second meat looked a lot fattier than the first and it was berkshire boston butt)

Any thoughts appreciated. I'll attach pictures now

[novawaly]

These are the grinder attachements:

[Garvey]

Are the stringier pieces fat or connective tissue?  The former is OK for sausage; the latter needs to be removed before grinding.

Do you have a butcher who sells 80/20 ground pork?  That would allow you to skip the home grinding piece of this.

Was your meat cubed and then semi-frozen before grinding?  If not, try that.  Work in small batches, grabbing a handful from the freezer as you go.  [If using a KitchenAid, which is what it seems like you're doing, try this: chill meat and mixer bowl for 15-30 minutes in freezer before grinding. Grind meat at speed level 4 into the mixer bowl.  Make sure it doesn’t “smear” as it comes out: it should look clean and dry and ropey, like fresh ground hamburger.]

[novawaly]

Not even a kitchenaide unfort.

Used this. Already put in a return and went for a slight more expensive electric grinder to see if there's any diff.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K2VLSNY/?tag=pmak-20

It was def semi frozen and i even left the entire grinder in the freezer prior to starting. I think it was just getting caught in the attachment so whatever was getting through was being smashed together and forced through a tiny hole which caused the gummy thicker end product.

I did have the butcher cube for me so I'm not sure what was connective tissue. I'll cube myself next time. I suppose i could have him grind for me but what fun would that be?

[PizzaGarage]

A couple of suggestions...looks like you got covered

To eliminate the mushy texture you need to grind the meat VERY cold, so put the chunks in the freezer for 20 minutes, you want the meat almost to the point of just beginning to freeze.  It will firm up and be very cold.  Move quickly to grind but to not force the meat thru the hole, gently push

You want at least 20-25% fat even 30 is good and you need the fat cap to to give you the right amount of fat.  A non trimmed butt falls in those ranges, so next time get the fat included

When cooking on the stove, use low heat so it cooks slowly to retain the juices and does not burn or turn black

The grinding plate needs to be course I use a 1/4 plate, if too fine like a hamburger grind the meat can mush when mixing in spices

Cut the cubes smaller if the grinder is smaller and has less power.  Grinding plate still must be 1/4 at least even with a smaller machine

When adding in the water you don't want to overmix, add water and mix gently until spices are blended but don't mix so long that the sausage gets warm and turns mushy.  Time is important and you want to work with cold meat during the entire process.  Move fast but be gentile when mixing

In looking at the pics that is silver skin or connective tissue, you don't want that in the grinder, it will clog it then force you to push the meat too hard, cut the stuff out.

I use boned or deboned, I just cut the bone out, it's the same cut of meat