Saucisson aux chanterelles
This has been a fantastic season for chanterelle mushrooms in my neck of the woods. It’s been a while since I made a mushroom sausage, so why not? On this occasion I crafted the sausage based on a recipe in a book titled Charcuterie Specialties written by French Grand Master Chefs Jean-Claude Frentz and Michel Poulain. Turned out to be a superb and flavourful sausage that can be pan fried for breakfast or grilled for dinner.
Recipe for 1kg of meat
Meats
1kg, pork shoulder, 20 to 25% fat
Ingredients
13g non-iodized salt (European recipe: 7g salt and 7g curing salt)
1g Cure #1
2g white pepper
1g mace
3g finely chopped or pressed garlic
250g chanterelles
10g parsley
Juice from ½ lemon
100ml water
30g unsalted butter
Process
1. Wash and trim the mushrooms and dice into about 8mm pieces. Combine the watr, lemon juice and butter and bring to a light boil. Add mushrooms and simmer for 8 minutes. Cool the mushrooms in the liquid to refrigerator temperature.
2. Wash the parsley and blanch for a few seconds in boiling water. Drain the parsley, immerse in ice cold water, pat dry and chop. Place in fridge with mushrooms.
3. Cut the lean meat into large cubes and the fat meat into smaller cubes. Mix the seasonings into the meat and distribute evenly.
4. If making a small amount, grind the lean and fat meat with the 7mm plate. If making a larger amount, grind the fat with the 6mm and the lean with the 8mm.
5. Drain off about half the liquid from mushrooms and add along with the parsley to the ground meat. Mix well, until a the meat stick to your open palm.
6. Stuff into medium diameter pork casings, 34-36mm.
7. After allowing to set in the fridge for a few hours, freeze the sausages if not consuming within two days.
8. You also have the option to poach the sausages for 10 minutes in 80C water then finish the cooking on the grill or give it some sizzle to brown in a pan.
