Fennel Sausage

You can use dried fennel seed, fresh fennel, fennel pollen, or my favorite— a combination of all three- to make an easy fennel sausage. If you don’t have a meat grinder, buy fresh ground pork from your butcher and season according to the recipe. This recipe makes a 5 lb. batch. Remember, you may need to adjust the salt for pre-ground pork meat if you have a different quantity of meat than this recipe makes.

To build more sausage making skills check out my online course “How to Make Fresh Sausage” at The Fermentation School.

3.5 lb. / 56 oz. / 1.59g lean pork shoulder

1.5 lb. / 24 oz. / 680g pork back fat

1.2 oz. / 34g kosher or sea salt

0.5 oz. / 14g raw cane sugar (optional)

0.5 oz. / 14g freshly ground black pepper

0.4 oz. / 11g fresh garlic, peeled

0.7-1oz / 20-28g fennel seed, fresh chopped fennel, or fennel pollen (or a combo of these)

0.2 oz. / 5g red pepper flake (add more if you like it spicier!)

4 oz. / 113 mL dry white wine

Prepare the meat grinder by chilling all of it’s moving parts in the freezer. Cube up the pork shoulder and back fat and put it in the freezer on a sheet pan while you prep the rest of your ingredients.

Ready to grind? Ok. Pull the grinder parts and the meat out of the freezer and transfer the meat to a large bowl or hotel pan. Mix in all the ingredients except for the wine. Next, feed the seasoned meat and fat through the meat grinder on the coarse grinding plate. Once it’s passed through, take half of the meat mix and pass it back through the same grinding plate a second time.

Now it’s time to add the wine. Pour it in and then get in there with your hands and MIX everything really well (I’m talking at least 1 minute). If you are weird about stuff on your hands, use gloves. This produces that great stickiness that we all love in sausage. Once you’ve mixed it well, you can go ahead and cook it OR you are ready to stuff it into casings.

To stuff: measure out about 15 feet of natural hog casings and rinse them well of all the salt they came packed in. Soak them in lukewarm water while you wash your grinder and chill your sausage in the fridge for at least 30 minutes- might even want to give it an hour. (go get the mail! Have a beverage in the garden! Or, plan ahead and get your casings rinsed and soaking BEFORE you even grind and season your meat.)

OK- once the casings are nice and supple you know they are properly hydrated and you are ready to stuff. Get your vertical stuffer ready and put all the ground meat into its canister. Crank the handle so that the meat starts to poke out the end of the stuffing tube, and then load all of the casings onto the stuffing tube like it’s a big ol’ bunched up stocking. Tie a double knot at the end. Gently holding the casings steady in one hand, begin to crank the handle of the stuffer so the meat starts coming out. Control how much casing comes off or stays on the stuffing tube to get the sausages to the perfect plumpness. This takes some practice so be nice to yourself, and patient. You want the sausages to be full and shiny but be careful not to overstuff them or they will burst when you make links. If this sounds complicated and scary (it’s not) consider taking my “How to Make Fresh Sausage” online course so you get step by step video tutorials on all of this.

All stuffed? Great. Time to link. Figure how big you want your links to be and pinch the spot where you’ll twist between thumb and forefinger. Then, twist the sausage 3-5 times to create a link. Move down the sausage and pinch off the space where you want to make the next link. Then, twist again but go in the opposite direction. Keep moving down the sausage twisting in alternate directions until you reach the end. Alternating like this helps keep the sausages from unraveling.

You’re ready to cook these fine sausages! Enjoy!