Sausage Patties

By chelyc13

Grinding sausage is its own reward that will yield meat for breakfast or for dinner for months to come. Its bright fresh flavors, rarely matched by any store bought sausage, come from using the best meat you can find. Check with your butcher before heading to the market, since fatback also called back fat, may need to be special ordered. Note that fatback should not have any skin on it. if it does, remove it before cooking with it. Also, make sure that you're buying just fat and not salt pork: they look alike, but the latter will render your finished product almost inedible from saltiness. And most important, you can's make low fat sausage, so don't skimp on the fatback.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs cold pork butt or shoulder, cut into long stips 2 inches wide
• 8 oz cold, hard pork fatback, cut into 1 to 2 inch strips
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tblsp dried fennel
• 1 teas dried rosemary
• 1 teas dried sage
• 1 to 2 tblsp kosher salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teas dried chile flakes
• 2 tblsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preparation

Step 1

Make certain that both the meat and the fat are very cold by refrigerating them for 6 hours or putting them in the freezer for 30 minutes. Grind them in tandem, alternating between the meat and the fat, using the large holed plate of your meat grinder. If you desire a smoother texture to your sausage, chill the meat for 30 minutes and grind again, this time using the small holed plate of the grinder.

In a large bowl, use your hands to combine the ground meat and fat with the garlic, finnel, rosemary, sage, salt, pepper, chile flakes, and lemon juice.

Heat a small frying pan on medium high heat and make a small patty from 2 teas of the meat. Fry the miniature patty, then taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Do not skip this step: it's important to make sure the sausage has a good flavor before moving forward.

Spoon the meat into your hand, 2 tblsp at a time, and pat it into a circular patty about 1/4 inch thick, placing on a rimmed baking sheet. When all the patties are formed, fry in an ungreased skillet over medium high ehat for 3 minutes, until very brown. Flip and fry on the second side until very brown, another 2 or 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels and devour.

TO STORE: Line a large airtight container with waxed paper or parchment paper. Place each patty in the container in a single layer, and don't allow the patties to touch. Layer additional patties on top between sheets of waxed paper or parchment paper. Refrigerate, covered, up to 1 week. For long term storage, place formed but not cooked patties on a waxed paper lined rimmed baking sheet with pattied close, but not touching. Freeze for 2 hours, then move frozen patties to ann airtight container or sealable plastic bag. Prepare a label that lists the contents and date prepared. Store in the freezer up to 4 months.