Making Sausage With a Master

Fifteen years in the Bay Area has steeped me in the California religion of Respecting Ingredients as They Are and Not Monkeying with Them Too Much. Moore is tall and boyish, always in gingham, a half-Korean Southern Californian who was a punk-rock kid and worked at Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in the ’80s.

When Moore was a young cook there, Waters got a hankering for boudin blanc—the white pork sausage maintained by both the French (they use milk) and the Cajuns (they use rice)—and asked if Moore knew how to make the thing. As we gather at my kitchen island, selecting this piece and dismissing that one. As I mortar our herbs and spices, I notice a deeper appeal—the endless experimenting with cuts, the infinite combinations of flavors.

The superlative sausage emerges from a thoughtful mix of lean and fat—less than 30 percent fat will leave you unhappy, says Moore—and from the right qualities of lean, and qualities of fat. Same goes for mixing: Your hands will warm up everything pretty quickly, so don’t overdo it.” “Err on the side of under-stuffing, since you can always twist sausages to get them to the right shape.

But then don’t futz: Try to get the taste right in one shot, so you don’t keep remixing the meat.” How to Choose the Correct Casing When making Russell Moore’s sausages, we used hog and sheep casings. Hog casings, a sturdy option for larger sausages, like Moore’s boudin blanc , come in a variety of diameters: 1 1/8–1 1/4-inch for frankfurters, 1 3/8–1 1/2-inch for bratwurst, and 2 1/4-inch if you want to make traditional black pudding.

Sheep casings, which are more delicate, are best for smaller sausages like breakfast varieties, or Moore’s garlic and herb sausage . The Right Stuffer To stuff our sausages, we used a reliable sausage-stuffing attachment that affixes to any KitchenAid stand mixer. If you don’t have a stand mixer, the Weston 3-lb. manual sausage stuffer, ($55, amazon.com ), is an inexpensive yet durable choice, and, if you want to splurge, the LEM Stainless Steel Vertical Sausage Stuffer, right ($155, lemproducts.com ), is Moore’s preferred tool.

Slide one end of the casing flush to the hilt of the nozzle, and then slide on the remainder. Turn on the stuffer and press meat into machine until about 1/2 inch of meat protrudes from the tip.

Turn it off and pull 4–5 inches of casing from the nozzle over the protruding meat. Turn the machine back on and allow 1–2 inches more stuffing to fill the casing; press out air pockets and tie a knot at the tip of the sausage. Continue running the machine, gently pressing the meat into the casing and coiling the sausage on your work surface, until you have used up all of the meat.

Going to Garlic and Herb Sausage “Lovage has a mysterious quality,”, chef Russell Moore ( Camino ; Oakland, California) of the underused herb, which “tastes like celery mixed with Middle Eastern spices.” It’s an unusual, delectable addition to this classic sausage mix. Boudin Blanc In 1805, Meriwether Lewis ate buffalo boudin blanc cooked by Toussaint Charbonneau, Sacagawea’s husband, deeming it “one of the greatest delicacies of the forest.” Russell Moore of Camino in Oakland, California, substitutes pork and chicken for buffalo in his modern version, whipping the mixture to yield a smooth, light stuffing. Pork and Duck Sausage Most sausage recipes call for a meat mixture that is about 30 percent fat—using too much can yield a link that is more greasy than luxurious.

Here, Russell Moore of Camino in Oakland, California, combines pork belly with rich duck liver and skinless duck breast—fatty duck skin is too tough—for a perfectly tender sausage.