Here’s something a little different: Thai Chicken Sausage. I’ve made a variety of chicken sausages over the years and discovered a few things in doing so:
1. With any good sausage, you need adequate fat. This is especially true when using poultry as it tends to be quite lean.
2. You cant over-season poultry sausage. Chicken-in-a-tube tends to lend itself to getting along with using many other spices and seasonings. By itself, the flavor is VERY mild.
The Thai Chicken sausage recipe I chose is VERY similar to the one I first posted here back in 2011 (a variation of the Len Poli recipe) . I made a couple more variations on this recipe, including adding fresh ginger as well as deciding to smoke half the batch. The sausages starts with eight pounds of thigh and/or leg meat, boned but WITH skins. The chicken is partially frozen before grinding.
Other ingredients to be used:
The chicken gets ground using a 4.5mm plate, along with the cooked rice and roasted peanuts.
All ingredients are added together into a cohesive, wonderfully-smelling poultry paste.
I then split the 10lb batch into two, adding the proper amount of Cure#1 to half the load.
These were batches were kept in separate bowls and placed into the fridge overnight.
Next day, the stuffing begins. For natural casings, all I had on hand were 38/42mm hog casings (intended originally for kielbasa) but I made do. I just made shorter fat links. Still kept the half with cure segregated for the smoker.
Half into the hot water bath for poaching. Water temp initially around 185-190°F
Pulled them with the IT reached 165°F—which took about 35 minutes on a light poach. Cooling on a rack...
The other half went into a warm smoker (180-200°F). Light (cherry wood) pellet smoke applied after the first hour.
After about three hours of smoke, these links were ready. Pulled them and laid them on a rack to cool & bloom.
Here's a side-by-side of the poached and smoked links...
SAMPLE TIME!
Both tasted quite good! Plenty of spice, moist and a little heat. The smoked sausage had more ‘chew’ while the poached link had a softer bite.
Which was 'better'? Tough call. I love smoked meats so my bias should steer me in favor of the smoked link. However, although I really enjoyed the smoked version, I think I prefer the poached links as the smoke tends to mask some of the distinct and somewhat subtle flavors (cilantro, coconut, sesame, peanut) present in the sausage. Either way, we've plenty of tasty chicken sausages on hand! Thanks for lookin'!
— Kevin
1. With any good sausage, you need adequate fat. This is especially true when using poultry as it tends to be quite lean.
2. You cant over-season poultry sausage. Chicken-in-a-tube tends to lend itself to getting along with using many other spices and seasonings. By itself, the flavor is VERY mild.
The Thai Chicken sausage recipe I chose is VERY similar to the one I first posted here back in 2011 (a variation of the Len Poli recipe) . I made a couple more variations on this recipe, including adding fresh ginger as well as deciding to smoke half the batch. The sausages starts with eight pounds of thigh and/or leg meat, boned but WITH skins. The chicken is partially frozen before grinding.
Other ingredients to be used:
The chicken gets ground using a 4.5mm plate, along with the cooked rice and roasted peanuts.
All ingredients are added together into a cohesive, wonderfully-smelling poultry paste.
I then split the 10lb batch into two, adding the proper amount of Cure#1 to half the load.
These were batches were kept in separate bowls and placed into the fridge overnight.
Next day, the stuffing begins. For natural casings, all I had on hand were 38/42mm hog casings (intended originally for kielbasa) but I made do. I just made shorter fat links. Still kept the half with cure segregated for the smoker.
Half into the hot water bath for poaching. Water temp initially around 185-190°F
Pulled them with the IT reached 165°F—which took about 35 minutes on a light poach. Cooling on a rack...
The other half went into a warm smoker (180-200°F). Light (cherry wood) pellet smoke applied after the first hour.
After about three hours of smoke, these links were ready. Pulled them and laid them on a rack to cool & bloom.
Here's a side-by-side of the poached and smoked links...
SAMPLE TIME!
Both tasted quite good! Plenty of spice, moist and a little heat. The smoked sausage had more ‘chew’ while the poached link had a softer bite.
Which was 'better'? Tough call. I love smoked meats so my bias should steer me in favor of the smoked link. However, although I really enjoyed the smoked version, I think I prefer the poached links as the smoke tends to mask some of the distinct and somewhat subtle flavors (cilantro, coconut, sesame, peanut) present in the sausage. Either way, we've plenty of tasty chicken sausages on hand! Thanks for lookin'!
— Kevin
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