Rabbit and morel sausage, or also known as, ‘Bunny Bangers’… one of my seasonal favorites. Seasonal because you must have fresh morels, and non-freezer-burnt rabbit. Deboning a rabbit is some pretty tedious work too. Whether you are harvesting your own rabbits, or buying them from a breeder, have that rabbit ready for when the morels pop! This has to be hands down, my favorite fresh sausage.

Like all sausage making, your equipment, trays, grinder head, stuffer, and all the meat and fat have to be cold! Cold as possible just short of frozen. Rabbit fat is good stuff. I use all of it and only add the needed amount of pork fat, Have it diced and frozen ahead of time. I also de-bone the rabbit and freeze it on flat trays ahead of time. This way, when it comes time to use it, you have a sheet of chopped rabbit meat that is ready to use after a very quick thaw (just enough to break it apart). Soak your casings in lukewarm water while you prepare everything else too.

Mix all your spices. This is a simple one. Salt, pepper and garlic. Nothing else is needed because you want to let the rabbit and morels shine. Admittedly, I change it up though. I’ve tried adding cumin and rubbed sage, and always fresh minced garlic. It’s really up to you. I list percentages below so that you can weigh out your trim and adjust your fat and spices accordingly.

Rabbit/Morel Sausage Recipe

• Rabbit trim (deboned, chunked and mostly frozen)
• 32% Fat back, cubed (mostly frozen)

Take total weight in grams of the rabbit trim + fat, and weigh out your spices.

• 2% kosher salt
• .2% cracked black pepper
• .6% garlic (fresh, crushed or minced)
• Morel mushrooms. However many you have, or want (chopped any size you like)
• Optional: Ramps! They are usually in season along with morels.
• Optional: 3/4 cup asiago, romano or parmesan (shaved or chunked)
• 1 cup of red wine
• 4-5 feet of casings

Some people add the spices to the meat and fat before grinding. Others, do it after grinding. I have tried both ways and cannot find a notable difference in taste but I have decided that I like to toss the meat and fat in the spices, then grind as helps get the spices well-integrated.

Have everything together, and cold, then grind that meat and fat into a bowl set in ice, or a deep-side tray. BUT DON’T GRIND THE MORELS OR RAMPS. You don’t want to chop them into oblivion. Once ground, add the spices (if you haven’t already) and mix together. Then add the wine and mix some more. The ramps can be chopped into 1 inch pieces. The morels should be cut to the size you like (bigger chunks for me) and then folded in to the final force-meat. Let sit for the pellicle. The time here depends on how cold you’ve managed to keep things. I find I have plenty of time to do the quenelle test (adjust the spices) and prepare the stuffer.

When the farce is sticky, stuff into the casings, twist and let sit for about 20 minutes to let it bind a little. I have not tried cold-smoking them yet. Some day, I will. Here is where I cut them to about 4 per pack and vac seal them before tossing them into the freezer.

To serve, I thaw completely, and give them a gentle poaching. If you are using the right vac seal bags, you can sous vide the sausages right in the bag before opening. Just be sure to not over-cook. You want the sausage still pink inside. Finish on the grill. Check out some of the pics.

Rabbit, Morel and Ramp Sausage 2021

Rabbit, Morel and Ramp Sausage 2020

Rabbit and Morel Sausage 2015

Lately, I have been curing what’s in season, and right now, it’s hunting season so this series of posts will feature venison. All of these products are cured. It requires an environment where you can reliably control temperature and humidity. Once you have the environment, and the basic knowledge of safely curing meat, the recipes are up to your imagination.

Here, we’re talking venison bresaeola. See also venison landjaeger and cured deer heart.

I started with a roast from the hind quarter.

My spice mix contained:

• 598g deer roast(1.5 lb or 21 oz.)
• 18g kosher salt
• 15g sugar
• 1/2 tsp. pink salt #2
• 1 tsp. rosemary
• 2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 20 juniper berries, ground

Mix the spices real good. Put the roast on a plate, and rub both sides of the deer roast with the spices. You want to get as close to 100% of this spice mix into the bag with your roast since everything, especially the pick salt, was measured to the weight of our roast.  Put the roast in a zip-lock bag, or vac bag… and dump the rest of your spice mix left on the plate in with it. Seal it up and put into the fridge for 7-10 days. Massage and flip the bag every other day.

Once cured, remove the roast from the bag, and rinse the spices off the roast (use red wine to rinse off the spices if you like).

Optionally, you can cold-smoke at this time as well, but first, decide how you will dry it. For example, if you will wrap it in cheese cloth, and tie, you might cold smoke it before doing so. If you stuff into a beef bung, you would do this first, then cold smoke it.

Now, you should weigh the bresaeola and mark its weight in your log. Your bresaeola is ready for the fermentation stage. Place the bresaeola in a 70-75 degree F environment for 24-48 hours. I put in my oven with the light one. Just be sure to put a note on the oven controls that says “No Oven” so your spouse doesn’t come in and pre-heat the oven!

After fermentation, your bresaeola is ready to head into your chamber to finish drying. Currently, my dryer is running at 60 degrees F, and 80% RH. I will gradually turn the RH down to about 70% during the drying process if the other products also allow.

When the bresaeola loses 30% or more of its original weight, it is ready.

 

 

 

Lately, I have been curing what’s in season, and right now, it’s hunting season so this series of posts will feature venison. All of these products are cured. It requires an environment where you can reliably control temperature and humidity. Once you have the environment, and the basic knowledge of safely curing meat, the recipes are up to your imagination.

Here, we’re talking venison landjaeger. See also, cured deer heart, and venison bresaeola.

Venison langjaeger v2. This is my second attempt. The first, seen at right, was excellent and it was made using Hank Shaw’s recipe. This time, I wanted a larger caliber sausage and I also wanted to play with the ingredients. Instead of the hank casings I used in v1, I tried beef middles. The larger caliber and weight required me to truss them up. And last, I doubled the batch  to 10lbs. since I had a lot of venison.

• 8lbs. venison chunks
• 2lbs. pork fat back diced (Stick to fat back here, and save your leaf fat for the lard.)
• 76g kosher salt
• 30g dextrose, or white sugar
• 12g pink salt #2
• 2 tsp. garlic powder
• 2 tsp. caraway seed
• 2 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. celery seed
• 4 tbsp. ground black pepper
• Optional: 2 tsp. ground habanero powder
• 1 tsp. T-SPX starter culture (Diluted in 1/2 cup distilled water. Important, chlorine-free water.)

Just like fresh sausage making, you want to have your equipment (stuffer, grinder, trays, etc.) and the meat and fat very cold! Your venison should be trimmed and cut into chunks along with the fat back.

Take your chosen casings and soak them in lukewarm water. I’m using middles in this recipe, and I took more time to clean them out by running water through them multiple times.

In a cold tray (I prefer metal trays to help stay cold from the freezer) mix the venison, fat, and all of the spices, but HOLD OUT the T-SPX and water. Put everything into the freezer until it starts to freeze, but not frozen. The colder the better.

When ready to grind, grind through the course die. This is really a preference but I don’t want to overwork the forcemeat. I’m also looking for a courser texture in the final product. Once ground, place back in the freezer to chill it up again. It should be cooler than 42 degrees F.

While the forcemeat is chilling, prepare your starter culture by mixing it with the distilled water. Let it sit for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove the forcemeat from the freezer and add the starter culture, mixing very thoroughly. If you have a meat mixer, use it. Otherwise, use your hands, and fold it over and over until you notice the formation of the pellicle (this is when the meat starts getting sticky, and binding together)

Now it’s time to load your stuffer and stuff into casings. Whether using hank casings, or beef middles, stuff them and tie off each link with hemp rope or twine. Using beef middles, tie two knots between each link because these will need to be separated and hung individually due to their weight and size.

Prick your sausages thoroughly and massage the air bubbles out of them. If using pork casings and the smaller caliber, the traditional step to take here is to place the sausages between two trays (traditionally wooden) and press them tightly together so they form more of a square chub (like the picture above.)

Now, we will ferment the sausages. We want to let them sit between 75 and 80 degrees F for 24 hours… up to 48 hours if you want to. This let’s the starter culture get to work. During this time, you need to prevent case hardening by keeping the casings moist. I use a spritzer bottle and spray and turn the sausages several times during the process. Another thing I tried this time around was to pre-mix my Bactoferm Mold-600 with distilled water to fill the spray bottle with. I use Mold-600 on most of my sausages in the drying chamber just to give the sausages a head start on developing the good mold and I had this handy. Update… it does work. White mold started pretty quickly, even as it was sprayed during cold-smoking.

After fermentation, it’s time to cold smoke. I suppose you could skip this is you want, but after my first successful attempt, I require it. I used cherry smoke this time around and I smoked for 4 hours. The idea of cold smoking is to give your sausages smoke flavor, and not to cook the meat. I keep my smoker  between 80 and 90 degrees F, and never hotter than 100 degrees F. This usually requires the use of a cold smoke generator as it would be difficult to keep your hot smoker under 100 degrees F. I made this cold-smoking device and I use it in my hot smoker.

Finally, it’s time to dry your sausages by hanging them in your drying chamber… or the proper environment. My dryer runs at 60 degrees F, and 80% RH. Of course, if you are using smaller casing, such as hank casing, it could take anywhere from 2-3 weeks. A larger caliber will take longer, and also require more careful monitoring of the casings to make sure they do not get too dry and hard. Case hardening is a critical issue in all meat curing. If the casing is left to harden and dry out, it looses it pores, and does not let water moisture escape through the casing. The result can be botulism.

 

 

 

 

This post has been edited and updated with subsequent pictures and info that I have gleaned over the years.

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Hunting season means deer hearts are plentiful. It’s common for friends to drop off their hearts to me and tell me to do with them what I may. My original article wrote about curing what’s in season, so the series of posts featured venison. Here, we’re talking deer heart. See also venison landjaeger and venison bresaeola.

All of these products are cured. It requires an environment where you can reliably control temperature and humidity. Once you have the environment, and the basic knowledge of safely curing meat, the recipes are up to your imagination. I’ve added one below.

Now, I always aim for the lung shot to preserve the sacred heart. While I don’t chomp into it during the field dress like some traditions, I do let none go to waste.

I cut my teeth on grilling hearts. Just like your other venison cuts, don’t over-cook it. I figure there’s a window of about 2 minutes that separate just perfect… and ruined. But let me step back a bit. I myself was a hunter who didn’t think they’d ever eat a deer heart. That changed when I saw what the inside of a deer heart looked like. Give it a chance. If you’ve never prepared a heart, harvest it if it’s not all shot up. Take it through the process of cleaning it… you can always toss it, or give it to someone else in the end. However, you might find a new-found passion as I did.

Since I’m curing and drying this heart, here’s what I do. Take your fresh heart, and run clean water through the valves, squeezing and massaging any clots out. Empty the water and refill, repeating the process a couple times. It’s OK to leave the heart soaking in salt water for several days in the fridge until you can make it around to it if you need to. I prepare a salty brine to soak it. When the water becomes bloody dump it and change out. A few changes, and it’ll be clear. When ready, cut it open in a manner that leaves the heart lay flat and in one piece. I plan to roll and truss the heart later when I go to dry it. The inside of a heart is… empty, with white fibrous webbing (or strings) that operate the chambers and valves. Trim this webbing out as best as you can until the heart looks like the pictures below. Give it another rinse and prepare your spice mix.

I make subtle variations in the spice mixes each time… making notes so that when I hit a grand slam, I can come back to it. I have rolled tight like a pancetta, and cased it in a beef middle (sometimes, I’ll cut hearts in to two pieces to do this,) and then truss it. I’ve also rolled up and netted. Here is a spice mix idea.

To a 350-450g heart (average weight of whitetail hearts I’ve cured)

• 15g kosher salt
• 2g pink salt #2
• 7g brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. dry thyme
• 1/2 tsp. crushed black pepper
• 1 tsp. caraway seed
• 1 tsp. dried crushed jalapeno powder
• 1/4 tsp. paprika
• 1 tsp. fresh crushed garlic

In another variation, I omitted the garlic and brown sugar, and crushed 1 tsp. of juniper berries. I also substituted the jalapeno powder for habanero powder.

Just like all other cure jobs, massage the spice mix into the heart and put into a zip-lock, or a vac bag making sure to get all the spice mix in with it, including any spice mix left in whatever you mixed it in. We want to make sure to get the proper amount of pink salt in the bag. Now seal it up, and put it in the fridge. Leave it for 8-10 days and flip it over every other day.

Once done, remove from the bag and rinse off the cure. You can use water… or wine. I rinsed one of them with wine. Now, cold smoke if you like for 2-3 hours, remove, and put into your dryer. Here again, watch for case hardening. Spritz as you need, and make sure you environment has 70-80% RH. It should take around 3-4 weeks to fully dry. Don’t rush this process… or you will dry the outside too fast and trap water content inside.  The idea is to keep the outside soft and pliable during the drying process. You are looking for approximately 30% weight loss.