sausages

Looking for interesting things that chefs have been doing with sausages. Any interesting sausages you have made yourselves, or any interesting combinations using sausages. Also, what would cause a chef to make rather than buy their own sausages. Looking for information for an upcoming article. Thanks.

[Pete]

Why wouldn't a chef want to make his/her own sausage? Though it may seem intimidating at first, it really is very easy when you get the hang of it. Besides, it makes great sense from a cost standpoint. I save all my meat scraps in the freezer until I have enough to make a batch. I save a ton of money by using these scraps to make game sausages.

At my house the current obsession is Cajun and Creole sausages. Some of our recent home sausage-making successes have been boudin with pork liver, and andouille. My husband is the resident sausage smoker and after a number of attempts has come up an excellent smoke flavor using a combination of hickory and black cherry.

We live in the Chicago area, my mother-in-law recently found some andouille imported from New Orleans which she purchased for us, it was unusual, and excellent, because of the large chunks of smoked pork mixed in with the ground sausage meat. We had not seen this combination of ground and chunked meat, and will try it out when we make our next batch at home.

I have been interested for some time in the history of andouille sausage and progression from the French to Louisiana style; modern French andouille and andouillette could not be more different than Louisiana andouille. I would love to hear from anyone who is also interested in home sausage-making.