Hot Italian Sausage

[American_Suisse]

After reading the post on making your own sausage I got to thinking how much I miss hot Italian sausage! Can't find it here so any suggestions? Would I use the same spice mixture that is suggested for the turkey sausage or something else? What is the best ratio mixture for the meat and fat? I'm considering flying back to the US just to have some hot sausages...and a pepperoni pizza with extra cheese!

[deltadoc]

I generally use Pork Butt and/or Pork Shoulder for Italian sausage.

I marinate the coarse ground meat (using my KA food grinder attachment with the large hole insert) overnight in the fridge.

I generally try to make 12 lbs at a time, as my big bowl holds that much.

I use the following:

1-2 C Red wine (drinkable red wine) (for 12lbs ground pork)
S&P (Salt about 1 tsp/lb, pepper about 1/4 tsp/lb)
Cayenne (about 1/8 tsp/lb)
Fennel Seed (about 1/4 tsp/lb)
Anise (about 1/8 tsp/lb)
Garlic (to taste - usually about 1 clove crushed/lb)
Onion powder (1/8 tsp/lb)

Measurements are rough, and can be varied according to taste and experience.

Occasionally I mix it up by adding a bit of fresh marjoram, dried basil, oregano. I don't use much if I do add these "extras" as the basic recipe above gives a nice flavorful, not too complex tasting hot sausage.

I generally grill all 12 lbs at once, whilst next burner over, I have a huge stock pot in which I am making fresh marinara/spaghetti/pizza sauce, and when the sausage is pretty much cooked through, I scoop it up and into the sauce it goes.

Simmer a couple of hours, and then we can the entire batch. Any leftovers make our meal for that evening.

It's kind of neat a year later to just make some fresh pasta (or boil some dry pasta) and open up a jar with meat already in it! I use the same sauce for pizza sauce and it's worked out pretty good too. As we've aged, we just don't seem to require as much meat in a meal to be satisfied. 12 lbs of meat stretched over 14-18 quarts of sauce really doesn't seem like all that much meat when you use it. We certainly not talking Meatsa Pizza!
doc