Venison Andouille Sausage
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 lbs venison, cubed
- 1/2 lb pork fat, cubed & frozen
- 5 cloves fresh garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons onion powder
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon white pepper
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- 1 teaspoon basil
- 1 teaspoon hot chili powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon roasted ground coriander
- 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
Tools
- Meat grinder
- Sausage stuffer
- Casings
- Smoker
- Wood chips for the smoker (we used pecan for this recipe)
Directions
Andouille is a highly seasoned Cajun sausage perfect for making good use of trim and less tasty cuts. It's also easier to make than it is to pronounce. Armed with a meat grinder and a smoker, we made ours in less than three hours (which is pretty darn good for a smoked sausage from scratch).
- Mix together all of the seasonings. Use your meat grinder to grind the meat and fat through a coarse plate. Combine the ground meat with the seasonings, then grind it through the medium plate.
- Next, use a sausage stuffer or a sausage stuffing attachment for your meat grinder to stuff the casings with the ground sausage mix.*
- Preheat your smoker to 250°F. Soak wood chips for 30 minutes. Fill the water bowl & wood chip box of the Smoker, then smoke at 250°F for two hours (or until the internal temperature has reached 155°F), under heavy smoke. To achieve heavy smoke, we recommend opening the side dampers ¼ of an inch, and keeping the top damper closed. It's important that you keep the water bowl full and change the wood chips if they ash.
- Use your Andouille in gumbo, jambalaya, or let it cool and freeze it in vacuum bags until you're ready to use it.
*After stuffing and before smoking, it's not a bad idea to vacuum seal the sausage and refrigerate it overnight to allow the flavors to bloom and marinate throughout the sausage. We were making a quick sausage, and so we went straight to the smoker. Our Andouille was awesome, but yours will be even better if you let the sausage marinate.
