Low-fat and Herb-loaded Sausage

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After mixing your sausage, cook a small amount quickly in a skillet so that you can taste it and adjust the seasoning if necessary before you package it and refrigerate or freeze it. Sausage should be refrigerated overnight to marry the flavors before cooking, or as we say in Texas, “Let it set and sob.”

Sausage stuffing

Traditionally, link sausage has been made by stuffing the sausage mixture into a casing of animal intestines through a nozzle called a horn. The links can be of any diameter and tied with string or twisted off to various lengths. Today, cellulose-based ­edible casings are also available in the fall in the freezer section of many ­supermarkets, and many multiuse kitchen appliances have sausage-­stuffing attachments.

The casings should be filled evenly but not tightly as they may burst during cooking.

Sometimes we use plastic wrap to form a casing for sausages made from delicate ingredients such as seafood and poultry. The wrapped sausage is then steamed or poached in liquid. Oiled cheesecloth is traditionally used to wrap extra-plump sausages such as the Endless Summer Sausage on page 42.

Storing sausages

Traditionally, sausage links were preserved by smoking for long hours over indirect heat at relatively low temperatures, but few of us today have the equipment or conditions at home to do this. The red color of many commercial sausages such as hot dogs, salami, and summer sausage comes from preservatives such as sodium nitrate.

Because our sausages contain no preservatives, they are intended to be cooked and eaten immediately. Before cooking, they can be refrigerated for up to a week or frozen (except for Elegant Seafood Sausage and Cajun Garden Boudin) for as long as a year. Freeze raw patties or individual links on a baking sheet, pop them off, wrap them in foil, put them into plastic freezer bags, and store them in the freezer.

If you have a home smoker, there is no reason not to smoke these sausages a bit if you like the flavor; mild poultry­-based blends, especially those with fruit, benefit from a light smoking. Refrigerate the raw sausage mixture for 24 hours to blend the flavors, then follow the directions on your smoker. If you freeze your homemade smoked sausage, eat it within 4 to 6 months, as the flavors change over time.

Most of the recipes below call for fresh herbs; if using dried, halve the amount unless otherwise indicated. All of the recipes can be easily doubled to feed a crowd.

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