Chicken Veal Sausage

Making sausage from scratch sounds ambitious, but this chicken-veal blend is surprisingly approachable. Dark meat chicken, lean veal, and bacon get ground together into a forcemeat seasoned with a brandy-flamed spice mixture of coriander, cloves, garlic, and black pepper.

Flaming the brandy with the aromatics in a small saucepan burns off the alcohol and blooms the spices at the same time. The brief, intense heat releases the volatile oils in the coriander and cloves, giving the sausage a more complex, rounded flavor than raw spices mixed straight into the meat.

Bacon provides the fat content that lean chicken and veal lack on their own. Without it, the sausages would be dry and crumbly. Egg whites bind everything into a cohesive mixture that holds its shape whether you stuff casings, form patties, or roll them in plastic wrap.

The plastic wrap method is the easiest for beginners. Poach for two minutes to set the shape, unwrap, then finish on the grill or in a skillet.

Chef Tips

• Keep the meat and grinder parts cold. Warm fat smears instead of cutting cleanly, and you end up with a mushy paste instead of a textured sausage.
• Use chicken dark meat, not breast. Thigh meat has more fat and flavor, and it stays moist after cooking.
• Don’t overstuff the casings. Leave room for the sausage to expand or they’ll burst during cooking.
• Let the brandy-spice mixture cool completely before mixing into the raw meat. Hot liquid partially cooks the proteins and changes the texture.

Variations

• Apple chicken sausage: Add diced dried apple and a pinch of sage to the meat mixture.
• Italian style: Replace the cloves and coriander with fennel seed and red pepper flakes.
• Turkey version: Swap the chicken for ground turkey and increase the bacon slightly for moisture.