Breakfast sausage patties

Makes 1.5 lbs. sausage, about 24 small patties

What has happened to the breakfast patties served in most restaurants these days? Drab, boring, flavorless. Many of them come from large food service companies. Sadly, they are seriously lacking in flavor. These folks don’t want to offend anyone by tantalizing their taste buds, so instead you get something closer to hospital food.

So, we went to work in our test kitchen. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt inspired this recipe with his relentless explorations of food.

Ingredients

• 1 lb. protein (ground chicken, turkey or pork – or an amalgamation)
• 6 strips bacon, sliced into ¼ inch cubes
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp ground sage
• ¼ tsp dried marjoram
• ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 TBS maple syrup
• 2 TBS cooking oil (avocado or extra light olive)

Directions

1. Combine meat, spices, and syrup in a large bowl and blend with a large spoon until homologous. Transfer to a gallon freezer bag and refrigerate 12-24 hours.

2. Place a food processor bowl and blade in the freezer for 15 minutes. Working in ½ cup portions at a time, place the seasoned protein into the food processor and pulse 20-50 times. Remove the blended meat and run the next ½ cup. Repeat until all the sausage meat is ground and the bacon is truly part of the blend.

3. Create small patties using a falafel stamper, slider mold, or by rolling out links and place onto parchment paper.

4. Heat a large skillet to medium-high (375⁰) and add 1 tablespoon of the cooking oil. Place ½ of the patties/links into skillet. After 1 minute, sear the sausages. After two minutes turn the sausages, wait another minute and sear them again.

5. Remove sausages when the internal temperature of the sausages reaches 170 degrees using an instant read thermometer. Repeat step 4 for the other half of the sausages.

Tips

• You can make these in batches and store them in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
• Use clean protein (organic poultry, heritage pork) and as many organic ingredients as you can get your hands on for the best flavor and healthiest product for your body. You’ll be way ahead of the average-joe restaurants.
• The best cooking skillet for the job is stainless or cast iron, using a metal spatula, which will provide a nice browning to the sausage.
• Beware of using only white meat, which ends up without much depth of flavor. Ground turkey, over ground turkey breast reveals the best results.
• The red pepper flakes add a nice, slightly hot kick. Add less if you don’t care for that, or add more to amp it up.

SH/June 2020