Craig’s Thread
http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/100440/first-time-stuffer-andouille
This is Poli’s
http://lpoli.50webs.com/index_files/Andouille-Cajun.pdf
I have used both and both are good recipes although as always I had to bend them both to my will, the same as you will. NOLA’s recipe is not bad either.
Cajun andouille should be pork, hand cut (But I grind mine now that I have a ¾” plate). I am saying large chunkie meat and fat! In Louisiana we have cayenne, you are not known for jalapenos or ghost peppers. But during a Boucherie (a communal butcher party), special things were always saved to make the meats special. Black Pepper! It’s the secret to andouille. Yes it has the Cajun, thyme, cayenne, garlic, and salt. Everything else is what you like in your seasoning. Seriously. Andouille is NOT a meat sausage; andouille is a seasoning meat like salt pork or Tasso. It’s made so that on wash day a link of sausage, a handful of bean and a handful of rice was all that was needed (ok, ok, ok… maybe an onion if ya had some!), and could be cooked while doing the wash. What that really means it’s built to be self-sustaining.
Beef middle casing was the traditional casing. I use very very large pork casings. Andouille is not meant to be a stand along sausage and I always assumed it was the reason for the large casing so it couldn’t be confused with the sausages, much like coloring cure pink. In them olden days the andouille was the only cured “sausage” (I use this term loosely), everything else was smoked ground meat.
So its all about cracked black, cayenne, some thyme, garlic, and salt. Throw in some cure and smoke it.
Finally I apologize, I can’t share my recipe because it’s sold now nationally, and its not mine.. Not the original recipe that I use, although it’s still a close kept secret and I can get the seasoning but not the recipe. LOL.
If you hang with the above, you can’t go wrong ‘cause that is what we had to make it with. We lacked green seaweed and montosodiumglutinate…. LOL
I think Craigs would be my first choice.