Jerk Chicken/Pork Sausage

[nlife]

I was watching Celebrate Sausage the other day and seen a jerk chicken sausage. I have a recipe for smoked jerk chicken that the wife loves. She wishes that we could have it year round. Perhaps this is a good alternative?

My preference is for Jerk Pork so that is acceptable as well.

The recipe I use has green onion, onion and scotch bonnets, the rest is soy sauce, salt and spices. All of this is pureed, and used as a marinade for whole meats. That's where I'm running into problems thinking this through. I assume you have to account for the salt in the soy sauce and salt in the recipe, though I've never done a recipe with vegetables before. Up until now I've only gone by the recipe, or by a rule of thumb of 100g per kg when doing up a batch of smoked sausages. Pureeing the vegetables creates a lot of water since the solids are no longer, well, solid.

Am I overthinking this? Or is it as simple as mixing up a batch of Jerk Pork marinade, adding it by the gram-per-kg and accounting for it in the water?

Any tips or advice on this?

N

 

[mike243]

Are you wanting to add cure for some reason? if not marinate as always, if it is good to cook I would grind it and reserve a little of the marinade, do a test cook with a piece of it before you stuff it. that way you will know how it will turn out. add some to the ground meat if you need more flavor. as it sets the moisture will evaporate and leave the spices in the meat.

 

[nlife]

Thanks for the reply mike243 . I hadn't thought of marinating it first then grinding it. We tend to marinate the meat for a day or so, then reserve a portion of the marinade for basting as we cook since you don't get full meat penetration on larger cuts like pork shoulder. Plus the bark is really something else.

We typically hot smoke the jerk chicken/pork when we cook it so I could omit the cure and hot smoke these. Ultimately, I'd like to smoke these to cooked, then store in vacuum packs and freeze. That way we can reheat on the grill and enjoy smoked jerk throughout the winter months when smoking is difficult.

I read Marianski's write-up on chicken sausages. It seems like it's pretty straight forward in terms of overall processing, seasoning and stuffing, but they note that chicken presents a higher risk for bacteria and that the chicken skin contains more water than collagen when compared to other fats. When it's subjected to heat, the fat melts and creates oily pockets. They suggest adding pure pork fat to the sausage to help prevent this.

They do provide an all chicken sausage recipe that is processed, cured, stuffed and smoked. They give it a hot smoke and finish by poaching at 176f to an IT of 160f. Given all of this, I think I'll start with a jerk pork sausage first.

My initial thoughts are to make up a small batch jerk pork marinade and add it to the ground meat. I'm thinking I'll cut the kosher salt out of the marinade recipe and rely on the salt in the pork sausage. I'll likely have to reduce the water added since there's liquid in the marinade.

I guess it's a bit of trial and error from this point...

 

[nlife]

Finally got around to making a small batch of these. I used regular ground pork since it's all that was available and I was NOT going to brave costco to pick up a roast given the christmas rush and all.

It was a bit of trial and error, but I was able to get the result I wanted. I mixed up a half batch of the jerk sauce I usually use. 6 Scotch bonnets, 1 bunch green onions, 1/4 onion, 1/4" ginger, vinegar, soya sauce, and spices. I kept the salt out of the sauce since it's easier to control the overall amount of salt by adding it directly to the sausage as it's being mixed.

I cut the amount of ice water to 60ml/kg and I think I could cut it even more since the sauce has a fair amount of moisture in it. A binder would likely be a big help in this case, but alas, I won't be receiving my order until the new year. Supply shop is closing until Jan.

Ingredients per-kg:

- Pork
- 16g Kosher Salt
- 150g jerk sauce
- 60g ice water
- 2.5g Cure #1
- 29-32 hog casing

I was in a bit of a rush as we were going to visit friends in the evening so I was only able to get an hour of smoke on them. They aren't as deep rich color as I'd like, but this really was just a way to see if I could recreate the jerk pork shoulder we usually do in a sausage.

After smoking for an hour with temps ranging between 160-180F, I pulled them at 135f and gave them a quick hot water bath to bring the temp up to the final 142. I overshot the temp a touch with the sausage hitting 155ish. I did give them a quick ice bath to cool them off before drying and putting on a rack.

I put two on the grill for the wife and I. She prepped up some Red and Yellow bell peppers along with sliced onions and gave them a quick fry. We like to add a bit of mayo and cheese on a bun then pile the sauteed veg on top for the jerk pork sandwiches we usually make with leftovers. It's her favorite part of jerk pork. So onto the pics!

Out of the water bath and cooling. You can see chunks of green onion and some yellow bonnets in these.

Off the grill

Into a toasted bun with cheese, mayo, and a pile of sauteed veg.

My wife's final verdict was: "We're not giving any of these away! We're going to freezer pack and freeze them." These have dethroned both the Cheddar Smokie and the Brats as her favorite.

I'd say that it's a success and can only get better from here as I tweak things some.

 

[checkdude]

Wow! It's great when a plan comes together. Congratulations. Any chance for the seasonings mix for the jerk mix? Thanks for posting.

 

[nlife]

Wow! It's great when a plan comes together. Congratulations. Any chance for the seasonings mix for the jerk mix? Thanks for posting.

You bet! Its a recipe we found in a cookbook we picked up years ago. It eventually fell apart so we took the recipes out we liked and put them in a binder. Wish I could recall what book it was so I could give the author credit... Anyways, the recipe for the marinade I used in the sausage is:

Ingredients:

• 2-16 Scotch Bonnet chiles (you can sub in habanaro if you can't find Scotch bonnets, though I really prefer scotch bonnets)
• 2 bunches scallions (green onions, or spring onions depending on where you live)
• 1/2 medium-size onion
• 1 piece (1") peeled ginger
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 TBSP fresh thyme, or 2 tsp dried thyme
• 2 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (I've always used powdered)
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 3 TBSP soy sauce
• 3 TBSP coarse kosher salt (I left this out for the sausages)
• 1 TBSP light brown sugar
• 2 TBSP vegetable oil

The original recipe wants you to chop some of this into really small sticks, but then tells you to put it all into a blender! Now all we do is coarse chop everything and dump it all in since it's going to get pureed anyways.

Most often we marinade a bunch of bone in, skin on, chicken thighs in this and smoke them up at 350f for about an hour. Reserve some of the marinade to baste the thighs. It forms a great bark. The same can be done for a pork shoulder, though my wife prefers jerk chicken over jerk pork. I'm happy either way.

This is what I was trying to recreate in a sausage format.

 

[checkdude]

thank you very much for that. can't wait to try it.

 

[checkdude]

It took me some doing but I finally got some peppers. I don't know about yours but these pack some serious heat.lol! I'm going to be careful how much I mix into the meat. You said to use 150g. In 1 kilogram. That would be spontaneous combustion for me ha ha.Have some ground pork to play with.

 

[nlife]

The scotch bonnet is a close cousin to habanero's. They pack some heat, but I find the bonnets have a better flavor. The nice thing about using a jerk sauce for this is that you can mix up a batch with a few bonnets and give it a small taste test. If its hot enough, stop there. If it needs more, add in 1 or 2 and keep working your way up testing along the way.

Depending on your peppers and the amount you put in, 150g could be mild to wild. Do keep in mind that the mayo, cheese, fried veg and bun soak up some of the heat. I'd suggest you make a half batch and try it on a sample of pork to see if you like it. Obviously the smoke changes the flavor a bit.

All this talk about jerk sauce has me wanting some jerk chicken now.

 

[checkdude]

The scotch bonnet is a close cousin to habanero's. They pack some heat, but I find the bonnets have a better flavor. The nice thing about using a jerk sauce for this is that you can mix up a batch with a few bonnets and give it a small taste test. If its hot enough, stop there. If it needs more, add in 1 or 2 and keep working your way up testing along the way.

Depending on your peppers and the amount you put in, 150g could be mild to wild. Do keep in mind that the mayo, cheese, fried veg and bun soak up some of the heat. I'd suggest you make a half batch and try it on a sample of pork to see if you like it. Obviously the smoke changes the flavor a bit.

All this talk about jerk sauce has me wanting some jerk chicken now.

thanks for the reply. yes i only did 2 lbs. and used 30% of the sauce as the fry test seemed hot enough. the sausages are in the smoker right now so i'll see soon. i have enough bonnets for 200 lbs lol!