Pork loin was on sale this week, packaged in half loins (roughly 3.5 kg). I picked one up and split it into four roasts. Loin usually ends up as chops, or brined and smoked as back bacon (Canadian bacon). It’s a fairly lean cut, but cut right it has some marbling and a fat cap, and it makes great ground pork if you include the fat cap.
I ground a quarter of the loin, then seasoned and brined it overnight. I fried a small test portion and decided to run the rest through the stand mixer with the paddle attachment to soften the texture. Then I formed it into balls and patties and froze them.
Sausage patties and rolled breakfast sausage are easy and cheap if you follow a few rules of thumb, all by weight of meat:
- 1.25–1.5% salt
- 3–5% water
- 0.5–0.6% MSG
- 0.5–1% sugar
- 0.5–0.75% spices
You have a few ways to control texture:
- grind: single or double, and grind size
- mixing: combined, mixed, or whipped
- hydration and time: more or less water
- fat: 90% lean is chewier, 70% lean is juicier
- additions: bread, milk, butter, cheese
This test was about mixing. A Vienna sausage is double ground and mixed until homogeneous; a farmer sausage is loosely mixed and barely holds together. For patties I want something in between.
These ranges are a starting point, not a recipe. Breakfast sausage is the tested version, a little saltier at 1.6% and with milk powder for binding. If you only take one thing from this, fry a test piece before you form the whole batch. It’s the cheapest way to fix seasoning and texture while you still can.
Paddle mixing works well with caveats:
- don’t over mix, as heat becomes the enemy (add ice instead of water, or place a second bowl of ice-water under the mixer bowl)
- use the splash guard, unless you want to decorate your kitchen with pork