Maple Sage Chicken Sausage

original blog post: http://greedygirlcooks.blogspot.com/2016/08/maple-sage-chicken-sausage.html

Ingredients (Makes 6 sausages)

For the sausage

1 chicken breast bone and skin on

2 tablespoon honey

1 ½ tablespoon oil

5 sage leaves

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 ½ teaspoon salt

1 garlic clove

1 teaspoon onion powder

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 teaspoon ground sage

To Finish

1 tablespoon oil or butter

Pure Maple Syrup

Instructions

• Remove the bone and skin from the breast meat
• Chop the skin into very fine pieces, save the bones for a stock or discard
• Cut the chicken breast meat into even cubes
• Place the chicken breast meat and skin along with all the other ingredients into a food processor and pulse into a paste
• Scoop about two to three tablespoon portions in plastic film and twist into a cylindrical shape making sure to remove as much air bubbles as possible and securing each end.
• Place in the freezer for 45 minutes to set the shape
• Prepare a pot of boiling water and an ice bath
• Remove the sausages from the freezer while still in the plastic place into the boiling water to cook for three minutes
• After three minutes remove from the boiling water and place in the ice bath to cool
• If you are not cooking immediately remove from the plastic film and place the sausages in a freezer bag and freeze until ready for use.
• If you are cooking immediately, Heat oil or butter in a pan and add the sausage links, completely brown on all sides.
• Turn constantly to prevent burning which it does fairly easily
• Once all the sides are brown add about three tablespoons of water to the pan and cover to allow it to steam cook.
• I repeated this steaming process about three or so times to make sure the sausage was cooked all the way through. I took about 10 to 15 minutes to cook my sausages on a medium heat.
• Once the moisture has evaporated from the pot remove from the heat and place in a plate
• Drizzle to coat with pure maple syrup and serve

Greedy Tips

• The chicken breast sausage without some form of fat can get dry so that’s why the skin is added. The chicken skin requires a sharp knife or for the skin to be frozen for it to cut into small pieces easily. The reason I did not use it whole is because it can sometimes get stringy in a blender and I wanted the small pieces of fat thought the meat.
• You only need the chicken skin if you use a chicken breast
• Let say you used boneless thigh meat that dark meat has enough fat in it so you would not necessarily need the skin. You could also mix the light and dark meat as well. However I prefer to use breast meat with the addition of fat for sausages just so they are a bit leaner. The skin renders off during the cooking process and helps keep the sausage juicy.
• You can also use pre ground chicken