Smoked and Cured Pork Sausage Patties

The first time I had this sausage was at a restaurant which many of you know about. "Cracker Barrel" is a slice of Southern cooking heaven. At first look, the sausage has a pink color and taste of cured ham. This was delicious and intrigued me so I set out to make my own recipe.

I tried several recipes from smoking forums as well as off the shelf spice blends, not really getting great results. I then consulted Mike, one of my long time friends that used to butcher when he was young and he recommended a spice blend called AC Legg #10. I tried this one and several others but the #10 was it.

Smoking the sausage was also an issue, it needed cold smoke for a long period so I had to rely on the weather for low ambient temperatures. This proved to take too long and while it did impart a smoke ring it also made the meat more difficult to remove from its cloth casing.

After a couple of mediocre recipes I decided to try a split on the meat mixture. 70% ground pork butt and 30% ground bacon trimmings. This was key, adding the ground bacon gave the sausage just the right amount of smokey flavor without all the work.