I have been making my own sausage for many years but I have never made any type of breakfast sausage. I always see the pre-made kits for breakfast sausage at the store but I have never really cared to make it. This seems strange to me because I love to eat breakfast sausages. I have eaten many different types of breakfast sausage including a buffalo breakfast sausage at Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis that was amazing. So what was it about breakfast sausage that kept me from making it. Maybe I didn't think it was exotic enough, or maybe I didn't know what to do with it, other than serve it with eggs and pancakes. I don't know.
A few weeks ago I sat down and watched an episode of Anthony Bourdain's show Parts Unknown. It was the episode about Canada and the episode spent a good amount of time focused on Martin Picard. It got me motivated to go back and look at his cookbooks and while reading through his book "Sugar Shack" I found a breakfast sandwich that looked entirely to good to pass up.
In Picards recipe he gives the directions for everything and it is a beautiful sandwich. I just couldn't get up the motivation to make my own English muffins. The basic concept of the sandwich was to take breakfast sausage an English muffing and Foie Gras and make a breakfast sandwich. Picard also fries an egg in maple syrup for his sandwich but I haven't tried that yet. That might be next on my to do list.
Back to my sausage, after reading the recipe from Picard I finally got the motivation to make my own breakfast sausage and inspired by him I felt the sausage should have maple syrup in it. I had recently been given some antelope and I felt that the natural sage-iness of the antelope would make a superb breakfast sausage.
I was correct antelope is the perfect meat to make a breakfast sausage. My sandwich turned out to be magnificent. I used a cranberry English muffin, then fried a breakfast patty, seared some foie gras and then fried the egg in the foie fat. I dressed it up with a little maple mustard which was just equally parts maple syrup and country Dijon. Hands down it was the best breakfast sandwich I have ever eaten.
Maple Breakfast Sausage
4 lbs venison or other game meat
1 lbs pork fat
40 grams kosher salt
1 large finely diced shallot
1 1/2 tsp white pepper
2 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 a nutmeg, freshly grated
2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp chipotle powder
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 cup maple syrup
Grind the meat and fat according to your grinders instructions, then mix in all the other ingredients. Mix by hand or in a mixer. I prefer to leave it in bulk and make patties but you could case this into sheep casings to make breakfast links.
