Chef Phoebe's Blog

Some of you may ask what I did today.  My answer is this:

Sausage Class 101

I made sausage.  Lots and lots of dee-lish-ous sausage.    Last month I signed up for a Sausage 101 class with Ryan Farr of 4505 meats.  (4505meats.com)   The class was awesome; fun and hands-on.  Ryan’s sausage making skills are impressive to say the least.  Sausage is one of those things that I simply don’t make at home, but I really appreciate a high quality fresh sausage and it’s hard to find!

Today we made three different sausages and took home about two pounds of each.  (Alert:  Sausage Party at the Schilla House tonight!) The sausages we made were: Maple Breakfast Sausage, Pork and Pecorino Sausage and Chicken and Beer Sausage.   Ryan really made sausage making easy and fun—the hallmarks of a good teacher.   There were 12 students in the class.  Small enough so that we all could ask questions and get our hands dirty and big enough so that the work was evenly divided.

The Maple Breakfast sausage was delightful. It has a slight sweetness from the maple syrup, a hit of pepper, and a whiff of sage.  On a biscuit with gravy it would be absolutely divine.  (Go see 4505 meats at the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market if you want to try one.) Next up was the Pork and pecorino sausage which had an exceptional flavor and mouthfeel—it was saturated with flavor with out being heavy or cloying. The texture and flavors of 4505 sausages make them stand out from the pack.  They all have an ethereal quality to them and are beautifully balanced and textured. Last but not least was the chicken and beer sausage which was so much more than just chicken and beer!  It is enriched with cream and eggs.  Dried apricots lend a sweet note to the savory character of the beer.  This particular sausage would be lovely served with some sauerkraut, sautéed apples and a glass of Riesling on the side (a full bodied Belgian Style Ale would be lovely too).

Ryan also teaches whole hog and whole lamb butchery classes which I’m looking forward to taking later this year.   I’ll let you know how that goes!  Check him out at the Ferry Building Thursday Farmer’s Market from 10 to 2 if you want to try some of the best sausage I have had in recent memory.

Tags: Add new tag, Chicken, Maple syrup, Meat, Sausage

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 9:30 am and is filed under From the Studio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.