Smoked Venison Hot Links

All of the best summer cookouts that I have ever attended had two things in common. Lemon Pepper was used liberally and in addition to whatever was being served, someone with a hand towel draped over their shoulder was grilling hot links. Unnaturally crimson, salty, snap when you bite them hot links. Here in Arkansas it seems that former football star Earl Campbell has the hot link market cornered. While Earl Campbell makes a delicious sausage, I thought that we might be able to produce a product just as delicious, but with more easily pronounceable ingredients and exponentially more honestly obtained.

With that in mind I decided to try my hand at crafting a higher quality venison based hot link for this summer. Making sausage at home with wild game is one of the easiest ways to make something really transcendent with the protein you bring home from the wild. At its simplest all you need is a grinder and a large bowl. The grinder can be an old hand crank relic or a higher end electric model. If you really wanted to you could accomplish a passable mince with nothing but a knife and time (I’d only recommend that in very small batches). For this recipe I’m going to assume that you have a means to grind your meat, you have at least a small table top sausage stuffer, and you have access to hog casings to stuff the sausage into. If you don’t have a stuffer, no worries, you can still make the sausage and just patty the meat up and enjoy it that way.

This recipe draws a lot of inspiration from a traditional Hungarian Paprika Sausage with the addition of some ingredients and different preparation techniques. The result is a vibrantly bright red/orange sausage with lots of garlicky, salty, snap. The caraway seeds add some balance without turning it into something weird.

There isn’t anything particularly difficult about this recipe so don’t be intimidated if you haven’t done this before. We are basically making meatloaf and stuffing it into a tube. Nothing fancy. If there are a few new to you ingredients (like instacure or natural hog casings) a quick Amazon search will get you set up. If you take the time to whip this up I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a meat eater, hunter or not, that won’t insist on you bringing them to the next cookout.

Ingredients

3.5 lbs venison

1.5 lbs pork butt with fat

1.5 tbl Sweet Hungarian Paprika1

tbl ground carraway

2 tbl whole carraway seed

2 tbl granulated garlic

2tbl kosher salt1 tbl black pepper

2 tsp dry mustard powder

2 tsp red pepper flakes

1 level tsp instacure

1 natural hog casings for stuffing

2 cups ice water

Grind your venison and your pork separately, then mix together and run through the grinder again. This will ensure a good blend and give us the smooth texture that we are looking for.

Put your meat in a large non-reactive bowl and allow it to chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

While you wait, rinse your hog casings thoroughly in cold water and leave them to soak in more clean cold water. This will get most of the salt out that was used in the preservation process. Also, go ahead and mix all of your dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

Once your meat has had a chance to chill, it’s time to mix everything up. Distribute the dry ingredients as best you can over the meat then start mixing with your hands. Add splashes of ice water to help distribute the spices and to create a unified consistency. After mixing by hand for a few minutes allow the meat to chill for another 30 minutes. After 30 minutes pull it back out and adding a few more splashes of ice water as needed mix the meat again for another few minutes. The meat should have a bright orange color throughout and you should be able to see an even distribution of caraway seeds. You will also see that the meat forms what looks like small hairs when pulled apart. That’s when you know you have achieved a good mix. Now put the meat back in the fridge while you prepare the stuffer.

Run the meat through the stuffer and encase your sausage. * When forming links I use the tip of my thumb to the end of my pointer finger stretched out to gauge length. Now, just pile the sausages on a rack or a parchment paper lined cookie sheet in the fridge overnight or at least for 4-5 hours. This will allow a tacky surface to form so that we can the smoke sausages and truly make them hot links. If you dont want to smoke them or just don’t want to wait, you can take the sausages straight to the grill or the pan. I’d encourage you to wait and smoke them first though, it will be worth it.

Next day smoke your sausages on indirect heat at @225 for 1-2hrs. Just get them to 160 degrees. They’ll have plenty of smoky flavor by then. I used apple wood, but feel free to use whatever wood you have at hand. You can let the hot links cool first or you can go straight to the grill. I waited about an hour while I prepared sides before I grilled.

Last step is to throw those bad boys on a grill to crisp the casing and develop that bright red color.

Now you have it… Comfortable, familiar, delicious and something you can be proud to serve to your family and friends. I assure you, if you have people in your life who stick their noses up at wild game or the idea of you hunting, these hot links can change minds. Serve sliced or on a bun, but in my book mustard is a gotta have.

• At some point I will do an instructional on the actual mechanics of making sausage (as far as temps, specifics on equipment, and techniques). For now, if you aren’t sure, there are a ton of videos on Youtube that can show you a step by step. Additionally, I’m always happy to answer specific questions. Just ask.