Homemade Chicken Sausage Recipe – Oven-Baked in Natural Casing

Step-by-step recipe

1. 1. We really wanted the homemade sausage to be tender. But chicken becomes rather dense after cooking, especially the breast. We settled on the dark meat – thighs turned out to be ideal. We also added turkey fillet to the mixture. These are easy-to-find meats sold everywhere. If you like, you can add duck breast and thighs or other poultry to the mixture.
      
   2. If the meat was frozen, thaw it all in advance. That said, chilled poultry that has never been frozen is widely available now. Wash the chicken thighs and remove the skin. Cut out the bone and cartilage. If there is some fat left on the meat, it is best to keep it. Grind the chicken in a meat grinder. Wash the turkey fillet and trim off the membranes. Cut the fillet into small cubes. We decided not to grind the turkey finely, so we didn't put the fillet through the grinder. As a result, our sausage had distinct pieces of meat in a smooth filling.
      
   3. To give the chicken sausage a pleasant spicy aroma, we added fragrant spices. Salt and pepper the mixture, add 1-2 pinches of coarsely ground hot pepper, 0.5 tsp ground coriander and a little thyme, rubbing it between your fingers into a powder. On top of that, we added a little ground fenugreek (also known as shambala or utskho suneli). It is a very aromatic spice, so add it carefully and in moderation. By the way, fenugreek is the main ingredient of the Bulgarian seasoning sharena sol, which you can use instead.
      
   4. To keep the chicken sausages from being dry, you need to add fat to the mixture, ideally chicken fat. There is a small problem with that: chicken fat is not pork fatback, and there is little of it on a chicken carcass. So freeze a piece of butter in advance, then grate it straight into the mixture. Mix the filling well with a spatula or spoon. Don't use your hands, or the butter will melt.
      
   5. The mixture does not need to rest; it is ready for stuffing. Wash the prepared hog casings and check them for tears. However much you want the sausage to be long and continuous, if the casing is torn, you will have to cut it at that spot and tie off the ends, giving you two pieces of casing. Rinse the casing well before stuffing, as it is sold packed in salt and preservatives.
      
   6. Homemade sausage is stuffed by hand or with whatever gadgets are at hand. When I was little, the handiest tool was a wire ring or the handle of a pair of scissors – it worked well, but it was tiring and slow. Nowadays meat grinders come with a special attachment that goes on in place of the blade and plate. It looks like a tube, and the casing is pulled onto it. As the grinder feeds the filling, the casing fills and slides off the attachment on its own, forming the sausage. All you have to do is watch the filling, making sure there are no air pockets or tears.
      
   7. Tie all loose ends of the casing with cotton thread or simply knot them. It is a good idea to run your hands along the whole length of the chicken sausage to check how evenly it is filled. If a section is packed too tight, squeeze the filling toward a less full part. Coil the stuffed sausage into a spiral.
      
      
   8. To make further cooking easier, tie the coiled sausage with cotton thread, securing all the turns of the spiral and the ends. Don't tie the casing too tight, or it may tear and the chicken sausage will burst. Then you will have to cut it and tie off the ends. By the way, if you decide to make individual chicken links, tie thread at every gap between them.
      
      
   9. We always parboil chicken or meat sausage a little before roasting. Before that, we prick the casing with a toothpick in many places, every 5-6 cm, and also pierce any visible air pockets. Pour 12-15 cm of cold water into a pot wide enough to fit the tied sausage coil. Put the sausage in and heat until the water just begins to boil. Cook the chicken sausage at a gentle simmer for 4-5 minutes.
      
   10. Lift the chicken sausage out of the water by the thread and transfer it to a roasting dish or a baking sheet greased with vegetable oil. Parboil all the sausage coils this way. There is no need to dry the casing – it is hot and will dry quickly on its own. Brush the parboiled sausage with a thin layer of vegetable oil.