I’ve run into a wall lately and have been looking for something interesting to write about. I was making breakfast for the kids, and I and I looked in the fridge to see about a pound of ground pork that I needed to use soon. At that moment, it dawned on me to make breakfast sausage patties. I was making a substantial breakfast anyways, so I thought this was a perfect way to use up the pork and also get a recipe out of it. I quickly looked up a couple of recipes for some basic ideas of where to start. With a base to use, I added and subtracted to balance out the flavours. I even thought about using my very special bacon salt. Yes, you read that correctly, I have bacon salt, and yes, it smells like bacon but tastes like salt. Alas, I chose not to use it for fear of overdoing the flavours.
In the past, when I made sausage, I would use my sausage stuffer to make links, but I wanted something quick for this recipe. It can be whipped up the night before or even that morning. It took me about 5 minutes to put everything together, then I formed my patties into 50-gram portions and fried them up. I could have used my burger press, but I thought rustic was just as good.
A few words of caution when working with ground pork, it is vital to keep the protein cold—not completely frozen, although somewhat frozen would be ok if you were going to use a grinder and make them into links. The meat needs to be kept cold for various reasons, the most important of which is to ensure food safety. Bacteria love warm places, and temperatures from 4C to 60C (40F – 140F) (Alberta Health Services, 2009) are the sweet spot for many types of bacteria in food. When cooking your sausage, you’re going to cook them hot enough, and you’ll know it’s hot enough because you’ll use a thermometer as I do.
After making and cooking the sausages, my kids couldn’t get enough of them. I will have to make this recipe more often, and I hope you do as well! So let’s see what makes up my breakfast sausages.
Breakfast Sausage Patties
Ingredients:
500g ground pork
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sage
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp marjoram
2 tsp brown sugar
1/8 tsp red chilli flakes (optional)
1 pinch clove (optional)
Directions:
Gather all your ingredients and use a metal bowl. A metal bowl will hold the cold longer.- Preheat a griddle to 350F or a frying pan over high heat.
- Mix all the ingredients until the spices are well incorporated.
- Measure out 50gr portions and flatten them to your preferred size.
- If you’re using a metal frying pan, add 1 TBSP of canola oil OR bacon fat (I keep a jar on my counter).
- Sear the patties, careful not to crowd the pan, though.
- Once seared, turn down the heat on your stovetop to medium and continue to cook the sausages until they reach 165F.
- Bon appetite!
