How to Make Italian Sausage
My aunt, the eldest sister in the Pantalone clan, is like our family historian — she remembers everything and is always spinning tales about my grandparents and Italian aunts and uncles making their way to America. We have generations of artists, writers and musicians in our family, but no chefs; or so I thought…
While staying with my aunt in Boston this summer, finishing my culinary internship, she began one of her storytelling sessions over dinner. I’ve heard every story a thousand times — they never get old. But this one was different. This story I had not yet heard, and involved, of all things, Italian sausage.
I had been up since 4 a.m. that day, and was exhausted after working a 10-hour shift at the Test Kitchen, in addition to the commuter rail and hour drive back to my aunt’s house. I tried to sneak into my room without notice.
“Dawn,” she said with a thick Rhode Island accent. “Do you want some dinner?”
I usually declined, too tired to do much of anything except lay perfectly still with my feet propped up on a mountain of pillows, let alone eat. But that night, for some reason, I was starving, and shuffled my way to the table.
She slid a plate of spaghetti in front of me, with our family’s red gravy, braised veal and bitter broccoli.
I buried my face in the plate, shoving mounds of spaghetti into my mouth without a pause or breath.
“You know,” she said. “We have famous chefs in our family.” I slurped up the few remaining pieces of spaghetti hanging from my mouth and looked at my aunt. I saw my mom, my grandmother, me — we all look alike. In fact, my older cousin could be my twin — we look identical. I love that connection.
Between bites of bitter broccoli and forkfulls of spaghetti too big for my mouth, I listened to my aunt weave me into the story of how my great, great grandmother started the Chiavarini sausage empire, run by generations of our family.
OK, it wasn’t really an empire, but it was a big part of Federal Hill history, providing authentic Italian charcuterie to Rhode Island for many decades.
My great, great grandmother was the last of the sisters to come to America from Italy — she had been ill and wasn’t able to travel with the rest of the family. By the time she arrived, her sisters were already well established in society, getting married, having children. She didn’t know what to do with herself, so she did what she knew best — cooking and making sausage.
She would make sausage in the evenings and hang it from every possible nook and cranny in the tiny shop she eventually opened, until the windows were completely darkened by miles of sausage links. The next day, the shop would stay open until everything was sold — whether it was 10 a.m. or 7 p.m., they welcomed customers until the last sausage sold. Then the shop would close, the family would make more sausage, and do it all again the following day.
Eventually, the sausage became famous. During a visit to Rhode Island, Frank Sinatra fell in love with the Chiavarini sausage and made a point to visit the shop whenever he was in town. I think by now, the shop was being run by one of her sons, my great uncle, (my aunt has a tendency to talk about earlier generations of family as if I know who everyone is, so I lose the story line sometimes). After a good coaxing from Frank Sinatra, the son moved the sausage company to Las Vegas, with Sinatra fronting the start-up costs.
There was also a trumpet involved (this is where I lost the storyline)–the son was a musician, also playing in Las Vegas, which is how the Sinatra connection came about. But I’m not sure if the trumpet playing son was also the one running the sausage shop, or if it was his brother.
I drifted off into thought bubbles as my aunt described the Rat Pack eating Chiavarini sausage after their Las Vegas performances. Neat.
I admit, I was proud to finally have some family connection to professional cooking, but also felt a little unworthy. My whole life, I’ve never made sausage from scratch.
As soon as I arrived home from Boston, I marched myself into Whole Foods and bought a pork butt. The pork butt sat in my freezer for two weeks as I psyched myself up for sausage. Wanting the family recipe, I searched online for days, looking for any signs of the sausage company. But when nothing turned up, I realized I would have to wing it, hoping to channel some Chiavarini guidance along the way.
My aunt offered to call our distant relatives, still living in Rhdoe Island, but I wanted to see if I could do this on my own first. My kindred spirit, my great, great grandmother, must have been sitting on a stool, right by my side, because I nailed the recipe on the first try.
Italian Sausage
Ingredients:
2 lbs. pork butt
3 tablespoons, plus 1/4 cup olive oil
8 cloves garlic, smashed but left whole
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
1 tablespoon fennel seeds
1/4 cup fresh Greek oregano leaves
2 onions, minced
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf Italian parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Cut pork butt into 1” cubes, season with salt and pepper and pulse in food processor until well minced.
Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in large skillet on medium-low. Add garlic, thyme, oregano and cook until slightly caramelized, stirring occasionally, about 6 minutes. Increase heat to medium, add fennel seeds, onions and salt. Stir to combine and cook until onions are soft and caramelized. Remove from heat and allow mixture to cool for 10 minutes.
Add cooled onion mixture, parsley and 1/4 cup olive oil to food processor, pulse until meat and onions are minced and evenly distributed.
Brown in pan for sauce or lasagna, or form into balls or patties and fry. Or, roll in plastic wrap, forming a log. Chill the logs for 20 minutes and poach before frying, or remove from plastic and fry immediately.
Notes:
Keeping it [sort of] lean:
I was trying to keep this as healthy as possible, without ending up with a dry sausage, so instead of additional fat back, I used olive oil, which worked pretty well with the pork fat already on the pork butt.
Icy butt:
Keeping the pork butt partially frozen helped achieve the perfect texture in the food processor. You can also use a meat grinder if you have one, but the food processor worked perfectly. If the meat is completely thawed though, the processor will have a difficult time cutting the fat into small bits, and you’ll end up with strings of fat in your sausage.
You don’t need casings to make sausage:
I wasn’t sure how the recipe would turn out, so I didn’t bother with casings. Instead, I free-formed log shapes, which honestly took on the appearance of turd-like torpedos [pictured above, ugly but delicious]. I also rolled some of the sausage in plastic wrap, similar to the way you would roll butter or cookie dough logs, which worked really well.
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>Wow, my grandmother was a Pantalone, and her father was a coal miner in Colorado and Wyoming. Where in Italy is your family from, as I'd love to trace a connection if there is one. Your sausage recipe is almost identical to what I grew up eating, including the use of Greek rather than Italian oregano.
>Hi Julia – we're from the Naples region of Italy and mostly settled in Rhode Island and New York.
The recipe I listed here wasn't anything handed down (although I'd like to think it was embedded in my DNA, LOL!)
>Thanks for posting about making Italian Sausage. I would never thought about going about making it your way. It would go great on the pizzas I make.
>I've dabbled in making sausage in the past, kind of had a bad experience so gave up on it. Lately i'm on a "make my own food" kick and was going to fire up some pizza's at home (gotta have sausage), really glad I ran across this recipe. It was easy, although messy (I guess sausage making is a messy business) oh well no big deal.
Final product was outstanding! Love the sausage!
Feeling really good about not eating the processed stuff from the store with who knows what in it.
>I am so excited about making this sausage today. I live in northern Germany (a transplant from Florida) and Italian sausage is unheard of here. Or I just haven't found it yet. I tried to make Italian sausage once and had to buy fennel tea-which luckily is nothing more than fennel seeds in a tea bag-since I couldn't find fennel as a spice at the store in our town. I do a lot of cooking and creating from scratch since I don't live in the U.S. where everything is readily available. I shall post again after I make the kids' lunch: Italian sausage and mushroom Calzone. BTW: I enjoyed the story leading up to the recipe, too! Great storyteller…