Home-Made Sausage Patties

I've always wanted to make my own English muffins and pork sausages, mainly because they aren't easy to find here. While we can get frozen pork sausages (at prices 10 times the ordinary wiener sausages), I've never seen English muffins anywhere except for McDonald's. McD's Sausage McMuffin is the only item I like on their menu (yes, my family prefers Burger King burgers) and I do occasionally make my way there for one (ok, two) of these 'thigh-breakers'. McD's sausage patties in Malaysia are made of chicken but they taste like pork. Btw, did you know that an uproar by bloggers in Singapore against McD's replacement of the soft toy pig with a cupid toy for their current Chinese New Year offer of Chinese zodiac animals led to an apology last week by the burger chain and reinstatement of the pig toy? I wish everybody would just lighten up.

I don't have a meat grinder and sausage casings are only available in bulk from KL. I've been experimenting with making English muffins the whole week but both recipes that I tried failed and right now my poolish for the 3rd recipe is growing. I think this might be it. In the meantime, my ground pork can't wait, so I went ahead and made sausage patties, which turned out very well.

When it comes to sausages, chicken or beef or lamb just don't taste as good as pork. Pork fat is the perfect fat for sausages, being more neutral in flavor than chicken, lamb or beef fat. If you need to go kosher, then use chicken or beef or lamb. The sausages taste better if there's more fat but for health reasons, I use about 70% lean meat to 30% fat, which give good sausage patties but probably not sausages. Sausages will need more fat to make them moist and less coarse. The texture of the meat is up to you. For patties, I used a coarser-ground pork than I would if I made sausages. Since I don't have a meat grinder (a food processer would grind the meat too finely into a paste), I leave it to the butcher to grind the meat for me. Next time I would tell him to grind the meat finer because there were ungrounded chunks in the mince. I found the recipe for breakfast sausages here. Wey said the sausages were nearly as good as McD's, 'nearly' thrown in because he thinks my patties should have a little more salt. I am giving you the recipe based on my own try out which was about half the recipe in the link. Now if only I can make good English muffins I wouldn't need to get up early and get into town for McD's breakfasts before 11 a.m.


Breakfast Sausage Patties (makes 15 patties)
1.5 kg ground pork
3/4 T salt
3/4 T sage
3/4 t thyme
1/4 t ginger
1/2 t nutmeg
1/4 t white pepper
1/8 t cayenne pepper (omit if you don't like hot)
1/4 cup water

1. Mix everything together until very well blended. Test by frying a small thin patty and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

2. Divide the mixture into 15 balls, each about a fistful. Roll and pat each into a patty about 1 to 1.5 cm thick and place on a piece of greaseproof paper. Chill in the fridge to set.

3. Grease a skillet or pan and fry the patties for about 5 minutes each side, pressing the patties when you first place them in the pan to prevent the patties from growing thicker as they cook. If you press the patties after they are half-cooked, their juices will run out and the result will be dry patties. It's a good idea to make the patties thinner if you don't want to bother pressing them when you cook. Serve hot.