Lake Trout Sausages

This is my last lake trout recipe for a while, I promise! Not only do these sausages buy you a couple days before you have to eat them (because you have to eat your trout tartare and your seared trout fillets first, remember?), they also make use of a lot of fish trimmings. I serve them with a simple mix of thinly sliced onion and fennel tossed with salt, sumac, chives, lemon juice and olive oil.

Natural sausage casings can be purchased here. As far as hardware is concerned, if you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, the food grinder and sausage stuffer attachments will do a perfect job as long as you don’t plan to start your own commercial operation.

This recipe also makes fish stock. You can freeze the stock and use it for another recipe, such as a fish soup, into which you could blend any leftover trout trimmings, as well.

Cooked trout trimmings
Yields over 10 oz cooked trimmings and 2 qt fish stock

30 oz trout heads and bones
salt
pepper
1/2 oz olive oil
3 oz onion
2 garlic cloves
8 oz dry white wine
6 thyme sprigs
3 parsley branches
24 oz water

• Season the heads and bones with salt and pepper, and sauté in olive oil over high heat in a pressure cooker without the lid. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Add the white wine, bring to a boil and simmer for a couple minutes. Add the thyme, parsley and water. Cover and pressurize over medium heat, then cook for 20 minutes. Let cool.
• Pass the liquid through a chinois and reserve for another recipe. Pick the meat from the fish heads and bones. You can keep the lean flesh, the fat, the gelatinous head matter — taste it and decide! Keep in mind this will all be blended in the sausages, so you can err on the adventurous side (do you know what meat parts are used in hot dogs?!). The amount will vary greatly based on your choice, but you should have at least 10 oz. Let cool and refrigerate.

Lake trout sausages
Yields 10 sausages

5 ft sausage casings (natural hog, 1 1/4″-1 3/8″ diameter)
2 oz butter
1 oz Arborio rice
salt
3 oz chicken stock
2 oz ice cubes
10 oz cooked trout trimmings
0.3 oz smoked salt
1 tsp Urfa pepper
1/4 tsp onion powder
16 oz cleaned trout fillet
2 tbsp chopped chives
1 oz olive oil

• Soak the sausage casings in a bowl of water in the refrigerator for 24 hours.
• In a small saucepan, melt 1/4 of the butter over medium heat, add the rice and cook for 1 minutes. Season with salt, stir in 1/3 of the chicken stock, cover and cook over low heat until the liquid is fully absorbed. Add the rest of the chicken stock in 2 more pours, until the rice is cooked. Mix in the rest of the butter and let cool.
• Transfer the rice to a blender with the ice cubes, trout trimmings, smoked salt, Urfa pepper and onion powder, and blend until smooth.
• Grind the trout fillet using the large die of the grinder. Combine with the blended mixture and the chives, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
• Rinse the inside and outside of the casings with cold water, pat dry, and stuff using a sausage maker. Refrigerate the sausages, loosely covered, for at least 24 hours.
• To serve, poke the sausages with a fork on all sides, and sauté in olive oil over low heat, turning regularly.