This recipe is from Paul Bertolli's book Cooking By Hand (ISBN: 0-609-60893-2). This is a very thoughtful book from an excellent chef. His recipe for fresh sausage was interesting to me because it did not call for fennel (thought it does use anise seed) and because it calls for cooked pork skin. His recipe (scaled to five pounds) with my small changes noted.
3.5 pound lean pork (I used 1535 g)
1 pound fat back (I used 336 g)
0.5 pound pork skin (I used 140 g)
40 g salt (I used 30 g)
7 g ground black pepper
1.5 g dry sage
0.5 g cayanne
7 g fresh garlic smashed
4 g anise seeds
7 g dextrose
69 g ice cold water
The pork skin is cooked for 30 minutes in boiling water then frozen and ground through a medium plate twice. This is mixed with the meat and fat along with the spices and ground through a medium plate. The sauage meat is mixed with the water and then stuffed into hog casings.
I allowed the sausage to bloom overnight and poached them at 170 F for 30 minutes. After a quick frying, I had this
This sausage has a very "meaty" texture and is nicely flavored with the anise seed and pepper. The sage and garlic are present but more in the background. Very worth trying.