Looking for criticism / advice: goat/chicken merguez recipe

[Laripu]

This planned recipe is based on two others. It is an amalgam of the one from Wedliny Domowy and the one by Len Poli. Obviously, whatever is wrong with it is my fault, not theirs.

Please give me the benefit of your experience. I appreciate any advice.

These observations influenced my different choices:
1. I chose goat because I can get it here for considerably less than lamb, at butchers serving people from the West Indies and elsewhere. (Most US-born Americans won't eat goat, but I like it. I'm not US-born. )
2. Goat tastes a bit gamier than lamb, so there's less percentage of goat than I would have used if it were lamb.
3. When I made lamb/beef merguez, the bind was a bit stiff. I think it needed water and oil. On the other hand, I never have any problem at all with chicken or pork. So my "other" meat is chicken. It should also stuff more easily.
4. The idea was to make sausage that is halal for Muslims and kosher for not-too-observant Jews. ....So no pork, and no hog casings. (The meat and casings are not officially, rigorously kosher... but I don't care about that.)
5. Last time, for the beef/lamb merguez, I listened to SWMBO, who told me to cut back on the cayenne. Then she hardly ever touched it anyway. So this time it's the full measure of cayenne.
6. The links will be short, no more than 4 inches. Sausages this spicy will be eaten in small amounts, with couscous or rice, and salad.

This is what I've planned:

Ingredient..........................................Amount....Note: Using 1 tsp = 5 ml, 1 tbsp=15ml.
Lamb casings.
Goat / chicken mix (2lb/3lb), ground...........2273g = 5 lbs
Whole cumin, toasted, then ground.............9 tsp
Whole fennel, toasted, then ground.............6.75 tsp
Whole peppercorns, toasted , then ground.....4.5 tsp
Whole allspice, toasted, then ground...........1.25 tsp
Whole coriander seed, toasted, then ground...4.5 tsp
Paprika..............................................12.5 tsp
Cayenne pepper....................................4.5 tsp
Minced garlic.......................................20 cloves
White sugar.........................................2.25 tsp
Sea salt or kosher salt.............................6.75 tsp
Olive oil.............................................2.25 tbsp
Water...............................................as required

[NCPaul]

Spicy for sure. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind weighing everything when you make this?

[Laripu]

Spicy for sure. If it's not too much trouble, would you mind weighing everything when you make this?

My scale, at present, is a postal scale, only accurate to the nearest gram. So any inaccuracies will be magnified if you scale up. Nevertheless, I'll try to remember. (But I won't weigh the olive oil or water. )

Both original recipes, linked in the first post, contains weights as well as volumes.

[wheels]

It's an interesting combination - I look forward to hearing about the result.

+1 for weights (even if only approximate).

Phil

[Laripu]

I was just thinking... do you think it would be good to add an appropriate quantity of Cure #1 and cool-smoke these sausages for 4 to 6 hours? The spicing is already over the top, would smoking detract or enhance?

[wheels]

My experience is to develop recipes one step at a time.

I'd do the recipe as planned. Only if it doesn't meet expectations would I develop it further.

Phil

[Laripu]

My experience is to develop recipes one step at a time.

I'd do the recipe as planned. Only if it doesn't meet expectations would I develop it further.

Phil

That makes good sense. I'll do that.

[badjak]

I am but a beginner, so Phil is probably right.
Having said that, I would make a slightly bigger batch and add cure #1 to part of it and smoke that part and you have a nice comparison.
I think it will be very nice smoked!

One thing you might have to be a bit carefull of is the amount of fat. Goat is much leaner than sheep/lamb (I quite like goat).

Good luck and show us some pics!

[Laripu]

One thing you might have to be a bit carefull of is the amount of fat. Goat is much leaner than sheep/lamb (I quite like goat).

Good luck and show us some pics!

Hi, Badjak. I did consider the fat. But I've made a few batches of chicken sausage, using boneless chicken thighs. They have much less fat, and yet I get perfect texture. As a beginner myself, I'm not sure why that is, maybe the lower density of the meat? With 60% chicken in the recipe, plus some olive oil and water, I think I'll be ok.

I don't want to split the batch, so I'll make it one way and maybe smoke another batch when it gets cooler around here, in December.

Pictures will be forthcoming. The nice thing about a smart phone is its always around...for sausage pics, for example, or indeed, for this post.

Anyway, these won't be made for a few weeks. Unfortunately, (maybe fortunately ) this is a busy period at work, and I find myself working weekends. And, "I'm not as young as I used to was".

[vagreys]

I'm US-born and like goat, just fine. I think I'd treat the goat like venison for fat content, if it were me. Although chicken thighs are fattier than the breast meat, I can't imagine skinless thighs having enough inherent fat to make for a succulent sausage without other additions. I'd be using boned, skin-on thighs, and I'd probably be shooting for a 60/40 or 70/30 goat/chicken blend, to bring out the goat, more, but that's me. I think, if you incorporated the chicken skins, you wouldn't need supplemental oil, and the flavor would be deeper and more complex, but that's just me. I agree with Phil - part of learning is coming up with a recipe and seeing how it works. Give it a go, and adjust one thing at a time in subsequent batches until you get it where you want it to be.

[Laripu]

Although chicken thighs are fattier than the breast meat, I can't imagine skinless thighs having enough inherent fat to make for a succulent sausage without other additions.

Although I have little experience, this is something I've done three times because my wife likes low fat chicken sausage. I get 5 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs at Sam's Club. Add salt and spices; for the first two, the spice blend was mostly typical chicken herbs and spices, all dry. The last one had salt, sun-dried tomato and fresh basil. Hog casings each time. One third less salt than I use for pork. (Again, wife's preference.)

The bind seems to form very quickly. I keep mixing braid I want to make sure the ingredients are evenly integrated.

Each time, the chicken sausages came out with perfect texture, juicy, succulent. My wife likes them, an important consideration.

Everything I've read says they need more fat...my only guess is that chicken meat may be less dense than pork or beef, resulting in the nice texture. But what do I know? In these matters, "I am only an egg".

Would someone else try, to confirm or contradict my observations?

[tristar]

Hi Larry,

For sure you can make delicious juicy low fat sausages from chicken, as long as you keep the forcemeat very very cold, add enough salt to liberate the water soluble proteins which encase the added oil which you are substituting for the chicken fat, and work the forcemeat which also helps the liberation of the water soluble protiens. I personally work the forcemeat until the primary bind forms, then slowly dribble in my added heart healthy oils, pretty much like making a mayonnaise emulsion. Add the oils too quickly and they will not bind fully into the forcemeat, but do it slowly and gently and they will bind and be trapped by the protein.

Keep up the good work, and don't forget pictures of your results!

Regards,
Richard

[Laripu]

For sure you can make delicious juicy low fat sausages from chicken, as long as you keep the forcemeat very very cold

I do. That was a lesson learned early. (After my first batch - don't ask.) In between steps, everything goes in the freezer for a bit.

add enough salt to liberate the water soluble proteins

I suppose there's enough salt. But like I said earlier, it's about 2/3 of what a typical pork recipe calls for. However, I use Morton Kosher Salt, which I've read somewhere is heavier, and I measure teaspoons, not grams.

That's going to change because I'm looking around for a scale that is accurate to 0.1 grams. My current scale is only accurate to 1 gram. I've previously used that for hops, but clearly it's not good enough for 5-lb batches of sausage.

which encase the added oil which you are substituting for the chicken fat

But I'm not adding any extra oil, or fat of any kind. There's just the minimal fat that the boneless & skinless chicken thighs already have attached.

and work the forcemeat which also helps the liberation of the water soluble protiens. I personally work the forcemeat until the primary bind forms, then slowly dribble in my added heart healthy oils, pretty much like making a mayonnaise emulsion. Add the oils too quickly and they will not bind fully into the forcemeat, but do it slowly and gently and they will bind and be trapped by the protein.

I like this advice. The chicken/goat sausage, unlike my chicken-only sausage, will have some extra oil. I'll do what you suggest here, it makes sense.

Keep up the good work, and don't forget pictures of your results!

Thanks, and I will. In the mean time below is what we're currently eating, made a couple of weeks ago. Garlic / Parmesan / Parsley Beef Sausage (in the foreground) and Chicken with Basil and Sundried Tomatoes (in the background). No extra oil or fat or water in the chicken. The beef had 100ml of ice-water which I neglected to put in the recipe. Recipes for both are here.

[tristar]

They do look good Larry!

You said:

But I'm not adding any extra oil, or fat of any kind. There's just the minimal fat that the boneless & skinless chicken thighs already have attached.

.

Sorry about that error Larry, but your original recipe says

Olive oil.......................2.25 tbsp

my mistake!

I would love to see the quality of bind you are achieving, next time you cook some would you take some photographs of the inside of the sausage, just from a diagonal cut?

Anyway it sounds as if you are doing everything just right, there is a great deal of pleasure in producing something that others say is not possibe!

[Laripu]

They do look good Larry!

Thanks. By the way, the white spots in the beef sausage are not fat... that's garlic & parmesan cheese. Medicinal quantities of garlic, and lotsa lotsa parmesan cheese.

You said:

But I'm not adding any extra oil, or fat of any kind. There's just the minimal fat that the boneless & skinless chicken thighs already have attached.

.
Sorry about that error Larry, but your original recipe says

Olive oil.......................2.25 tbsp

my mistake!

Right, for the planned chicken/goat. for the 100% chicken I don't use oil. Understandable mistake.

I would love to see the quality of bind you are achieving, next time you cook some would you take some photographs of the inside of the sausage, just from a diagonal cut?

Next time we have some, I'll whip out my phone and take a couple of pics, one raw, one cooked.

Anyway it sounds as if you are doing everything just right, there is a great deal of pleasure in producing something that others say is not possibe!

Well, I wish someone else would try it too. One person's word is hearsay.... a few people repeating the result... now that's science!