Ukrainian Sausage

Course: dinner, lunch, Sausage

Cuisine: Ukrainian

Keyword: Ukrainian sausage

Prep Time: 1

Cook Time: 30

Total Time: 1 30

Servings: servings

Calories: 360kcal

Author: Victor

Ukrainian sausage made the traditional way with lean and fatty pork, salt, pepper, bay leaf, and lots of garlic.

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Ingredients

2 lbs lean pork see notes
1/2 lb pork back fat or pork belly
3-4 cloves garlic see notes
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 1/2 bay leaves
2 1/2 tsp kosher salt heaping

for stuffing

6 feet beef or hog casing 38-40 mm in diameter

Instructions

Cut the meat and fat into 3/8" to 1/2" (about 1 cm) pieces.
In a mortar or by hand, break bay leaves into small pieces.
Peel and press garlic into a separate mortar. You may use whole cloves but it will be easier if you press it first.
Add salt, bay leaf pieces and ground pepper to the garlic.
Pound with a pestle until some garlic is liquefied and the mass looks wet and homogeneous.
Add the garlic to the meat in a large mixing bowl.
Mix well until the meat is sticky, about 5-8 minutes.
Stuff the seasoned meat into 38-40mm hog or beef casings. Tie the sausage on both ends and form a spiral. You can also make a few smaller sausages. Prickle the surface with a needle to eliminate air pockets.
Heat two tablespoons of butter with a tablespoon of olive oil in two cast iron or carbon steel pans.
Sear each sausage over medium heat until you see good browning, about 3-4 minutes.
Using a spatula and your other hand, flip each sausage and continue searing for another 2-3 minutes.
Transfer to an oven preheated to 325F and bake for 20-30 minutes or until the sausage registers at least 160F inside.
Remove from the oven, carefully transfer to a large cutting board, let rest for 5 minutes, slice or cut into pieces and serve with your favorite side dish.

Notes

You may use pork butt instead of lean pork. In that case, skip the fat and use just the pork butt with any additional fat.

You may also finish cooking the sausage on the stovetop. After searing, drop the heat to low, add a little bit of liquid or beer to create steam, cover the pan with a lid and cook for about 15-20 minutes. Read more about this method in my bratwurst pan-cooking article, it works really well.

This recipe would traditionally use quite a bit of garlic, up to a whole head. The harshness will go away during cooking but there will be plenty of garlic flavor. I've modified the recipe to use only about a third of the amount of garlic. If you don't like garlic too much, you may further reduce the amount of garlic to 2 cloves. But if you like a lot of garlic, use half to a full head, who knows, you may like it.

Nutrition