Make Your Own Tennessee Country Sausage

​Country-style sausage is available throughout the USA if you don't mind shopping for it in the frozen food aisle, or buying it a pre-mixed mold in the hot dog section of the supermarket. But we were aiming for something with less chemicals and nitrates, and closer to the oink where sausage comes from.

​So we found and adapted an old unsigned recipe from the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee.

​TENNESSEE COUNTRY SAUSAGE

​3 pounds of medium-lean ground pork (purists may want to buy 2 pounds of lean pork and 1 pound of pork fat, then grind them and mix together).
1 tablespoon salt
​3 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (plus a pinch more if you like your sausage HOT.)
1 teaspoon sage
​1/2 teaspoon rosemary
2 teaspoons garlic

​In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Using your hands, work the mixture well into the pork, taking care to make sure it is distributed evenly throughout the pork.

​Shape the sausage into the 3-inch patties, about 3 ounces each. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Wait until the pan is hot, then add the patties. Cook 4-6 minutes per side, making sure the sausage is cooked through the center. Drain the patties on a paper towel, turning them once.

​We like to serve ours with grits topped on the plate by a spoon of pan gravy.  Sweet potato pancakes, like the ones they make at the Pancake Pantry in Gatlinburg, Tenn., would round out this Tennessee breakfast in sound fashion.