Sausage doesn't have to be greasy to be good

Editor's note: Don Mauer is taking some time off. This column originally appeared Dec. 19, 2001

With the holidays bearing down at a high rate of speed, I began to think about family celebrations when my grandparents were still here. One in particular came to mind, my maternal grandfather: Whitmore "Tot" Haynes.

On the rare occasion Tot ventured into the kitchen, he relished making two things: sausage, especially knackwurst, and flapjacks the size of dinner plates for breakfast.

It's been decades since Tot passed away, yet I can still picture him tucking a big napkin into his shirt and enthusiastically digging into his "flapjack sandwich:" fried eggs and bacon sandwiched between buttered flapjacks surrounded by a maple syrup moat.

That sandwich never appealed to me, yet his enjoyment infected all who sat near him.

Don't get me wrong. I, too, loved buttermilk flapjacks with real maple syrup, crisp salty bacon and soft-yolk eggs; but I don't want them commingling on the plate.

Tot never concerned himself with calories or fat - big flavor ruled his day. When I lost more than 100 pounds in 1990, "low fat" or "low calorie" sausage did not exist. Deeper into the 90s, a few low-fat sausages appeared in supermarket meat sections; some were pretty good, others were awful.

To my knowledge, no company ever figured out how to cut the fat from Italian sausage, so I created my own, putting it on a homemade pizza that tasted pretty darn close to the higher fat version.

After my weight loss, I pushed aside bacon as my favorite breakfast meat selected ham as a more respectable lean substitute. But when my travel schedule went from practically never to often, I frequently ended up in hotel dining rooms or motel lobbies for breakfast buffets, where I noticed the aroma of sage-and-pepper-infused breakfast sausage drifting past my table.

The scent finally got to me on one trip and I ate one. Greasy accurately captures its essence. Not much of a surprise really since over two-thirds of its calories came from fat. If I wanted a breakfast sausage, I'd have to make it myself.

For special weekend breakfasts I would grind pork tenderloins and try different seasonings until I had exactly what I wanted. I would make a big batch and freeze 15 or 20 patties for another time. However, I never believed that many people would be willing to go to all the trouble and expense.

Then, about two years ago I spied a package of "lean" ground pork at my local supermarket. I took a pack home and mixed in the seasonings and voila! Sausage.

Using a nonstick skillet and a whisper of olive oil, I cooked those patties for a Sunday morning breakfast. They weren't greasy and tasted as good as, or better than any breakfast sausage I'd ever eaten. My patties packed the perfect flavor punch and everyone who tries them raves about them.

Here is the recipe, my holiday gift to you.

If pork isn't an option at your house, substitute lean ground chicken and add a ½ cup of drained, unsweetened applesauce to the mixture and mix it in thoroughly to add moisture and a great flavor note. Your chicken patties will brown better too.

Happy Holidays!

• Don Mauer welcomes questions and recipe makeover requests Write him at don@theleanwizard.com

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Recipe</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=259493">Easy Breakfast Sausage Patties</li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>