Making Kosher venison sausage?

Hey everyone, I am going to try my hand.....again at making sausages from venison. I finally got the venison/pork mix down right...

However, a friend of mine who doesn't hunt would be interested in trying anything I make, provided it doesn't contain pork. Obviously I could use beef in place of pork but...I feel like beef would overpower the venison.

What are some alternatives to pork that I could use? Also, are collagen casings considered Kosher?

Edit: yes we did talk about how I don't know the kosher way to butcher an animal, but he and the diaspora? Synagogue congregation? Have made exceptions due to difficulty finding Kosher butchers in a lot of places.

 

To make it kosher, get a very sharp knife and a good pair of running shoes ... The Arabs sometimes cheat a bit and halal within 15 minutes or so after it's shot and say it's clean meat. (My dad lived in Saudi Arabia for about 8 years.)

If you don't have to cut the throat, you can make a deer/beef fat/garlic/pepper sausage but you will have to use more fat than in burgers or it will be quite dry. Substituting sheep fat may work better.
Mix up different small batches using variable amounts and make a small patty, fry it and taste it. Do the rest in the same manner as the best-tasting patty.
Sheep casings should be OK but they are really skinny like breakfast sausage links. Collagen may be your best bet.

 

I would just substitute mutton for pork along with beef suet. I have to ask though... is it a matter of kosher or just a reluctance to eat pork? I know the Jewish people I have meet kept separate dishes for milk products and I can't see him being comfortable with using the same meat grinder as you did with pork and the venison not having the ritual slaughter and salted if it was for religious reasons.

 

He belongs to a group/diaspora that is ok making exceptions on some things for practicality reasons. Apparently his group of people see hunting as more ethical than factory farming meat, even though technically the fact that it is killed with a rifle/hunted makes it not kosher. He does what he can, within the limits of practicality and if not eating pork is something he wants to stick with, I'll humor him.

 

I think it’s good of you to be open minded to his traditions. From Hasidic to reformed and other branches of Judaism you’ll find a range of different dietary customs. There is no reading or understanding without interpretation and this goes for kosher practices as well (and halal in Islam, and veganism for a less religious slant).
For that matter, I’m a baptist and I have food idiosyncrasies. Mostly I’m just strange. I appreciate people who respect my weird preferences though.
All that said, if he’s good with the method of taking and the crossover on kitchen items, he’s obviously willing to be flexible, and that probably extends to his expectations. You’d probably be fine not adding any fat at all. Perhaps you could use olive oil or something like that. There’s got to be something kosher that is light and won’t mess up cooking.
By the way, when I make sausage or burgers I just use venison. No beef or pork.

 

I’d suggest beef, it’s what most people use. It’s what I use. It doesn’t overpower anything. I’ve used pork fat too but prefer beef fat

 

If his religion doesn't allow good sausage, he will have to chose.
Go to hell, or don't eat it.
His choice.

 

Be careful re: collagen. Unless it specifically says it is kosher, it likely has Porky Pig parts...

As a convert, adapting to the dietary laws has been an ongoing "hardship"! I love cheeseburgers, bacon, and pepperoni pizza! Finding beef bacon at my local Walmart a few months back was... a delicious revelation (ate the first whole package all by myself!)

 

Mrs. Morris’s Uncle was a FDA meat inspector in Kansas, he once told me about meat that was “kosher”. It has to be killed by a certain person, in a certain way. Found this,

https://publicintegrity.org/health/is-kosher-meat-safer

So it probably can’t be made kosher at this point. That said, I know a few Jewish people that don’t follow the rules 100%. Some say, “well they never stampeded shrimp through a synagogue.” Or some other justification for eating non kosher foods. Maybe your friend is OK, with just no pork fat but that alone can’t make it kosher.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4655670/jewish/Is-Venison-Deer-Kosher.htm

The “according to Jewish law part” is probably where the shochet/certified part comes into play.

 

Our local butcher shop has been in business for generations... offers the choice of pork or beef tallow to blend with deer burger.

I choose pork.

 

Blend the venison into a fine paste and add some tahini to add some natural fat. Add garlic, sugar, chili pepper, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Spread out on a cookie sheet and bake on low for several hours to make jerky.

 

Interesting, I have to admit I've never thought of that. Unfortunately in this area sesame seeds are outrageous in price so I generally make it with sunflower kernels. I've never thought of using cinnamon on the jerky either. I wonder how it would mix with the bitteroot root...

 

Actually the Jews don't believe in a fiery hell. I was told their afterlife is a place of spiritual cleansing, much like purgatory. Unpleasant but not eternal. If you look at the dietary laws you will find they are pretty much common sense rules for living in a climate like Israel with no refrigeration and limited methods of preservation.

 

Many, if not most Jews don’t eat pork. Not nearly as many keep Kosher. And even fewer keep true kosher. A good friend of mine is an Orthodox Jew…Lights out Friday nights…no cars until Saturday night…and is a bourbon aficionado. He and I talk bourbon, share bottles, trade, etc…. He tells me that there are those orthodox so strict that they won’t during bourbon from distilleries that produce on Passover as part of their production cycle. So there is Kosher and then there are levels of adherence. Long story, short…I’d add beef fat.

 

You'll be making venison sausage without pork, not anything approaching kosher.

Everyone rationalizes, and that's okay.

 

For a "no pork" venison sausage--leaving aside requirements for kosher/halal, as this will not be kashered meat) I'd lean to existing non-pork sausage traditions and use a mix of ground lamb and veal. THis could run the gamut for Spanish chorizo blanco, to Bavarian weisswurst as successful recipes.

Clear beef suet or caul fat would be my preference over tallow--but that may be due to the fact I find that tallow and venison have clashing tastes; that's a personal bias. I would opt for natural beef casing, too, if only for the "snap" it would give the sausage.
But, that's just my 2¢

 

I've heard good things about oxtail fat, which is supposedly just cow tail. I'm not sure how strong the flavor is.

 

That reminded me of a story I had heard many times, my Aunt’s parents (Jewish family) had come over to my Grandparents house for dinner before becoming engaged with my Uncle and her Mother just couldn’t get enough of my Grandmothers green beans and asked her what the secret was? “Bacon grease.” Was the answer. Sometimes less information is better…

 

Kosher also means not mixing any milk and meat products together. Many commercial sausage binders/emulsifiers contain dried milk.

 

How about grinding the venison with chicken thighs or veal if you want fat with a mild flavor relative to the venison? Lamb would give you the fat, but a stronger flavor.

 

Perhaps just give him a solid piece of venison instead of going through all sorts of machinations to make it edible for him.

 

Many years ago in the pre-World Wide Web days I asked in the Usenet rec.food.cooking group "what makes kosher salt 'kosher'?" Now almost immediately I was given the answer that the salt itself is not kosher, but is used in kashering meat to make it kosher. Which is all I really wanted to know.

What I did not really understand in those days was just how many places the Usenet extends (as the WWW does today). My "simple" question started a conversation that ranged all over the world about what "kosher" is and is not. There is more than one certifying organization and the various branches of Judaism do not all agree between themselves. After several dozen posts the topic had passed beyond mortal ken and my head was spinning. I finally walked away from the thread. I have no idea how far down the rabbit hole it went.

Some years later a good friend who I had known from highschool joined a Messianic Christianity church who keep kosher so it came up again. He laughed and said he once got caught up in a debate (he called it a religious war) between several rabbis about the whole meat and milk in the same dish thing. Some were quite strict about it while others said only mammals produce milk so chicken parmesan was quite ok.

I've been too afraid to ever ask about what is and is not halal after that.

The long and the short of it is that your friend will tell you what is ok with him. I'd try clean beef fat myself. Mutton fat is too strong for me. Chicken fat is very soft. Not sure how it would affect your sausage texture.

 

^ +1.

“They” are not one person, the degree of “orthodox” varies between individuals. You won’t know until you ask.

 

The casing you are looking for are called Halal. Hey 30 - 35 mm if you want to be similar to sausage size.

Does your friend want Kosher, or just no pork? It is not just "not-pork" You need beef fat that was part of a Kosher butchering. Also, beef fat is not like pork fat. Not sure how the texture difference will be but I didn't like beef sausages. Also, kosher meat is blessed and killed ritually. You deer won't meet that. Now, David didn't eat kosher kosher rams that he killed with his bow, but that was added later. IMO, Kosher was the first FDA that made its way into religion and can't be updated now.