Bratwurst with Caramelized Onions
Bratwurst with Caramelized Onions is a classic dish that’s much loved from back yards to board rooms. We made our sausage with a nice, fat-laden selection of ground pork, but you can grind your own meat to deliver the mix of fat and meat—while most bratwursts are made of pork, there are plenty of varieties that incorporate veal, or beef, or turkey into the mix. Roughly two pounds of product, whether that product is just meat, or meat with ingredients like onions and apples, will fill one hog casing. You can use either the classic, German-Style Bratwurst Seasoning or Hot Bratwurst Seasoning when you make this dish.
When you make caramelized onions, give yourself plenty of time for proper caramelization. Cooking them quickly makes them brown and brings out some sweetness. Caramelizing onions can take more than an hour, cooking at a medium heat, or even lower if necessary. The result of patient cooking, thought, is onions that are candy-like in their sweetness and have an almost melt-in-your-mouth texture that makes the time you spend worth it.
2-3 sweet yellow onions, about 2 cups, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon mild flavored cooking oil, divided
1 hog casing – 32-38 mm size
2 pounds ground pork
3-4 Tablespoons German-Style Bratwurst Seasoning or Hot Bratwurst Seasoning
Buns as needed for cooked bratwursts
Mustard
Equipment:
Sausage stuffer
18mm stuffing tube
1. Warm 1 teaspoon cooking oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onions and Kosher Salt and stir well to coat. Leave cooking over medium to medium-low heat until onions are soft, succulent, and golden brown. Add more oil to the pan if onions look like they are drying out during cooking. Full caramelization can take up to 90 minutes.
2. Assemble sausage stuffer if necessary.
3. Rinse casings inside and out with cool water, then soak in lukewarm water for at least 10 minutes prior to using.
4. Mix ground pork and your choice of sausage seasoning together until thoroughly blended. Put it in the feeding chamber of your sausage stuffer. Make sure it's stuffed in tightly, with as little air in the stuffer as possible.
5. When you’re ready to begin stuffing, run water through the casing one more time to help it stay open. Wet the stuffing tube with a little bit of water, and slide the entire casing onto the tube. Leave a two or three inch tail hanging off the stuffing tube; you will knot that off in a moment. Keep the bulk of the casing near the front of the stuffing tube; this will make feeding the sausage easier.
6. Slowly push a bit of stuffing into the casing. It will push any air in the stuffing tube out through the casing and prevent an air pocket from forming right away. Once that happens, make a knot in the end of the casing.
7. Start stuffing. Let the sausage fill the casing so it’s full, but not packed tight. Fill the sausage in a steady feed and let it fall onto a baking sheet or tray, until all the meat has been fed into the casing.
8. If there is still casing on the stuffing tube, pull an inch or two off the tube and cut it, then tie it into a knot. If there is any casing that remains on the stuffing tube, refill your stuffer to make more sausage, or pull the casing off so you can disassemble your machine and give it a thorough wash.
9. To make links, create pinch marks in your sausage every four inches or so. Grab a knotted end and the first pinch, and twirl the sausage like a jump rope, toward you. That will cause the casing to grab together tightly and form the link. Go to the next pinch, and twirl that like a jump rope, but away from you. This will create the second link. Move down the length of the sausage casings, alternating twirling directions, until it is all linked.
10. Prick sausage links all over with a pricking tool, a small knife, or a pointy toothpick.
11. Put remaining teaspoon cooking oil in a pan, over medium heat. You don't need more oil than that to get the sausages started; as they cook they will render more oil out into the pan.
12. Arrange sausages in pan so they do not overlap. Cook thoroughly, turning several times during cooking until brown on all sides with an internal temperature of 165°F. Cook in batches if necessary.
12. Let rest for 5 minutes off heat.
13. Put in your favorite type of bratwurst bun and top with caramelized onions. Serve with mustard on the side.
