Turkey Pear Sausage w/Ginger & Sage

After trying to figure out how to cook hard pears (the Burfords are notoriously hard but delicious) I ran across this little gem. Wow. A wonderfully unique way to enjoy a heritage crop that often gets left behind and to make some incredibly flavorful sausage. Enjoy!

What you need:

• 1 pound of ground turkey, not lean

• 1 large pear, shredded using the larger shredding holes on a box grater (you should end up with roughly ¾ of a cup of shredded pear), drained of any excess juice

• 3 tablespoons finely shredded onion (again, use a box grater for this)

• 1 medium clove finely mashed and minced garlic

• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

• ½ teaspoon finely minced fresh sage (or scant ¼ teaspoon dried sage)

• ¼ teaspoon dried marjoram

• ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

• ½ teaspoon sea salt

• pinch of ground nutmeg

• pinch of dried coriander

Directions:

• In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients (again, make sure the shredded pear is well drained of any excess juice, or else your sausage mix will end up too loose). Gently mix together using a flexible spatula or your hands. Mix until everything is well combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

To cook sausage, form patties in the size of your choosing. Heat a bit of olive oil in a nonstick pan or cast iron skillet set over medium or medium high heat, then add the sausage patties when the oil is hot. Cook patties, being careful not to crowd the pan, until they are sufficiently browned on each side and cooked all the way through, about 3 to 4 minutes for smallish-sized patties. Makes a little over 1 pound of bulk sausage.

#Pears #SweetOnions #Garlic #Sage