Stone Barns Sausage

We picked up some killer sweet Italian sausage from Stone Barns and it was the best fresh sausage I've had anywhere. Juicy and flavorful with an almost porchetta thing going on. This sucker was made from Berkshire pork raised on the farm, so I don't know if that mystique added to the deliciousness or not, but it really kicked massive ars.

The problem is that although the product was awesome, my technique was not. I thought I could cook it over a medium heat to get some nice browning and maybe finish in the oven, but the medium heat caused these suckers to split and it still ended up raw on the inside. So, I adjusted the technique and it worked out pretty well. This is more of a steam, then brown method. But, I've seen some other techniques online that I may try.

1) Place the sausage on top of some hearty vegetables (e.g. mustard greens, kale, or collards with some onions and garlic) cooking over low heat in a covered saute pan to steam them. Make sure the sausage does not touch the pan at all, since you want this to cook through without color. I find this to be much better than boiling them since I don't want to lose any flavor in the water. This will also season the veg with sausage fat making the veggies taste hella good. About 5-7 minutes.

2) Remove the sausage and let it rest for 10 minutes on a plate. Juices will start escaping from the sausage and you'll want to add these back to the veggies in the pan.

3) Pat the sausage dry with some paper towels, so they'll crisp up nicely. Let it sit on the paper towel for about 10 minutes so it's pretty much completely dry.

4) Brown the sausage in a new nonstick pan over medium heat with some extra virgin olive oil. Brown them nicely on all sides - about 5 minutes. Buono appetito! You now have some delicious veggies with a juicy, crispy sausage.