Boudin.

Boudin, after hours of prep.

“Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” –Otto von Bismarck

A few months ago, a group of women I know realized one of our friends knew how to make boudin. Boudin, in case you aren’t up on your regional sausages, is a Louisiana-centric way of making sausage. Essentially, it’s pork butt, liver, onions, garlic, green peppers, celery, rice, and seasoning, run through a grinder and stuffed in sausage casing.

Which is what we did. First, Tiffany chopped an astounding amount of pork butt (we made enough for nine people) and chicken liver. Then we added onions, garlic, green peppers, celery, parsley, green onion tops, rice, salt, cayenne, and black pepper. Mix it all together, stuff it in the casings (yes, intestines, and no, they aren’t as gross as you think), boil, and they’re ready to go. There’s a bit more to the process (see below), but that’s the gist.

This is cooked pork butt and chicken liver, going through the grinder on my Kitchen Aid.

Making boudin takes far less effort than I’d previously thought, and it opened up a whole world of sausage making to me. However, I’ve realized I need to hone my sausage stuffing skills. I’m pathetic. Also, I need to buy a special attachment for my Kitchen-Aid to stuff boudin (or any sausage). When we did this, Juju (with a name like that, yes, she’s the one from Louisiana) let us use hers.

So, here’s the boudin recipe, and realize it isn’t spicy hot, so you can serve this to even the wimpiest ones in your family. Also, if you can overcome the intestine skins as casings, you can do anything with the, Seriously. I’m toying with seafood sausage, egg and bacon sausage, vegetarian (well, except for the casing) sausage. A whole new world of yum has opened itself unto me!

I stuffed the lumpy sausages. Juju stuffed the pretty ones.

Now, the boudin:

2 1/2 pounds of pork butt (or meat of your choosing)

1/2 pound of liver (we used chicken liver, but you can use whichever liver makes you happy)

1/2 teaspoon garlic, chopped

1/2 cup green pepper, chopped

1/2 cup celery, chopped

6 cups rice, cooked

1 cup parsley, chopped

1 cup green onions (tops only)

Directions:

1. Cut pork into two-inch chunks.
2. Clean the livers. You’ll know how to do this when you see them.
3. Boil the pork and liver with everything but the green onions and the parsley in water for at least 90 minutes, but not more than two hours. Let it cool.
4. While it’s cooling, run cool, clean water through the, uh, casings.
5. Grind to medium coarse in meat grinder.
6. Mix with rice and season to taste (salt, pepper, chili pepper of your choice and amount)
7. Use your sausage stuffer attachment to stuff the boudin as you would sausage (just think about what sausage should look like as you do this; it’s relatively self-explanatory as to how to attach the “casings” to the stuffer and get things stuffing) and start stuffing. Knot between links.
8. Boil to cook and cure. A few minutes should do it. You will, I should note, still have to cook the sausage – fried in oil, boiled with jambalaya, whatever works for you.

And there you have it. You just made sausage!