Why is sausage-meat stuffing different than meatloaf?

My lovely (Scottish) hubby, after enjoying cornbread stuffing twice over Thanksgiving week, said in a plaintive voice, ‘Can we have sausage-meat stuffing for Christmas?’ I think my melting pot North American ways, my experimental nature and my need to adjust all foodstuffs to keep dairy and gluten at bay occasionally frustrate the poor man who at heart likes things to be simple. My initial questions as to what exactly it was he was looking for by saying ‘sausage-meat stuffing’ didn’t’ really illuminate anything for me either.

My other problem of course is that I cannot go out and buy ‘sausage-meat’ since all sausage in the UK (almost) comes fortified with breadcrumbs or some such and is therefore not gluten free. So I have to figure out what flavourings make it not minced pork but rather ‘sausage-meat’ and then figure out how to transform this substance into something he will recognise as stuffing. In my experience, sausage stuffing is stuffing (bread-based) with some sausage in it. I could certainly make something stuffing-like from something approximating sausage-meat - but I think he’s looking for a taste from his childhood and not some multicultural or fridge-clearing delight that I’ve been inspired to throw together.

Fortunately, I’ve been saved by Sausagelinks. They’ve spelled out the ingredients for homemade sausages with an understanding of how they work together – the need for there to be enough fat, some grain item (for me probably homemade gluten free breadcrumbs or rice flour) and the appropriate herbs and spices (at its simplest salt, pepper and possibly sage). Sausagelinks seems to be a clearinghouse for information about independent sausage producers and provides a nice set of recipes as well as sausage ‘news’ with notes about new items and details of food events.

Now that I know how to put together ‘sausage-meat’, I have to work out the stuffing part. In a nutshell, it seems as if to make it ‘stuffing’ rather than a misshapen lump of sausage, it needs to be further ‘watered’ down with breadcrumbs, chestnuts or some similar substance to ‘soften’ the meat texture and then bake/roast or steam and then slice (or stuff into a bird). I have to say, as much as I like all kinds of stuffing and as much as I am sure the flavourful bird drippings add tons of flavour, my food poisoning sensitivities are too strong to cook something as dense as another wad of meat inside a bird. It just seems that either the bird would be leather or the sausage-meat would be underdone.

So, what happened when I tried it? Well, first of all, he loved it. It was essentially served as a meatloaf – sliced warm and served with a baked sweet potato and creamed corn (you can take the girl out of America…..). I did make my own gluten free breadcrumbs by toasting slices of gluten free bread in a low oven until dried and then pulsing in the food processor. I made ‘sausage-meat’ by adding salt (actually a seasoning mix called 'Jane’s Krazy Mixed Up Salt’ which also has herbs and dried onion and garlic) and pepper as well as some dried sage and some nutmeg. There was 500g for pork mince so I added 50g of breadcrumbs. Then I looked at the next several recipes and made something up – I added another 40g of breadcrumbs, chopped chestnuts and some olive oil for some additional fat. I moulded it into the bottom of the bowl, popped it out and put it into a small roasting pan and roasted it at around 180 degrees C for about 40 minutes. I left it resting for around 15 minutes before slicing.

I was dubious about the texture of all those breadcrumbs – but it was a hit with hubby. He liked the dense texture and felt that it was nicely moist. I have some adjustments in mind for when I make this at Christmas though – I think an egg or two would help the texture and I think a couple of slices of smoked streaky bacon put through the food processor and mixed in would help. I also think that while I followed the recipe in terms of the percentage of seasoning based on weight, and at the time thought it would be far too much, I would actually add even a bit more. I’ll let you know how it goes…