Om-nom-nomenclature

Being partially Polish has left me with strong ideas regarding what criteria do and do not constitute "sausage". For much of my life, if you had presented me with a meat patty and called it "country sausage" I probably would have just fixed my stare and slowly turned my head sideways (much like a confused dog). I suppose distinguishing ground meat from tubular ground meat really shouldn't be such a big deal. However, I am weird enough to have gone through a childhood phase of eating sausage casing while discarding the meat filling.

Yup.

Anyways, for the sake of my pointless and discriminatory food compulsions, I'm going to call these seasoned-but-nitrite-and-casing-free sausage meat lumps something else. Err, turkey-maple-something something.....

Squasage
(makes a dozen)

-1lb ground turkey
-1/2 lb ground pork
-2 tbsp caraway seeds
-1 tbsp ground corriander
-1 tsp paprika
-5 cloves of garlic
-1 medium onion
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-8 fresh sage leaves, minced
-1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
-1/2 tsp ground black pepper
-2 tsp salt
-olive oil

Grate the onion and garlic into a large mixing bowl, then add in everything else except the oil. I use a mix of turkey and pork for taste and texture, but I think any white meat would do alright as long as you've got a bit of fat in it. Smush it all around with your hands until the ingredients are decently mixed, then leave for at least an hour for the flavors to properly mingle.
Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees and shape 1/3 cup portions of meat into patties about an inch thick - keeping them relatively the same size will help them cook evenly. Place a large oven-proof pan over high heat with enough oil to thinly coat the surface. Once the pan is good and hot, go ahead and lay down your meat - it should begin to sizzle immediately. Make sure to not overcrowd the pan as you need ample space to turn the damn things as well as keep the pan from getting too cool. Spend a couple of minutes browning each side (shouldn't take more than 5 minutes total) and then stick the whole pan, uncovered, into the middle rack of the oven for 10 minutes. You may need to cook the entirety of the meat in a couple of batches if your pan isn't large enough, just make sure you wash off the burnt stuff in between batches or transfer your squasage to a baking sheet as the maple in the recipe will burn pretty easily with repeat performances.

After the 10 minutes remove the pan from the oven and serve them up. They're already pretty flavorful, but drizzling them with a concoction of maple syrup and dijon mustard (about equal parts each) makes for a pretty awesome finishing touch.