Maple-Glazed Homemade Breakfast Sausage Patties

St. Patrick’s Day makes some of us think about dealing with the results of the excessive consumption of alcohol. When I was in college, one of my morning after cures was to head to the local IHOP (International House of Pancakes for those of you not familiar with this restaurant chain) on Storrow Drive in Boston or to a local diner, either the Grecian Yearning in Allston or Johnny’s in Newton (neither exist anymore sadly) and eat a huge greasy breakfast to neutralize all the acid in my stomach. But going to an IHOP or any other diner for that matter, is damn near impossible when you can’t have eggs or milk. So we needed recipes for the morning after, or just when you want a really huge breakfast because you really, really love breakfast.

I was going to do one huge breakfast post, but it would be too long, too hard for you all to search for the recipes after, and posting five or so recipes in one day might be a bit much even for my Type A slightly manic personality. So I’m going to break it up into several posts for this Monday and on Monday the 25th. (You may have noticed that Mary Kate and I switch off weeks on the Monday recipe posts.)

So without further ado, I give you the first recipe of our Hangover Breakfast series:

Maple Glazed Homemade Breakfast Sausage Patties

• 1 pound of ground pork (do not get anything leaner than 80%/20% or they will be dry as dust)
• 1 teaspoon of rubbed sage
• 1 teaspoon of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt (or any other brand of seasoning salt)
• 1 teaspoon of Sriracha  (if you don’t have Sriracha, substitute any hot sauce, or a 1/2 teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes)
• 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
• a pinch of ground cloves
• a pinch of nutmeg
• a dash of marjoram
• 4 Tablespoons of maple pancake syrup (You can use real maple syrup, but the fake stuff works too.  Just make sure you check labels, as many brands contain milk.)

Place pork and all ingredients except maple pancake syrup in a bowl.  Using your hands, mix all ingredients until the spices are evenly incorporated throughout the pork. (Think making a meatloaf or meatballs). Again using your hands, form ground pork into patties.  I was able to make six patties with the amount of ground pork called for in this recipe.

In a large skillet, fry the patties over medium heat so that they have a nice sear on them, about 3-5 minutes per side depending on the heat of your burner.  (Pork should be cooked until the temperature reaches 160°F for food safety.)

Once the patties are cooked, add the maple pancake syrup to the skillet and heat it through, flipping patties to coat them in the syrup. Place the patties on a plate and serve. The following picture isn’t the greatest, but I think it shows the maple glaze better than the main picture above:

Pair these with some waffles, pancakes or home fries (see our Sriracha Oven Roasted Potatoes recipe) , and enjoy!