Deer Sausage Gravy and Biscuits

Clay is running out of high school the way a river runs out of mountain: fast, gaining speed, impossible to stop. He's in that stretch of senior year where everything is "last" — last track meet (he ran track too, just sprints, nothing serious), last prom (he went with a girl named Haley from his government class, wore a rented suit, danced exactly zero dances according to Tyler who was there), last time he'll sit in Mrs. Patterson's economics class not understanding supply and demand curves.

Prom night I made myself stay up until he came home. Midnight curfew. He walked in at 11:47 — early, which is a good sign or a bad sign depending on your perspective as a parent. He was still in the suit. He looked tired and slightly bewildered, the way you look when you've been in a loud room full of people your age and you realize you're already elsewhere. "How was it?" I asked. "Fine," he said. "Haley's nice." That was the full prom report. From a Hensley male, "fine" and "nice" constitute a detailed narrative.

I made breakfast this week that I want to preserve: Betty's gravy and biscuits, but the variation she made with deer sausage. In Evarts, Earl hunted deer every November and Betty made sausage from the ground venison — mixed with pork fat (you need fat because venison is too lean), seasoned with sage, red pepper flakes, salt, black pepper. She formed it into patties and froze them, and on special mornings — Saturdays, holidays, the morning after a good snowfall — she'd fry the deer sausage and make gravy from the drippings.

Deer sausage gravy: fry the sausage patties, crumble them slightly. Don't drain. Add flour to the drippings — three tablespoons — and stir until it browns. Pour in milk, stir constantly, let it thicken. The gravy has a gamier, more complex flavor than regular sausage gravy because the deer meat is wilder and the sage is sharper and the whole thing tastes like a Saturday in November when the kitchen was warm and the mountain outside was dusted with frost.

I made it with store-bought deer sausage from the farmers market because I don't hunt anymore. Used to — hunted with Earl when I was a teenager, sat in tree stands in the cold, waited for the deer with the patience that the mines would later demand. But I stopped hunting when I left Harlan County because hunting is connected to the land and the land is connected to the mountain and the mountain is something I left. Someday, when I go back — if I go back — I'll hunt again. For now, I buy the sausage and make the gravy and taste the mountain through a middleman.

So that’s the recipe I wanted to set down before Clay walks across that stage and everything shifts again. Betty’s deer sausage gravy—the one that came from Earl’s November hunts and her cast-iron skillet—felt like the right thing to make this week, when every morning with him still at the kitchen table counts as a kind of last. The gravy doesn’t care about graduation or proms or supply-and-demand curves. It just tastes like the mountain, and for now that’s enough.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 40 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

For the deer sausage:
1 lb ground venison
1/4 lb ground pork fat (or fatty ground pork)
1 teaspoon dried rubbed sage
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
For the gravy:
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups whole milk
Salt and black pepper to taste
For serving:
6 large buttermilk biscuits, homemade or store-bought, split and warmed

Instructions

Mix the sausage. In a medium bowl, combine the ground venison, ground pork fat, sage, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. Mix with your hands until the seasoning is evenly distributed. Form into 6 thin patties, about 3 inches across.
Fry the sausage. Heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage patties and cook for 3–4 minutes per side, until browned and cooked through. Use a spatula to crumble the patties into rough, bite-sized pieces in the skillet. Transfer the crumbled sausage to a plate. Do not drain the drippings.
Make the roux. With the skillet still over medium heat, sprinkle the 3 tablespoons of flour into the drippings. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon for about 2 minutes, until the flour turns a shade darker and smells nutty.
Build the gravy. Slowly pour in the milk, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Keep stirring as the gravy comes to a gentle simmer. Let it cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring often, until it thickens enough to coat the back of the spoon.
Finish. Return the crumbled deer sausage to the gravy and stir to combine. Taste and adjust salt and pepper. If the gravy gets too thick, add a splash more milk and stir.
Serve. Spoon the deer sausage gravy generously over split warm biscuits. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Deer Sausage Gravy and Biscuits — A Mountain Morning Before the Last Things End