Goose sausage is a must if you happen to hunt geese, especially Canada and snow geese, which are often skinned.

Canada geese are especially good, as they are large and meaty and the devil to pluck — I typically only pluck the nicest of my Canadas — you end up with a lot of skinned meat, mostly from the breasts and those big ole’ legs.

You really can make any sausage designed for beef, lamb or venison using goose or duck meat, and you can cut pork 50-50 with goose in those sausages and not lose a lot of character.

One tip if you use pork is to try and find never-frozen pork belly or shoulder to cut in with the goose. The reason is because unfrozen pork will bind to itself better than any other meat, and so will give your goose sausage a better bind.

Like most dark meat sausages, many of which come from Northern Europe, goose sausage loves smoke. Use whatever smoker you have around, but I use a Traeger Timberline. As for wood, anything goes, but I prefer cherry or apple.

Making these goose sausages requires some equipment, however. You will need:

A meat grinder. If you have a KitchenAid mixer, buy the grinder attachment. It works OK. Weston and The Sausage Maker both make excellent grinders.

A sausage stuffer . You can get them special order from a restaurant supply store, or over the internet on sites such as The Sausage Maker . Buy no smaller than the 5-pound version.

. You can get them special order from a restaurant supply store, or over the internet on sites such as . Buy no smaller than the 5-pound version. Casings . Regular hog casings are fine here, but you could use narrow sheep casings or some of the thinner diameter beef casings, if you wanted to.

. Regular hog casings are fine here, but you could use narrow sheep casings or some of the thinner diameter beef casings, if you wanted to. A smoker. If you can’t hang these sausages comfortably, they will not be right. You can of course not smoke them. They will be good, but not the same.

Once made, these sausages will keep a week in the fridge, and for years in the freezer if you vacuum seal them.