Chicken thighs – 1 pound – skinned and deboned
Skin of 1 chicken thigh – coarsely chopped
Rosemary stems (only firm woody stems) – Six 8” pieces – with leaves removed from the center four inches
Salt – 2 teaspoons
White Pepper – 1 tablespoon
Clove – ¼ teaspoon
Nutmeg – ½ teaspoon
Juniper – crush finely - four whole juniper berries in mortar using the salt as an abrasive
Grappa or Brandy (not flavored) – ½ cup
Water (free of chlorine and other pronounced flavors) - 2 cups (or wine or stock)
---------------
Grind the chicken thigh pieces and skin together with seasonings in a meat grinder. Food processors will not work for this as they will make the meat into a paste instead of the coarse sausage grind that is needed here. This takes only a few minutes with an old-fashioned hand-operated meat grinder that clamps to your kitchen counter.
Thoroughly mix the ground meat and seasonings with your hands in a bowl.
If you don't have are are not inclined to stuff sausage casings, then mold this mixture around a rosemary branch to a thickness of about 1 inch – removing most of the rosemary leaves from the section with the meat on it – leaving rosemary leaves at both ends of the skewer.
Refrigerate sausage (either in casings or on sticks) for one hour. Cook in some olive oil over medium high heat to brown on all sides.
Deglaze the pan with Grappa.
Add water or wine or stock and simmer until sausages are cooked through - about 5 minutes should do it. Check for doneness.