Form the sage breakfast sausage patties: either form by hand or spread the mixture over a baking sheet lined with wax paper and cut out the patties with a ring mould or round cookie cutter. Heat about a tablespoon or so of Olive Oil in a skillet that has a tight fitting lid over medium high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the sausage patties.
It is best to make sausage using minced meat, which you buy in the stores, or mince it yourself. Using beef, pork, chicken, goat, lamb, turkey, duck, quail, mutton, and even fish, crab, or lobster, all will be a perfect fit.
Magnesium sulfate. Magnesium sulfate. I've not heard of anyone using Epsom salt in sausage. I've also seen the term "English salt" applied to sea salt flakes. There is a couple of companies in England that still market "English salt" which is premium sea salt. Maldon is one example.
In 1890's England was a Superpower, producing huge amounts of gunpowder (black powder) a main ingredient---saltpeter. In this time period, you didn't make 100 lb. batches of fresh sausage without a way to preserve it----add saltpeter and smoke it. Refrigeration and freezing would have been rare. This explanation makes alot of sense to me.