Sausage (12 page)
Authors: Victoria Wise
Swedish Potato and Beef Sausage with Roasted Beets and Sour Cream
Partially cooking the potato and chilling it before grating serves two purposes: the potato gets thoroughly cooked within the sausage mix, which it won’t if it is added raw, and the sausage doesn’t turn out soft and mushy, which it will if the potato is cooked and mashed first. I prefer to get a jump start on this dish by preparing the potato a day ahead and chilling it overnight. But if you’re in a rush, several hours will do the trick, in which case, use the freezer to hasten the chilling. Rather than the standard Swedish accompaniment of mashed potatoes, I serve the sausage with a side of colorful, almost candylike roasted beets topped with sour cream.
SERVES 6
Sausage
1 large russet potato (10 ounces)
½ pound ground beef
2 ounces salt pork, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped yellow or white onion
Rounded ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
Rounded ¼ teaspoon freshly ground white pepper
2 tablespoons heavy cream
Kosher salt
Beets
18 baby or 3 medium beets, preferably a variety of colors
1½ tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons butter, or more if needed, for sautéing the sausages
1 cup sour cream
To make the sausage, peel the potato, cut it in half crosswise. Place the halves in a medium pot, add water to cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook briskly until a fork can pierce through the outside but meets resistance at the center, about 8 minutes. Drain, cool, and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, or preferably overnight.
Grate the potato on the large holes of a box grater and transfer to a medium bowl. Add the beef, salt pork, onion, allspice, pepper, and cream, and knead with you hands until thoroughly blended. Cook and taste a small sample, then add salt if needed. Stuff into hog casing or form into ¼-inch-thick patties. Use right away, or cover and refrigerate for up to overnight.
To prepare the beets, preheat the oven to 375°F. Place the unpeeled beets in a baking dish large enough to hold them in a single loose layer and add the oil and a splash of water. Cover with aluminum foil and bake until tender, about 45 minutes for baby beets and about 1 hour for medium beets. Remove from the oven and let stand until cool enough to handle. Peel the beets while they are still warm and cut into halves, quarters, or wedges about ¾ inch wide, depending on their size. Place in a medium bowl, add the vinegar, and toss to coat. Set aside.
To cook the sausage, melt the 2 tablespoons butter in a medium sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add as many links or patties as will fit without crowding and cook, turning once or twice, until slightly golden and cooked through, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a platter. If necessary, continue with another round, adding more butter to the pan as needed.
To serve, garnish the beets with a few dollops of sour cream and serve alongside the sausage. Pass the remaining sour cream in a bowl at the table.
Faced with a surplus of leftover bread—enough crumbs stockpiled and nothing requiring croutons at the moment—I turn to a savory bread pudding. Since bread puddings remind me of British cooking, I whip up a sausage with typical English aromatics, add dried pear for tasty curiosity, and
ecco
!—a pudding-pie for dinner. The dried pears should be unsulfured, rather than sulfured, because they are less sweet, making them more suitable for this dish.
SERVES 4 TO 6
Sausage
½ pound ground beef
1 ounce salt pork, minced
1 tablespoon
fresh bread crumbs
½ teaspoon dry mustard
⅛ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon powdered ginger
¼ teaspoon dried sage
¼ teaspoon dried summer savory
⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon water
Kosher salt
Pudding
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts
⅓ cup chopped dried pear halves, preferably unsulfured
¼ cup water
3 large eggs
2 cups milk
4 cups cubed day-old baguette or other artisanal country-style bread with crust (1-inch cubes)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¾ teaspoon freshly ground black or white pepper
To make the sausage, place all the ingredients except the salt in a medium bowl, and knead with your hands until thoroughly blended. Cook and taste a small sample, then add salt if needed. Use right away, or cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days.
To make the pudding, preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly butter a 3-quart baking dish.
In a medium sauté pan, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Add the leeks and pears and stir to mix. Add the water, decrease the heat, and cook gently until the leeks wilt but remain bright green, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.
In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Add the bread, leek-pear mixture, salt, and pepper, and then add the sausage, breaking it into small clumps. Stir to mix and pour into the prepared dish.
Bake until toasted on the top and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes. Let rest for at least 10 minutes or up to 30 minutes before serving. Serve warm.
The countries of east Europe are a disparate lot, continually at odds over issues of religion and governance. But, as nearby neighbors, they share a cooking culture over and above those differences. This sausage and the following recipe for Hungarian meatballs in a sour cream sauce are my imaginative combining of the foods that this corner of the world can share without rancor or strife. The sausage, formed into balls and sautéed, can also be served with cucumbers in a light vinaigrette and potato salad dressed with dill and sour cream for a meze plate.
MAKES 1 POUND
1 pound ground beef
1 cup
steamed white rice
, cooled
¼ cup minced white or yellow onion
½ teaspoon caraway seeds
1 teaspoon hot or sweet Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon chopped fresh marjoram or ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Place all the ingredients in a bowl, and knead with your hands until thoroughly blended. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to overnight, to firm the mixture.
Leave in bulk and shape and cook as directed in individual recipes.
Hungarian Meatballs in Paprika Sour Cream with Hungarian Green Bean Salad
By curious circumstance, I found myself in Vienna in 1968, shortly after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and just over a decade after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. I was there for the International Philosophical Congress, which didn’t hold my interest long. There was much more to see and experience outside the confines of academia. Aside from the eternal beauty of Vienna as a center for music, the fine arts, and fine pastries, the streets were filled with people—Czechs as well as Hungarians—who had taken refuge in the welcoming city following the invasion of their countries. The energizing buzz over the politics of the time was everywhere, expressed in Czech, Russian, Hungarian Magyar (a language unrelated to nearly all other European languages and incomprehensible to ears unfamiliar with it), and in other tongues as well. But, as always, the food served as a binding, cohesive force. The city’s dining establishments, casual bistros and more formal restaurants alike, were filled with east Europeans, Viennese locals, and tourists like me, all looking for something good to eat. In addition to the impossible-to-resist Viennese fare, there were many Hungarian dishes which had become a familiar part of Viennese cooking. That is when and where I discovered the essential tastes and food combinations of east European cuisine, and, more important, that no matter what, food of the homeland is never left behind.
SERVES 4
Green Bean Salad
1 pound green beans, trimmed and left whole if small or cut into 1- to 2-inch lengths if large
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1½ tablespoons cider or sherry vinegar
1 shallot, minced
¼ cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
½ teaspoon dry mustard
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Meatballs
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive or canola oil
1 pound
East European Caraway Beef and Rice Sausage
, formed into 1½-inch balls
½ cup finely chopped yellow or white onion
½ cup water
2 teaspoons sweet Hungarian paprika
1 green bell pepper, quartered, seeded, and cut lengthwise into ¼-inch-wide strips
1½ cups peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped tomatoes (fresh or canned)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup sour cream
First, make the green bean salad so it can marinate. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the green beans and cook rapidly until quite limp and tender but still bright green, 5 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the green beans. Drain and transfer to a serving bowl. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, shallot, parsley, and mustard. Pour the dressing over the beans and toss to mix. Season with salt and pepper and set aside at room temperature for 1 hour, or refrigerate for up to several hours, but not overnight.
To cook the meatballs, heat the oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the meatballs and sauté until lightly browned all around, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer the meatballs to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan.
With the pan still over medium heat, add the onion and stir to coat with the fat. Add the water, paprika, bell pepper, tomatoes, and salt and stir to mix. Return the meatballs to the pan, turn them gently about to mix them in, cover the pan, and gently simmer until they are no longer pink in the center and the vegetables are tender, 15 to 20 minutes.
In a small bowl, whisk the sour cream until smooth. Add it to the sauté pan and stir gently to combine.
Spoon the meatballs and sauce into a serving dish and serve hot, with the green bean salad on the side.
Hmong farmers, fleeing Laos to escape persecution, began arriving in the United States in the latter half of the 1970s, with the majority arriving in the 1980s. Most of them eventually settled where they could continue their agrarian life: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, and California, especially in the fertile land around Fresno, California. This occurrence is especially remarkable to me because it is where my Armenian relatives also settled three generations ago to farm in one of most bountiful growing places in the world. And I benefit still from that abundance.
Notwithstanding the lengthy trip to the Bay Area, Hmong-grown vegetables from Fresno appear in glorious array at my local Oakland farmers’ market every Saturday, alongside the Armenian stand from the same area with its effusive display of fruits, heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, and Armenian cucumbers. Among the Hmong staples for sale are sturdy Asian brassicas, such as Chinese cabbage, Chinese mustard greens, and choys of several kinds; luffa (ridged gourd) and Chinese bitter melon; okra and small pickling cucumbers for my holiday pickle jars; and long beans for my Asian-to-new-Californian dishes. Together these two vendors supplement each other and pay tribute to the marriage of Asian and Mediterranean culinary ingredients in California’s hot and prolific Central Valley. It’s enough to incite a food frenzy and cook up something healthful and delicious, such as this hearty yet delicate Hmong-style main-dish soup.
SERVES 4
Meatballs
1 pound ground beef
2 teaspoons minced green chiles, such as serrano, jalapeño, or Thai bird
¼ cup finely chopped scallions, white and light green parts
¼ teaspoon Asian sesame oil
¾ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
Soup
2 teaspoons peanut or canola oil
6 ounces slab bacon, cut into 1-inch squares ¼ inch thick
½ cup thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts, or ½ white onion, sliced ¼ inch thick
8 cups water
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1½ pounds Chinese mustard greens or Chinese cabbage, trimmed and coarsely chopped
Steamed white rice
, for serving