Sausage (3 page)
Authors: Victoria Wise
1 cup long-grain, medium-grain, or short-grain white rice (not converted)
2 cups water
Rinse the rice briefly in a sieve under cold running water, put it in a small, heavy saucepan, add the water, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Decrease the heat until the water is barely shuddering. Cover the pot, set the timer for 22 minutes, and let the rice cook without lifting the lid. When the timer sounds, the water will have been absorbed and the rice will be tender.
Remove from the heat and set aside, still covered, to finish cooking and steam dry for 10 minutes, or even longer is okay. Fluff up the rice with a fork just before using or serving.
PORK IS BY FAR
the most widely used meat for sausages and their first cousins, meatballs. Wherever pigs can be raised and are not proscribed by religious law, pig meat, head to tail, inside and out, prevails. It is an animal that provides a reverential amount of food for the table, both in its largesse and in its taste. Pork also opens its arms wide to a world of culinary interpretations. French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Southeast Asian cooks have exploited its possibilities for centuries and elevated its culinary renderings to one of the high arts of cooking. Elsewhere, in South America, Africa, and Russia, cooks also revere the pig, although with a scarcer supply. So, I begin this sausage journey with pig tales and pig recipes.
Rustic Cornmeal Pancakes Dappled with American Breakfast Sausage and Slicked with Maple Syrup
Pork and Chestnut Sausage Wrapped in Chicken Breast Scaloppine
Butternut Squash Stuffed with Pork and Chestnut Sausage
Sage and Bourbon Whiskey Sausage with Cherry Tomato Chutney
Creole Sausage, Shrimp, and Oyster Gumbo
Black Bean Chili with Chorizo and Chipotle Cream
Spanish Egg Cake with Chorizo and Potato
Mexican Meatballs in Toasted Garlic–Ancho Chile Broth
Mexican Meatballs Simmered in Tomatillo Sauce with Black Olives
Lunch Pie, aka Quiche, with Toulouse Sausage and Spinach
Toulouse Sausage–Stuffed Duck Legs with White Beans
Pittsburgh-Style Sausage Sandwich with Chunky Tomato and Bell Pepper Sauce
Bread Pizza with Fried Egg and Sausage
Minestrone Soup with Tuscan Sausage and Arugula Pesto
Honey-Glazed Fresh Polish Sausage with Sautéed Apples
Fresh Polish Sausage Braised in Sauerkraut with Parsleyed Potatoes
Spicy Garlic Sausage Vindaloo with Dried Plum Chutney
Spicy Garlic Sausage with French Lentils and Chicory
Greek Pork and Beef Sausage with Orange Zest, Coriander, and Chile Flakes
Greek Sausage in Pita Sandwiches with Cucumber-Mint Yogurt Sauce
Pork and Water Chestnut Sausage
Pork and Water Chestnut Sausage Wontons in Watercress and Shiitake Mushroom Soup
Porcupine Meatballs with Rice Quills and Hot-Sweet Mustard
Breakfast sausage, in patties or links, is a staple of the great American breakfast plate. It’s an important player in the hearty, stoke-up-for-the-day meal that includes eggs, cooked anyway you’d like; toast or pancakes; and mugs of hot java. It is served on the road as early as 4 a.m. to truckers and workers off to the fields or factories. A bit later, it feeds tourists fueling up for a day’s adventure of skiing, mountain climbing, and other energetic activities. And on Sunday mornings, home-style cafes are filled with customers looking to splurge calories on a big breakfast out. But you don’t need to stop at breakfast when using this sausage. It also makes a delicious taco filling or pizza topping. As often as not, breakfast sausage is served in patties, but if you prefer links, you can stuff it into sheep casing.
MAKES 1 POUND
14 ounces ground pork
2 ounces salt pork, fat only, minced
¾ teaspoon rubbed sage (not ground sage)
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon dried marjoram
Scant ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon kosher salt, or to taste, if needed
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 the salt if needed. Leave in bulk and shape as directed in individual recipes or stuff into sheep casing. The sausage can be used right away. (The uncooked sausage will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 1 week.)
Sauté or grill, or cook as directed in individual recipes.
Rustic Cornmeal Pancakes Dappled with American Breakfast Sausage and Slicked with Maple Syrup
The advantage of including the sausage in the pancake batter is that you don’t have to use a second pan to cook the sausage for a side. It saves thermal unit energy, making it eco-friendly, and it saves the energy of the cook because there are fewer dishes to wash. The addition of polenta, which is more coarsely ground than cornmeal, makes for a slightly nubby texture and pleasing “bite.” For an everyday breakfast, I usually make the pancakes plate size, but they make a fine stack of dollar-size pancakes, too, if you’d like to go for “more” rather than “bigger.” Use about 2 tablespoons for each dollar-size cake; you should end up with about 18 pancakes. The batter, without the added sausage, can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days; just before cooking, stir in the crumbled sausage. Using grade B maple syrup accents the rustic theme. It is also the grade recommended by savvy Vermonters, who prefer its deeper, browner lushness over grade A.
MAKES 6 PLATE-SIZE PANCAKES
1½ cups yellow cornmeal
½ cup polenta
1½ cups boiling water
¾ cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
¾ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
1 large egg
3 tablespoons butter, melted
6 ounces
American Breakfast Sausage
Butter or
ghee
, for cooking the pancakes
Maple syrup, preferably grade B, for serving
To make the pancake batter, place the cornmeal and polenta in a large bowl and slowly pour in the boiling water, whisking to mix it in as you go. Set aside to soften the grains while preparing the remaining ingredients.
In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt and stir together with a fork. Combine the milk and egg in another small bowl and whisk to mix.
Add the milk mixture and melted butter to the cornmeal mixture and whisk to mix. Whisk in the flour mixture to make a thick, coarse batter. Crumble the sausage and stir it into the batter.
Preheat the oven to 250°F. Generously grease a heavy, 8- to 9-inch skillet with the butter and warm it over medium-high heat. Ladle about ½ cup of the batter into the skillet and cook until golden on the bottom, about 5 minutes. Flip the cake with a spatula and continue cooking until golden on the second side, 2 to 3 minutes more. Transfer to a baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm. Continue until all the batter is used.
Place a pancake or two on individual plates and drizzle maple syrup across the top. Serve.
Chestnuts are a cold-weather crop, available from early fall to the end of winter. At that time of year, when the plane trees in Italy’s town squares occasionally still have some leaves left from summer and no sign of spring is in sight, vendors set up sidewalk braziers in the piazzas and roast chestnuts over open fires. They are served up right off the grill, piping hot, in newspaper cones. You have to be out and about to get them that way, and bundled in suitably warm clothing to guard against the weather. Once you buy them, it’s a slow, peel-as-you-go proposition. But somehow the divine combination of freshly roasted chestnuts and a hot coffee from a nearby stand chases away the cold and lessens the effort necessary to pry off the invariably recalcitrant charred shells and inner skins.
With the already peeled, freeze-dried or vacuum-wrapped chestnuts now available, the pleasure, albeit without the char but also without the chore, is brought to the home kitchen year-round. If you do not use all the chestnuts in the package, freeze the remainder. If you store them in the refrigerator, they will mold after just a few days.
MAKES ¾ POUND
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup coarsely chopped freeze-dried or vacuum-packed peeled chestnuts
½ cup finely chopped yellow or white onion
1½ tablespoons finely chopped celery
½ teaspoon fresh thyme leaves or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme
Small pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon sugar
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
½ pound ground pork
In a large sauté pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the chestnuts, onion, celery, thyme, nutmeg, sugar, salt, and pepper and stir to mix. Cook until the vegetables begin to sweat, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside to cool completely.
Add the pork to the cooled chestnut mixture, and knead with your hands until thoroughly blended. Leave in bulk and shape as directed in individual recipes or stuff into hog casing. The sausage can be used right away.
Sauté or grill, or cook as directed in individual recipes. (The uncooked sausage will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days; it does not freeze well.)
Pigs in a blanket was a dish my mother made when it was time for a-something-special for dinner. Customarily, the pigs are sausages and the blankets are biscuit pastry of some sort, sometimes with a band of bacon between the two. My mother favored swathing the sausages in bacon only and cooking the bundles in the oven per the usual method. I was always intrigued to watch the care she took to turn them frequently, making sure they browned and cooked evenly all around. Later in life, I created a more sophisticated rendition: the blankets became chicken scaloppine, the pigs transmogrified to a homemade sausage, and red wine entered the ingredient list—still plenty easy, still plenty special. Pork and chestnut sausage makes the dish quite elegant, but a humbler sausage, such as Toulouse, sweet Italian, or American breakfast sausage is also suitable. The rolls can also be cooled, then sliced and used as part of a charcuterie appetizer plate.
SERVES 6 TO 8