Cooking The Books

Italian Sausage, Savoy Cabbage and Gorgonzola Lasagna

As a child I was fed pretty well.  I got to eat quite a few of the treats I wanted and we had frequent Chinese and Indian takeaways (which I'm sure had a huge effect on my tastes now) but of a normal every day meal everything was cooked from scratch and there was always plenty of vegetables to be eaten.  My mum did have a bit of a mince obsession though and so whilst I had plenty of home cooked food, the leaning towards - and by leaning I mean weekly occurrence of - chili, spag bol and lasagna has left me with a bit of dislike of the three of them.  Whilst chili con carne and spag bol are never craved I do have the occasional desire for a lasagna still, although it is never the usual bolognaise and bechamel version, and one such occasion was last week. 

The Italian sausage (or what Americans call Italian sausage anyway) is a wonderful thing, loaded with fennel seed and garlic, sweet with sugar and hot from chili, it transforms tomatoes into an instant meat-filled sauce, or crumbles into a near-perfect pizza topping, where I like to pair the sausages' fennel seeds with thin slices of the bulb, briefly sauteed in butter and garlic.  Whilst you can buy them from Italian delis not everyone has them nearby but luckily the sausage's lack of filler, and propensity to be used removed of their skins, lend themselves to making at home.  If you're using them for pasta sauces and pizza too a little goes a long way, so I like to make a batch and freeze in small portions, wrapped in clingfilm and bagged together. 

Whilst I didn't have any of the sausage made I did have pork mince and the required herbs and spices, savoy cabbage and some gorgonzola and the idea for this sprang to mind.  I'm glad it did as it was gorgeous.  The meat sauce was sweet and heavily seasoned - the pork loving the savoury balance of its green bedfellow -and the gorgonzola added richness in spades.

Italian Sausage

Simply mix it all together

500gr minced pork

1 ts fennel seeds

1/3 ts black peppercorns

1/2 ts chili flakes

1 - 2 cloves garlic

1 ts salt

1 ts sugar

Italian Sausage, Savoy Cabbage and Gorgonzola Lasagna

500 gr of Italian sausage

1 tin tomatoes, liquidised

1/2 a savoy cabbage

1 small onion

125ml red wine

12 sheets of lasagna

500 ml of milk

25 gr butter

25 gr flour

100gr gorgonzola

Nutmeg

2 bay leaves

Handful or two of pecorino or parmesan

Method

Finely chop the onion then fry in a little oil till soft.  Add the sausage meat and brown, breaking up with a spoon as you go.

Add the wine, the tomatoes and half a tin of water, bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer for 40 minutes. topping up with water if it dries out.

Add the savoy cabbage and cook for a few more minutes until wilted.  You may want to add some water here too, remember the pasta will soak up quite a bit when baking.

For the white sauce melt the butter, add the flour then cook for a couple of minutes to get rid of the raw flour taste.  Add the milk, whisking constantly to get rid of lumps.  Chuck in the bay leaves and give it a good grating of nutmeg then simmer for a few minutes till thick.  Add the gorgonzola and whisk till smooth.

Now to construct.  You're going to do three layers of each so make sure you split accordingly.  First off layer one third of the meat mixture then top with four sheets of lasagna then a third of the white sauce.  Repeat another two times.

Finish with a handful or two of whatever cheese you chose then bake at 180 for 35 minutes.

Remove and allow to rest for ten minutes before serving.  I like to serve with a salad, which is good for cleansing the palate afterwards.

Scottish Scotch Eggs

"Yes!" Wallace shouted back. "Fight and you may die. Run and you will live at least awhile. And dying in your bed many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here as young men and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they will never take our eggs!"

Even with William Wallace's fierce devotion to the snack his knowledge of its origins are somewhat misplaced as, contrary to what the name would suggest, Scotch Eggs aren't remotely Scottish, they were invented by Fortnum & Mason in the 18th Century and take their name from the Olde English verb 'to scotch', meaning to wrap in meat and breadcrumbs then deep-fry. As such the Scottish in the name of these Lorne sausage wrapped beauties is far from redundant.

Paint your face blue and white and tuck in.

Scottish Scotch Eggs Recipe

Ingredients

Makes 4

500gr of Lorne Sausage, bought or made (recipe here)

5 medium eggs, room temperature

Breadcrumbs, made from 3 slices of liquidised stale white bread

A little plain flour

Method

Bring some water to a light boil then boil 4 of the room temperature eggs for 6.5 minutes.  Remove, crack the shells all over (this will burn your fingers) and then dump in iced water for 10 minutes to cool.

Split your Lorne sausage into 4 and wrap aropund your eggs.  To do this I spread each lump on a piece of clingfilm till about 15cm round, then wrap around the egg.  Once it's a nice shape (pinch the joins so well connected) you can peel the clingfilm off.

Beat the final egg with a pinch of salt.  Dust each meat-covered delight in plain flour, then dip in egg then breadcrumbs, coating well.

Heat oil to 160C then deep-fry the eggs for 6-7 minutes, until golden and cooked through, before draining well on kitchen roll.

I like to serve with mustard, just make sure it's not English.

Toulouse Sausage with Potato Salad

I remember watching Rick Stein's French Odyssey years ago and he visited Toulouse, home of the fine sausage.  For some reason I'd always thought of it as being something heavily seasoned, something that would linger on the breath, but he spoke of a lightly cured sausage with nothing more than pepper seasoning it in some instances, other makers adding a splash of wine or some nutmeg.  The more I read about the classic sausages of the world the more I find that are just the same, a couple of simple seasonings that let the pork shine through. 

Back to Rick Stein not too long after the series I ended up in Padstein, being treated to a culinary feast of a weekend by my girlfriend, the finest 30th birthday present a food-obsessed man could dream of: a day on his seafood cooking course, meals in his seafood restaurant and his bistro not to mention breakfasts in his cafe (and sleeping in his B&B above - obviously) and a little RS fish and chips too.  When the menu at the bistro displayed the 'Toulouse Sausage with Tomato, Red Onion and Caper Salad' I'd seen on the aforementioned show I had to order it, my mind drifting back to the huge coil of sausage he'd lopped a few inches off and placed on the sweet and tangy salad.  The dainty three slices of tomato with a few thin slices of sausage scattered on top couldn't have been further from the hearty meal I'd seen on TV in quantity but - for the three mouthfuls I got - the flavour was very good.

As you may have noticed I've dragged the sausage maker out the cupboard recently and so decided to get some Toulouse made.  They're a sausage I've made before and the home made (and real ones) are nothing like the supermarket attempts, simple and meaty with a bacon taste coming from the addition of cure or some bacon along with the pork.  This contrasts starkly with the overly complex smoked bacon, garlic, red wine and rosemary I've seen in some of our stores which also suffer from the addition of filler. Not a bad thing per se but the Toulouse, like most its continental cousins, is filler free and firm.

Whilst I enjoyed Rick Stein's recipe the tomatoes over here are bad enough at the best of times, let alone in October.  As the nights draw in and the temperature drops do you really want something so light too?  Personally I like to start moving towards some heartier dishes and this sausage and potato salad fits the bill nicely, the sharpness of the vinegar dressing acting as a foil to the fattiness of the sausages. 

Obviously this would work with any sausage, but I think a firm continental one is better for slicing than the softer rusk containing English bangers, standing up better to the bite of the waxy potato.

Toulouse Sausage and Potato Salad

Serves 2

Ingredients

280gr Toulouse - or other firm - sausage, 3-4 sausages

450gr new potatoes, I used Anya

2 TB extra virgin olive oil

1 TB cider vinegar

1/2 ts sugar

1/2 small red onion

Small handful flatleaf parsley, roughly chopped

Method

Simmer the potatoes till done and chop into 3cm pieces.

Whilst these are cooking simmer the sausages for 10 minutes until cooked through (this sets the shape nicely) then brush with oil and brown under the grill.  Chop into 3cm bits.

Make the dressing from the oil, vinegar and sugar, seasoning with S&P.

Whilst everything is warm toss the potato, sausage, onion, parsley and dressing together.

Serve.

Toulouse Sausages

1.1kg pork shoulder, 25%-30% fat

1TB sugar

1TB salt

1ts black peppercrons, ground

1gr cure #1

50ml of white wine

Method

Mince the pork once through the biggest plate.

Mix the seasonings into the white wine then distibute through the meat.

Stuff, twisting into slightly larger than British banger links then leave in the fridge overnight to dry and allow the cure to do its thing.

Alternatively you can leave the sausage in one large ring and cut off sections as needed.

To cook either fry, grill, poach or poach and grill, as above.

Butifarra

One of the defining factors of a British banger is the filler.  With few exceptions (the Cumberland being one) our sausage recipes incorporate some rusk which soaks up the fat and produces the lovely, softer bite of a decent local sausage.  Sure it was taken to extremes in days of want (the war springs to mind) and still is by peddlers of the low grade pink paste tubes but a reasonable quantity is a must in most recipes.

The same can't be said abroad were the pure meat sausage rules the roost.  This leads to a much firmer sausage which isn't better, just different.  With no rusk to soak up the fat these sausages are frequently pricked to stop them exploding whilst being cooked but I hate to see good fat go down the drain and I think with careful control of heat, and a bit of luck, you can get away without doing this.

Recently in Catalunya I had many a butifarra, the local snag (which in most cases the driving force in the flavour is black pepper), but whilst they came with chips or simply on the side of a rotisserie chicken I couldn't find the dish of Butifarra amb Mongetes (with white beans) and so I vowed to make it at home.  As butifarra are near as damn it impossible to buy over here this meant finding a recipe and dusting off the sausage stuffer.  I'm glad I did as I'd forgot how good fun sausage making is, not to mention the pleasure of the results.

 

As mentioned these butifarra have a predominant black pepper taste but there is also a hint of sweetness from the cinnamon and clove.  They're a nice simple sausage to make, so perfect for the beginner, and go well in a crusty baguette, with chips and a salad or with those white beans, something which will follow on the blog soon after I make it tonight.

With sausage making it's imperative that everything is very cold, this means meat and equipment.  As soon as things start heating up the fat melts and smears and the texture of the finished product goes down hill rapidly.  With this in mind meat, bowls, stuffer and mincer all spend some time in the fridge prior to starting out.

It is also imperative that there is enough fat on your meat, I've said 25% but I think that's a minimum, some people go higher.  For this rusk-free sausage (so nothing to soak the fat up) I think 25% is good though.  Some folk use belly for sausage making, and I have myself in the past, as the quantities of fat and lean can be good.  I think shoulder is a better texture though if you can find it fatty enough (you can always add back fat from loin chops) but belly would still turn out a decent butifarra.

Butifarra

Makes 8-10

900gr pork shoulder (25% fat) in 4cm cubes

15gr salt

3-4gr black peppercorns (1 - 1.5 ts)

Scant 1/4 ts ground cinnamon

1 clove

3 TB ice water

Natural hog casings

Method

The butifarra is a coarse ground sausage (aren't all the good ones?) so choose your biggest mincer attachment and give the well chilled meat a single grind into a chilled bowl.

Grind the black pepper, clove and cinnamon with a pestle and mortar, I find the addition of a bit of the salt helps, and once fine combine with the remaining salt and spread over the mince.  Add the 3 TB of ice water and mix to combine, I use a fork to save warming the mix up with my hands.  Once well mixed run the mince through the mincer a second time.

If you've never used natural skins before you need to soak them for a couple of hours to remove salt, you also want to run water through the inside a couple of times to clean.  Once prepared thread onto your sausage maker spout and stuff your sausages.

The butifarra I ate in Catalunya are larger than a British banger, more like 12cm (c. 110gr), so twist off bigger links.

Chill in the fridge for a day to dry, turning occasionally if - like me - there's nowhere near enough room in the fridge to hang them.