Snorkers for the Games.

British (Newmarket style) banger recipe.

In America if you say Banger or Chipolata, you're considered a British sausage expert. So when I read a tweet from Britain's leading sausage expert about about some folks selling snorker snacks in East Anglia, I put on my sausage detective hat to find out more about these little lovelies.



The Olympics and the Industrial Revolution.

Last weekend's Opening Ceremonies for the summer games had a narrative of the advent of the industrial revolution that started in the UK and spread around the world. This age of mechanization was not limited to steam engines and sweaters, it also included food. And of course one of the easiest foods to put on the production line was sausage.



While industrialized food has given rise to miracles like Modernist Cuisine, and imporved many foods that I love such as mustard, beer and Parma ham, the change in how food is processed and distributed has also caused some folks to stare at their plates and ask, what is real? This is especially true when it come to sauasges.

In the UK sausages aquired a reputation of being tasteless links stuffed with so many cereal fillers and water that they exploded upon cooking, hence the term bangers. American sausage maker Bruce Aidells wrote that it was the horrible sausages he had while living in Britain that inspired him to start making his own.

But as with all generalizations, this one doesn't capture the whole story. Before and after the Industrial Revolution small producers made quality sausages to little fanfare. And over the past few years seeking out these regional specialties has become a new pastime for many.

Great Britain a country of sausages.

Stephen Plume AKA the Sausage King, is one such person. Through his website SausageFans UK, the Sausage King documents his trips around Britain in search of the finest sausages. According to the King, there are over 500 different types of sausages in the UK. And indeed there are many unique sausages in the British Isles. Last November I wrote about the Cambridge sausage in honor of British Sausage Week. In that post I also noted the the Cumberland sausage had gained a PGI (Protected Geographical Indication). In May the King reported that another sausage The Lincolnshire, had failed to gain protected status. One of the reasons giving was that there were to many versions of the recipe.



Boosters of an East Anglia banger hope to avoid the fate that befell the Lincolnshire. In the town of Newmarket two rival butchers have agreed to a truce in an effort to gain PGI status for their unique link, The Newmarket Sausage. Sausage makers Powters and Musk's each claim to have made and continue to make the original Newmarket Sausage since the 1880's. Since I live nowhere near Newmarket, I can't say which purveyor makes the better link, let alone, who made the original. However I did find a PDF of the Newmarket PGI application, so I can try making my own.



Yeah but why? In a word, Snorkers.

Recently one of the Sausage King's tweets led me to the website of Big Skies Food Company. The organization does one of the most important services known to humanity, encasing meat in pastry. Among the products they offer is a Snorker Snack. Snorker, I soon read, is a slang term for sausage, maybe refering to its likness to a snorkel. Wikipedia reports that it may have originated in the Royal Navy. After an exhaustive ten minute search of the Internet I concluded that snorker reference is valid and Big Skies is the first and only going concern that sells a Snorker Snack.



I should mention that this toodoo unfolded because I was looking for a British themed nosh to take to an Opening Ceremonies potluck. Well I didn't dare try to crack the proprietary formula of the Big Skies snorker, so I looked for another sausage of the region. That's when the Newmarket Link dropped in my lap.

Newmarket (East Anglia) style Sausage

1000g Pork
16g Salt
4g black pepper
2g white pepper
pinch nutmeg
3g fresh thyme
15g fresh parsley
zest from half a lemon
100g fine bread crumbs
100g of water or ale

hog casings.

Cut the pork into cubes and toss with the salt, refrigerate as time allows, 2 - 24 hours. Grind through coarse plate. Using the paddle attachment or a big wooden spoon beat in spices then herbs and bread crumbs. Add the liquid as needed to keep the mixture going. Continue to mix until uniform, about a minute. Stuff into hog casings.



Now would someone from East Anglia spot this banger as a Newmarket? Probably not, But I did conform to the PGI description, except for the part about making it near town.

The PGI (find link above) states the sausage must be coarse ground, no smaller than a 3mm plate. The sausage may contain only the following ingredients:

Pork (only shoulder or belly)
Salt
Black pepper
White pepper
Thyme
Parsley
Nutmeg
dried lemon
Sulphites (as a preservative)
Sodium phospahte (as a binder)

Bread, rusks and water may make up no more than 30% of the product.

I think I nailed it.

For the Snorker Snack I found this lovely shortcrust recipe in the Guardian. It calls for mustard powder, I used ground brown mustard seeds.



Pork crackling top the Big Skies Snorker Snack, I was fresh out so I substituted sumac. At the party I served the snacks with a coriander chutney, but with the leftover bangers I grilled them and ran them through the garden, American style.



Cheers.

Green Irish Banger for St. Partick's Day.

Garlic and kale chicken sausage recipe.

You wanna turn your St. Patrick's Day Feast up to 11? How about a green sausage? Today on the blog I've got an banger recipe for you that's as authentic as Irish Coffee and is sure to be a hit at any St. Patty's celebration.



In the natural world, you don't come across green sausage too often. The only one I know of is a chorizo from the Toluca State of Mexico, that's made with green chiles and cilantro. Diana Kennedy mentions it In her book, My Mexico: A culinary odyssey with more than 500 recipes. Rick Bayless gives a recipe for green chorizo that involves spinach powder.



I thought about using spinach for the green, but wanted something more hardy, something that better reflects the spirit of Ireland, and then I remembered kale. While cabbage may be what we Americans think as the "green veg" of the Emerald Isle, kale is perfectly at home in a pot of colcannon.

To make the vibrant green puree, kale needs to be blanched a few times. Set a big pot of salted water on to boil, and set up an ice bath. Drop the kale into the boiling pot for no more than 30 seconds. then put it in the ice bath to slow the coking. Do it 3 times. The point here is to cook the kale without it getting too hot. At a certain temperature the green starts to break down. Puree the cooked kale along with the garlic in a blender, add water as necessary to keep it moving. Since I lent the Vita-Prep to my neighbor to mix grout, I ended up pushing my poorly pureed kale through a metal strainer, it'll be fine. I blanched about a pound (450g) of kale to get my 300g of kale puree.



For that fancy emulsified look grind the meat twice. Here I cut chicken into nice bits, put it into the freezer on a sheet pan, until just crunchy, ground it, spread it out in the sheet tray again, let it get crunchy in the freezer, and ground it again.



Just like pouring paint into the Chicago River, I mixed in the spices then added the green.



To assure the authenticity of this Irish banger, I added potato starch as the binder.



Stuff into prepared hog casings. For a richer patina, let them hang in the fridge for a couple of days.



For the Tricolor trifecta, whip up a pot of Irish cheddar mashers and top with an onion curry gravy.

Kale and Garlic Chicken Sausage

Per 1000 g of Meat
300g Kale puree (see notes above)
15g minced garlic (pureed with the kale)
15 g Salt
5g ground white pepper
2g powdered ginger
2g mustard flour
1g ground mace
pinch of cayenne

20g potato starch or milk powder.

Make as described above. I used a whole chicken cut up for my recipe. If you're buying by the bit, get thighs. Pork will work too.



Happy St. Patricks Day.

Cheers.

Here's a link my other Irish Banger recipe.

Cambridge Sausage and Mash

It's #britishsausageweek or British Sausage Week for my Twitter averse friends. Since Jamie Oliver is participating in the promotion of UK sausage, I figure I could do my bit from across the pond.

Americans have and odd relationship with British cuisine. On one hand we can't resist the urge to regurgitate the cliche of their food as heavy, tasteless and unimaginative. On the other I've lost track of how many gastro-pubs with English sounding names dot our fair city. But what about sausage?

Here in America we know only one British sausage, the Banger! Actually that's the nickname for about any sausage and what we call a banger would probably be the Cambridge sausage in the UK. The Oxford Companion of Food identifies no less than 10 British sausage varieties including one sausage, the Cumberland, which gained Protected Geographical Status, from the EU earlier this year. For my British Banger I chose to focus on the Cambridge sausage.



The Cambridge Banger

900g (2lbs) Pork Shoulder
100g (3 1/2 oz) Rusks or fine bread crumbs (see notes)
14g (2 t) Salt
3 g white pepper
1 g mace
1 g cayenne
4 g fresh sage chopped fine (see notes)
2 g fresh thyme chopped (see notes)

225 ml (1 cup) Ale (see notes)

Hog casings for stuffing.

Grind the pork shoulder twice, then using a mixer with a paddle attachment or a big wooden spoon beat in the rusks and then the remaining ingredients. Continue to mix until you get a uniform pate. Stuff into hog casings.

Notes:

A word about rusks. Many different food products are called rusks. The rusks for sausages are superfine breadcrumbs. Sausages in the UK have a long tradition of containing cereals of one kind or another. It probably started as a means to extend the meat, first for necessity, later for profit. Nevertheless adding bread crumbs changes the texture of the sausage in such a way that it must considered as part of the recipe. That said, I'm not a huge fan of it.

Try to use fresh herbs. Thyme and sage are ridiculously easy to grow. If using dried, use half the amount.

Ale: The alcohol in the recipe enhances the flavors from the herbs and spices. After cooking for 1 1/2 years in a brewpub, I have come to appreciate the properties of beer in recipes. Give it a try, if not use water.

Cooking:

British sausages got their nickname "banger" due to their propensity to explode during cooking. Do not blow up your banger. All sausages, especially ones without added fat, must be cooked gently, and not too long. I cooked these bangers (pictured above) in a 300F oven for 15 minutes.

So we have a banger, some mashed tatties, how about some sauce.



This piquant banger sauce is a pound of sliced onions caramelized then pureed with 3 ozs of Worcestershire and 3 ozs of butter. Wicked good, as the kids say.

Bangers and mash for British Sausage Week. Make it yours.

Cheers.



Sources (Book links to WorldCat)

British Charcuterie by Reekie

The Oxford Companion to Food by Davidson

St. Patricks Day Bangers and Mash

Irish Bangers recipe

"Bangers and Mash" you see it on just about any pub menu in our fair city, but what is a banger? Since the bacchanal de vert is upon us I figured it was a good time to explore the sausages of the Emerald Isle...

And that completes the tour of sausages of the Ireland. What did you miss it? That's because there's not much. The Oxford Companion, lists several regional sausages of the UK but nary a one in the land of Erin. Larousse, mentions a blood sausage, drisheen, of Irish decent, and says bangers are an old name for Chipolata. Whatever. I searched for a "Bangers" recipe and came up with a smattering of unimpressive ideas. In Bruce's Aidells' , Complete Sausage Book, he states the sausage he had while living in London, which tasted like it was made with "Sawdust, salt and grease," was his motivation to start making sausage at home. I kept on hitting dead ends, but I was not deterred, we must have something to go with our green beer.



Rusk.

Just about all the recipes I found called for bread crumbs or rusk. As a general rule I have always shied away from cereal fillers in my sausage, but in spirit of being authentic, we'll give it a go. Rusk, according to the dictionary is "A slice of sweet raised bread, dried and baked again in the oven." We'll use toast. Let's go to the boards:


Irish Banger


2 lb pork shoulder diced

3 slices (90 g) whole wheat bread dried in the oven chopped into fine crumbs

20 g salt

1/2 t (1 g) dried marjoram

1/2 t (1 g) grated nutmeg

1/4 t (1 g) powdered ginger

(2 g) ground black pepper

1/2 t (1 g) finely grated lemon zest

100 ml milk


Combine ingredients, except milk, and rest the mixture in the fridge for at least an hour. Grind through fine plate into chilled bowl. Add milk and stir mixture until it starts to come together, about one minute. Stuff into hog casings. For that fancy pub look, twist the sausages into 4 inch lengths. Gently saute them to an internal temperature of 150F. To finish the authentic look make some grilled onions, some curry gravy and mashed potatoes.


Being 'twas a weeknight when I made me bangers, and I hadn't any potatoes (horrors!) I truly embraced the Irish spirit and instead of going to the grocery, I found somethin else in the pantry to mash:

Mac's mashed acorn squash with a wee bit o curry.

Peel quarter and clean one acorn squash. Put the pieces in a roasting pan, liberally sprinkle with salt pepper and olive, and cook until soft in a 350F oven, about 30 minutes.

I let the pieces cool a bit, then I put them in the food processor with a little milk and curry powder to taste. Since I was doing this ahead of time, I put the puree into a buttered casserole dish to warm just before serving. It was real good. One small acorn squash served two people. To finish the presentation, I had to have something green: Swiss chard sauteed with garlic and crushed red pepper. A wee bit of Guinness, and we're ready to chase the leprechaun.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Cheers.