Tag: sausage

The Bourke Street Bakery Pork and Fennel Sausage Roll – An adaptation

.Reading time 5 minutes.

Makes: 24 half sausage rolls

For a family picnic today, I was assigned sausage rolls.

I know it’s easy to love sausage rolls, though is it in reality?

It’s so hit and miss.

The ones from petrol stations are terrible.

And patisseries can sometimes nail their brief, though so often they’re over the top. Too clever by half, too complicated, too much to process.

Sausage rolls are about comfort and flaky, oily pastry. Not something excessively gourmet and challenging: I have a hangover, I just want a coffee and sausage roll amazing-ness.

Bourke Street Bakery – a bit of a Sydney institution – is famous for its pies and sausage rolls. Their pork and fennel sausage roll is pretty amazing.

Though it is on the gourmet end of sausage rolls. The beef bourguignon end of pies if you know what I mean.

Which is why this adaptation of their sausage roll is genius!

It just rolls. It nails true brief.

It is what every patisserie should have on offer from 8am on Sunday morning.

I’d order 6. And several coffees.

—

I really wanted to cook something special when given the sausage roll brief for today’s picnic.

Why?

My sister in law Court (Coco, CD) and her husband Greg (Gweggy) pulled the broader family together for a post-Christmas BBQ; and a casual gender reveal.

Yep, they’re having baby #1.

And it’s a girl!

Nat and I love these guys.

They make us so happy. Long lunches, late autumn nights by the fire, plenty of wines, too much laughing. (Dancing with Court last year at my 40th, I was pushed fell down and limped for a week: didn’t even blame her!)

We are so proud of you guys. We are so happy for you. You have babysitters for life.

As I’ve previously said, these guys love their food though assume that during the first few weeks of babydom these sausage rolls will make an appearance at their doorstep. Plus curries, pastas and even a pork shoulder.

Go nail this Team K!

We love you.

Ingredients

1tsp fennel seeds, plus extra to sprinkle
1 tbsp vegetable oil
3 medium brown onions, peeled and diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
8 sprigs sage, picked and finely chopped
3 sprigs rosemary, leaves picked and finely chopped
5 sprigs thyme, leaves picked and finely chopped
20gm unsalted butter
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and diced into 1/2 cm
1.5kg pork mince
100gm breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
Puff pastry
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

  1. Toast the fennel seeds in a large frying pan over a low heat for 2 minutes until fragrant. Crush lightly in a mortar and pestle and set aside.
  1. Using the same pan, heat the vegetable oil over a low heat. Sweat the onion and garlic until lightly caramelised. Take as long as you can. This is where the flavour is! Add the toasted fennel seeds, sage, rosemary and thyme and set aside to cool.
  2. In a separate pan, melt the butter over a medium-high heat: add the apples and toss gently in the butter for a few minutes until softening. Add the sugar and cook, stirring constantly, until the sugar is lightly caramelised. Add the vinegar to deglaze the pan and set aside.
  3. Combine the mince, breadcrumbs, apples and onion mixture. Season well and mix through with your hands until well combined.
  4. Thaw your puff pastry from the freezer. You’ll need around 7 – 8 sheets based on the quantity of pork mixture. Divide the pork mixture evening and roll your sausage rolls, with the mixture being a cylinder about 1/3 of the way down each sheet. Ensure that the seam sits under the meat.
  5. Make a few fork punctures at the top of each sausage roll. Cut the the sausage roll in half or quarters depending on what you are catering.
  6. Beat your egg and egg wash all over the pastry. Sprinkle with fennel seeds.
  7. Bake on baking trays lined with baking paper at 180c for 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown.

Southwestern Chicken Sausage

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Makes: 20 sausages

The continuing Covid Crisis means dipping back into the more complex stuff like a naan bread Nat made on our Komado last week and learning how to make sushi.

Though making sausages from scratch remains one of our favourite weekend afternoon tricks and this past weekend, we made two crackers.

This sausage – a chicken sausage – was just wonderful.

If you don’t have a sausage making device or even a mincer, `you could just food process it all and pan-fry them up as patties.

Though if you have a KitchenAid, the mincing and sausage extensions are a lot of fun and sausage casings can be found at most good butchers.

We have had a lot of hit and miss when it comes to making our own sausages and the key observation from this recipe: polenta (or grits). They hold in the moisture, they give you texture, they make these sausages commercial grade.

Though add in the fun of making them, the freshness, owning the ingredients and the bragging rights… and you are onto a good thing.

Ingredients

1.4kg chicken thigh (meat and fat)
80gm polenta (or grits)
340ml chicken stock
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp chilli powder
200gm Jalapeño chillies
1 red capsicum
2 tbsp fresh coriander

Method

  1. Roast the Jalapeño chillies in the oven until charred; remove the charred skins and roughly chop.
  2. Cook the polenta in the chicken stock until soft. 40 minutes or so.
  3. Chop the chicken into 3cm pieces and combine with all the ingredients.
  4. Mince and stuff into sausage casings.

Seafood Sausage with Lemon Herb Sauce

.Reading time 3 minutes.

Serves: 4

This is a restaurant quality dish and one that made us so happy preparing and cooking it.

The subtlety of the sausages which we did in the sous vide for an hour before lightly grilling, the sauce, the mash and the asparagus made for seriously a memorable meal.

A really warm, unique, “we just cooked a 1-hat dinner meal”.

If you could do these with a thicker sausage casing than we used, I think they would be even more impactful and explosive; dramatic and clearly prepared with talent. Something your guests would have to admire and talk about on the way home.

If you are looking for an impressive Saturday night dish for guests, you could do a whole lot worse than this recipe.

Note that this recipe assumes you have a sausage stuffer though if you don’t have one, maybe try them as slow-cooked skewers: form them like sausages, wrap them tightly in cling wrap and gently fry in a pan.

Either way, you can’t go wrong.

(This recipe is written assuming you have a mincer and a sausage stuffer. If you do not, process the sausage in a food processor, tightly wrap into sausage-like logs with cling wrap and refrigerate; when ready to cook, wrap tightly with foil and poach for 10 – 15 minutes in boiling water. Slice away.)

Ingredients

Sausage

250gm cod fillets, cut into 3cm pieces
250gm raw prawns, peeled, deveined and roughly chopped
250gm salmon fillets, skinned, cut into 3cm pieces
2 large eggs
¼ cup heavy cream
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp white pepper

Sauce

¼ cup white wine
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp white-wine vinegar
1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter cut into small cubes
½ tsp grated lemon rind
1 tsp minced scallion
1 tsp fresh parsley leaves
1 tsp fresh, snipped dill
Cayenne to taste

Paris mash to serve
Steamed asparagus

Method

  1. For the sausage: Combine, mince and process the sausage ingredients. Stuff your sausages. Chill.
  2. For the sauce: In a small heavy saucepan, boil the wine, lemon juice and vinegar until reduced by half. Reduce the heat to low and whisk in the butter bit by bit, waiting for each piece to melt before adding the next. Whisk in the lemon rind, scallion,  parsley, dill, cayenne and salt to taste. Season.
  3. Cook your sausages: poach them or sous vide them (1 hour) and then grill them in a pan with a little olive oil to give them colour.
  4. Prepare your Paris Mash and steam your asparagus.
  5. A good dollop of mash on each plate, two sausages on-top, a drizzle of sauce and a side of asparagus.

Keftedakia (Greek Lamb Sausages)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

FullSizeRender (15).jpg
Uncooked!

Makes: 20 sausages

We are on a bit of a sausage thing at the moment with the recent addition of a new meat grinder and sausage stuffer to the kitchen.

Though searching for recipes has been a bit of an underground thing.

For whilst you can find the odd super-gourmet sausage recipe out there, there is a dearth of every-day sausage recipes on the web: until you hit the underground sausage forums.

And this is where it gets serious.

I have a few mates that are into smoking meats and they take it seriously. They swap notes about chips and coals and warm-up times and bastes. It is a passion and Facebook is full of their Saturday morning photos and tips as they fire up.

Sausages it seems are much the same, with the sausage forums full of – generally very positive – banter, advice, recipes and tips.

(I am yet to choose the avatar for ‘robbydogcooks3’ and remain a sausage lurker, though I feel the urge.)

Anyway, on one forum, someone by the name of ‘bradsizzle’ asked for the best Greek sausage recipe ‘in the world’.

And the community answered.

Lamb, pork, beef, the people of Crete (joke), orange peel, aniseed, fennel, more lamb, cumin, explosions, debate, more lamb.

The servers were on fire.

We chose this one to begin and it is one bloody fine sausage.

You’ll need a sausage stuffer of course and sorry if you don’t.

robbydogcooks3 is now part of the club and can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t.

Sizzle bradsizzle.

Ingredients

1kg lamb shoulder, 2 cm pieces (or ground)
½ cup breadcrumbs soaked in ½ cup milk for 5 minutes
1 large red onion, finely diced
2 tbsp red wine (or ouzo)
4 tsp finely chopped fresh parsley
4 tsp finely chopped fresh mint
2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese (or Kefalotiri cheese)
1 ½ tsp salt
1 tsp freshly cracked pepper
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp allspice
1 tsp whole aniseed
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 tbsp white flour

Method

  1. Combine the ingredients.
  2. Process through your mincer and stuff your sausages.

Spinach and Feta Chicken Sausage

.Reading time 1 minute.

Serves: 4 – 6

If you have a Kitchenaid mixer, do yourself a favour and get the mincer and sausage stuffer accessory.

Because homemade sausages are a win on all levels.

They’re fun to make and you can involve the kids. You know what is going into your sausage; and what isn’t going into your sausage: snouts, sawdust, car parts.

And suffice to say, you can make some pretty crazy, pretty amazing sausages.

Nobody doesn’t love sausages. Master one of the greatest food types there is and never look back.

Ingredients

1.5kg chicken breast, chopped
280gm frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
¾ cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tbsp marjoram
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp fine ground black pepper
2 tbsp minced fresh garlic

Method

  1. Combine, mince and stuff.

Spaghetti di Farro con Luganega (Spelt Spaghetti with Sausage Sauce)

.Reading time 2 minutes.

Serves: 4

This is an Antonio Carluccio dish and it is a cracker; Nat and I picked up the book in the Prahan Markets when we went down to Melbourne for a weekend. Carluccio is a bit of a hero to me and a real father of Italian food.

This dish is rich, warm and rustic and really pretty straightforward to make. The sauce can be pre-made and even frozen for emergency dinners.

Ingredients

350g dried spelt spaghetti pasta
Salt and pepper to taste
60g pecorino cheese, freshly grated

Sauce

30g dried porcini, rehydrated
3 tbsp olive oil
50g unsalted butter
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
½ fresh hot red chilli, finely chopped
250g Italian sausage, meat removed from the skin and crumbled
100ml white wine
2 tbsp tomato paste, diluted in 2 tbsp water
1 tbsp fresh rosemary needles

Instructions

  1. Soak the dried porcini for the sauce in hot water for 20 minutes, then drain, reserving the soaking water and chop.
  2. Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan with the butter and fry the onion and chilli briefly.
  3. Add the crumbled sausage meat and porcini and fry and stir for another 8 – 10 minutes on a low heat.
  4. Add the wine and then cook for a further 2 minutes until the alcohol has evaporated.
  5. Add the tomato and rosemary and cook for another 10 minutes on a low heat.
  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste and if more moisture is needed, add some of the porcini soaking water.
  7. Meanwhile, cook the paste until al dente. Drain week.
  8. Mix with the sauce, serve and sprinkle with the cheese.