Sausages, how they should be.

In the food section of The Times today was a main feature on sausages and their health properties. Apparently a large cancer research foundation and Harvard found  increased risks to health caused by the eating of the humble sausage. In one study it was concluded that the increase of 20% in instances of bowel cancer could be attributed to eating one sausage per day. They blamed this on the chemicals, the fats and additional preservatives and salts used in the manufacture of sausage. Sadly due to The Times adopting their subscription only online version, I can’t provide you a link.

In previous articles we have looked at the manufacture of sausages and how a proper home-made, hand crafted sausage should be put together. In defence of this great British tradition, it must be said like any other tasty treat, we should not overindulge. If sausage made from decent cuts of the animal, with natural fellows and minimum preservatives and chemicals bound in a natural casing or even a synthetic casing will hold few perils for the occasional feast.

The astounding part of this article was that anything up to 5% of sausage could be derived from chemical, a minimum meat content, dependent on the meat, can be as low as 42 percent, with meat being a very subjective term.

As many of you know how we like our sausages, we make our own sausages, we sometimes even smoke sausages and recently we have started experimenting with our own range of salami and other charcuterie. Like much of British food, there has been a revival and we hope to see the Great, British sausage brought out as a true hero of our nation’s culinary heritage. When you pass by those sordid pink slurry filled plastic fingers in the fridges and freezers of this nations mass sellers, compare those to the often excellent sausages produced by smaller caring producers. Some supermarkets stock such things and they are worth hunting down.

Think … Bangers or Trash ?

Another of my favourites, originally based on an Italian recipe from a deli that used to be owned by our friends Lee and Mimo. This can be used to make a burger or sausage, it’s up to you.

5 lb minced pork
3 ts Fennel seed
2 ts fresh ground Pepper
1 1/2 ts Sage Leaves
5 Cloves pressed garlic
3 ts Salt
1/2 pint  red wine

For sausages you can add 1/2lb of fresh bread crumbs and soak in the wine before combining. The traditional italian sausage would possibly not use any bread crumbs as it is a coarser, more “burger like” consistency.

Mix well and stuff into sausages casing or press into burgers. If making sausages, this is best produced unlinked and portioned into 2lb rings. The rings can be cooked just as well in one piece in a frying pan or, crossed through with skewers, on the barbecue.

Any hearty red wine works well with this and possibly a bit of homemade chilli sauce.

Every so often, there is the Heston moment, not all restaurateurs have them and to be honest they aren’t that Heston when they happen Our’s was looking at the ingredients for our new house sausage recipe and discovering that we bought our craft ingredients from the same place that Heston does. That’s three mentions and we haven’t had a visit like in Beetlejuice. There’s no place like home, no place like home ….

OK, Dan and myself started playing in the kitchen with the idea of the Burton Sausage and to be honest, there is only so much you can do with Marmite before you join the hate-it brigade. The first prototypes had some great taste, but nothing compared with Dan’s experimentation over the next few days where he came up with a sample using some of the best local ingredients you can get.

The result was rather embarassing for me as I have made sausages for a few years and even entered some into competitions.  I was tasting the first of the new batch, Dan had left me on the starting line.

Take 5 great suppliers and a great chef, the results speak for themselves. The new 99 Station Street sausage leaves the kitchen, 7th April 2009.