Sausage Curry!

I have curried a great many things during my joyous appreciation of Indian cooking.  I have curried fishfingers and omelette with great success in the past.  One thing which doesn't stand out as a serious contender for the "please curry me" competition is sausage - apart from vindaloo I struggle to think of pork being used much in Indian recipes.

I first came abreast of a curried sausage recipe in the archetypal Indian cookery book, "Illustrated Indian Cookery" by Madhur Jaffrey, which, incidentally is the bible.  Madhur introduced me to a great, if simplistic recipe for curried chipolata's.

Sausage Curry

•   Put one large or 2 medium onions, a thumbs length of ginger and 4 cloves of garlic into a blender.  Blend to a smooth paste.
•   To a heavy based pan, or ideally a karahi add some ghee or a neutral oil - I used a combination of both.  Add a pinch of asoefetida (Yes, I know it stinks, but once cooked it adds a real catalytic effect).
•   Add the paste and stir fry until it softens and finally colours - this can take 10 minutes or so.
•   I had a great spice mix left over from my sri-lankan roti recipe, so I used this because it was quite concentrated with fennel.  You can use a pre-mixed curry powder if you like.  I used 2 heaped teaspoons.  If you want a decent spice blend then see below.
•  Cook the spices for 2 minutes.
•  Add a tin of peeled plum tomatoes.  Stir to mix and break.
•  Season well with salt and pepper.
•  Add 4 thinly sliced, pre-grilled butchers sausages.
•  You might notice I had sweetcorn in mine (from the photo).  This was only because I had some left over from my sons tea and I didnt want to waste it.
•   I also added 3 seeded, dried red cherry bomb chilli's.
•   Allow to cook for an hour, add water if it gets a little sticky.   

If you want to make your own curry powder you can tailor-make it to your individual taste, or to the dish you are making.  For a general curry powder you can use the following:

•   2 teaspoons of powdered cumin and coriander.
•   1 teaspoon of regular paprika and one of chilli powder.
•   Half a teaspoon of crushed fennel seeds and powdered turmeric.
•   Half a teaspoon of crushed black pepper.
•   Half a teaspoon of garam masala. 

Hog's Pudding

There is one thing that always goes down a treat on our table, whether it be for the kids or for us and that is the mighty sausage.  I have eaten many variants from a plethora of countries, spicy merguez from North Africa, currywurst from Germany and mustamakkara from Finland - I have enjoyed them all.  One thing I have not knowingly tried, though, is an offal sausage.  The thought of eating lungs and heart really arrests my appetite.  

Becca's parents were down at the weekend.  They live in North Devon and from time to time they present us with some attractive little local gastronomic delights.  Often they bring us some local faggots (yes, I know these have offal in them, but I've eaten them as a kid), sometimes they bring up a local cheese, or, as in this case they brought us some Hogs pudding.

Now, I was also struck by the name of this product.  I seriously have never heard of it before.  It turns out to be an offal sausage masquerading as some kind of minced sausage in a clingfilm bag.  It is made with, "Pork, groats, herbs and spices".  Only an ingredients list as vague as this could inspire such fear in a man of limited bravado, like me.  First up, what the hell are groats?  They sound like a complaint one might have if their intestines were swollen.  They turn out to be just milled cereal grains - mercifully.  The pork, it would seem is the hazy term.  Generic to say the least.  I would suggest Hogs pudding contains trotter, tail and tongue by all accounts.

Hog's pudding with baked beans and a fried egg!

Crisp on the outside, mushy on the inside with the consistency of something that might have died within the past month, I ate them with a certain degree of caution.  The cereals pack them out somewhat, to the extent where you are confused as to what you might actually be eating.

Both Becca and I turned to each other and said in unison, "they're OK, but I wouldn't buy them again).  'Nuff said.

Back to the roots.

Thursday Night Fayre

Ok, so it wasn't a plate exclusively full of root vegetables, but I did make a rather pleasant carrot puree last night.  I always thought that a puree had to have cream in it, but I experimented with just butter and seasoning.  It yielded a pleasing result, one that was both tasty and used up our somewhat replete carrot bag in the fridge.

"Bangers and Mash" is somewhat of an institution here in England, something that is invariably wolfed down on at least one night a week.  We do love our sausages, and up and until now I have focused a little too much on the cured varieties from continental Europe.  When the sausage is the star of the show (excuse the plate-pun reference) I really think the less tinkering you do with it the better.  When I slowly pan-fry a sausage the only instruction you should follow is this - never prick!  If you prick your sausage you will permit the tasty fluids to leach out of the banger and you are left with an unsavoury and dry affair on your plate.

I tried to make a quick-fire sauerkraut too.  You can try this at home, without the need for a long-term pickling process:

Quick-fire Sauerkraut

•   Finely shred a pointed, spring cabbage (or indeed a standard white cabbage).  Do not use savoy, though, as it is rather unsuitable for this.
•   Steam the cabbage for no more than 2 minutes.  During the steaming process I turn the cabbage over, to ensure that it is all cooked evenly.
•   In a glass receptacle (I use a measuring jug) add four tablespoons (approximately) of good quality extra virgin olive oil.  Add two tablespoons of cider vinegar (white wine vinegar will do if you don't have cider).  Season with a good pinch of salt and a few vigourous turns of the pepper grinder.  To finish the dressing add a teaspoon of mustard powder.  Mix well with a whisk or fork.
•   Remove the cabbage from the steamer and place into a bowl.  Pour the dressing over, and mix well.
•   Serve by placing a nice mound of cabbage on your plate!

The carrot puree was even more simple to make, and its a great way to use up a glut of carrots you have.  

Carrot Puree

•   Peel and wash 5 or 6 large carrots.
•   Chop them into rounds no more then 1cm thick.
•   Steam, or boil them in salted water until they are tender, but have not been reduced to a pulp.
•   Put the carrots into a mini blender.  Add a thick knob (about 2cm thick) of butter, a good pinch of salt, lots of black pepper (yes, I love pepper) and a little glug of good olive oil.
•   Blend to a smooth paste.

I watched "Two Greedy Italians" last night with Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo.  They showed the slaughter of a pig, and then Gennaro made a chocolate cake using pigs blood.  I am not of a squeamish constitution, but why, oh why would you want to make a chocolate dessert out of pigs blood?  I guess, as they say, you don't know until you have tried it.     

Fusion!

Fusion cuisine is always something that has intrigued me.  It is not something that I have often tried my hand at, as, in my opinion it is necessary to have a very thorough and very diverse knowledge of cross-cultural cuisine.  It is something I am diligently working on, but not something I have mastered, by any means.

I can say, though, that I have eaten some really nice examples.  Peter Gordon's restaurant and tapa bar in Marylebone High Street are an excellent example of how South East Asian flavours and dishes have been fused with European (and, of course Kiwi) cooking to create a superb assemblage.  

Whenever I go out to eat I prefer to pay for something that either I cannot make myself, or do not like to cook.  The only exception to this rule are Indian restaurants, which I flock to given the slightest glint of hope.  These days I do not eat out that often, but when I do I like to ensure that I am trying something new, or eating something spectacular.  

As is quite often the case on a Sunday night, I was scrabbling around the back of the fridge trying to find something to concoct.  It's a little like playing lucky dip - without the sawdust.  I needed to make something quick and tasty.  The 4 cooking chorizo seemed to be beckoning me.  I decided to make a chorizo pasta.

I had a chat with a fellow blogger the other day regarding certain websites that promote food photography.  I am definitely of the opinion that taste should come first, and if it looks good then that's a bonus.  I do try to make my dishes look attractive, but it seems, from the above photograph, that last night I was oblivious to the streaks of orange-toned oil smeared around the rim of my bowls.  I do apologize for this temperanillo-fueled oversight.

This dish was really a subtle tweak on the carbonara recipe I made earlier.  Initially I tossed the pasta in the rendered chorizo juices, then, instead of using egg yolks I folded a little unsalted butter into the pasta to create a silky coating.  

Again, I used the tripoline pasta which yields an appetizing bite when cooked al dente.

Chorizo - to peel or not to peel?

Pretty much every country in the civilized world has a sausage of some sorts or another.  Naturally, we, in England like to think we produce the greatest bangers of all time.  Having travelled a bit, and sampled the worlds finest sausages, I am beginning to think that actually our sausages are a bit boring.  Pork and leek, and cracked-black pepper seem to be the most extreme length we will go as far as flavourings are concerned.  Of course, there is the school of thought that propagates the theory of, "if it aint broke, don't fix it".  But there is so much more you can do with a sausage.

In the UK we seem to only have traditional sausages, i.e ones that require cooking.  We do briefly flirt with the concept of a blood sausage, but most people find this concept repellent at best.

I do love a cured sausage, whether it be a saucisson from France, a spicy landjaeger from Germany, or my particular favourite - the chorizo from Spain.  Now, I don't want to be accused of forgetting Portugal here, because they also make a mean chouriço - I can testify, having eaten many of them last year.

There's something about the pimenton in chorizo that attracts me.  I adore both the vivid orange colour, and the deep, smoke-infused paprika spice that it yields.  I also love a chorizo that is steeped in red wine and oodles of garlic.

For the uneducated amongst you, there are really two types of chorizo. There is the cured chorizo, which we see frequently in our shops and supermarkets.  This is either dulce (sweet) or picante (hot) - dependent on the type of paprika used.  It is for sure always a smokey paprika.  

The slightly lesser known type of chorizo is the fresco (fresh) variety - i.e this needs to be cooked.  Often you will find this labelled as "cooking chorizo"  This "cooking" label does not infer or confer sub-sufficiency, indeed it often heralds a much more tasty sausage - just don't eat it raw. 

One thing, though, which I cannot abide is the paper-like casings on cured chorizo (and frequently most cured sausages).  I always remove this horrible husk - even with cooking it does little to render it palatable.  I often wonder if I am being pedantic (I often am)?

We're going to squeeze in a barbecue later today, since the weather appears to be turning just in time for the weekend.  I'm going to make some chicken kebabs and I am now horrified by the fact that I do not have any chorizo left to skewer along with my chicken (we ate it all last night in the risotto!).  Ah well, with the benefit of hindsight...