Sausages

Susan and I moved from London to the US in 1999.  Early on we wondered if there were food items that we would miss, like cheese, bacon, beer and sausages.  We gradually found the equivalent (or arguably better?) over here for most of them but we never got a reliable source of british sausages.  We loved Porkinson's back in Blighty but they don't get across the pond (and are apparently not what they used to be anyway now).  We tried Whole Food's irish bangers and found them to be excellent, but the next two times I bought them, they were far too salty and pretty much inedible.

Fast forward to my recent birthday, when I suggested that Susan get me the makings for sausages (couldn't think of anything else!).  As always she delivered, and how, with grinder and sausage stuffer attachments for our Kitchenaid, a bag of hog casings and Bruce Aidell's book on sausage making!

Most recipes in the book called for both meat and fat, and it seems to be hard to get fat in the stores.  I was thinking chicken and apple from the book because you don't need to add fat, and we both like the Aidell's you can get at the supermarket, but Susan found a british sausage recipe online that uses pork shoulder only.

The other big question was filler.  You might think that only cheap sausages use filler, and the best are meat and spices only, but in fact the filler is essential for good texture and juiciness.  The british sausage recipe called for rusk (a hard biscuit that babies teeth on in the UK), and actually gave a recipe for making it, but I thought I could get the equivalent in the supermarket.

So off to HEB (conveniently close to my local bike shop), where they had boston butts for $1 per pound.  They were a little bigger than I needed (the recipe wants 5lbs) but I thought there would be some trimming to do and it's pretty damn cheap anyway.  Off to the baby food aisle - but no rusks to be had.  Susan had warned me that I might have to go to the drug store for them and Walgreen's is just over the road - but no joy there either.  It was the same in Randalls and I was starting to think I would have to make them when I passed the kosher food and saw matzohs.  They're made with flour and water, no salt or leavening - sounds like rusk to me!

Back home and time to grind up 5lbs of pork.  This turned into quite a chore, because it's a lot of meat and the grinder runs slowly.  It also tends to get choked on connective tissue and that's plentiful in this cut.  Eventually it was done, so back into the freezer to chill again before going through a second time, with a smaller plate.  I mixed up the crushed matzohs with chicken stock and the spices (ginger, nutmeg, mace and fresh sage?) and immediately got the very familiar aroma of Porkinson's!  This was looking promising.

The second grind was much faster.  I mixed up and then it was time to start stuffing.  I had rinsed out the casings already (they are packed in salt, perhaps Whole Foods' problem?), so I selected a likely looking one and slipped it over the horn.  I roped in Susan to hold the sausage as it emerged and off we went.  The biggest problem was keeping the grinder fed, so that it didn't go dry and fill the casing with air, but we worked it out and filled two casings.  The next challenge was linking - I was very concerned that I would split the casing - but it went well, we only had one hole.

sausages!

The proof of the sausage is in the eating.. we decided to eat them with egg, bacon and mushroom, a full british breakfast for dinner.  I fried them in a large skillet and they certainly looked and smelled great, although the meat expanded out of the casings at each end a little.  How did they taste?  Excellent, very authentic flavour, but the texture was a little fine and they could have been juicier.  Next time around, less grinding and more fat.

Caramelized-shallot tarte tatin with shiitake mushrooms

Back in Blighty, tarte tatin (baked apples on puff pastry with a caramel sauce) was my party piece, brought out at dinner parties to rapturous applause.  I've tried it twice here in the Bayou City but both times it was disappointing.  So naturally I was a bit apprehensive when we decided to try a vegetarian version with shallots and shiitakes.

You have to peel and halve 500g of shallots, then sweat them in butter and sugar for 30 minutes.  Then you add some red wine, balsamic and a bay leaf and let it reduce, put a sheet of puff pastry on top and then into the oven.  Susan cleaned some shiitakes and sauteed them in butter and garlic, making the kitchen smell fabulous.

When the puff pastry is golden brown you have to take a deep breath and invert it onto a plate.  This is not trivial as you have to use oven gloves, but I managed to get it out ok.  Susan poured the mushrooms, butter and all onto the tart and we ate it with the rest of the wine - pretty damn good!

Delia's roast chicken

As I write this post we're letting a roast chicken rest before carving. We normally like to do whole chickens on the grill but I'm a bit low on propane so we opted to roast the fowl instead. We usually follow the Delia Smith recipe for this, hence it's Delia's chicken.

Fellow Brits will have a love/hate relationship with Delia Smith (dubbed "The Sainted Delia" by 'er Indoors) just like we do. She's an enormously popular chef back in Blighty, where she's been making TV shows and writing books since well before God was a teenager. Her recipes work well but she can be very annoying and a bit self important (one of her books is called "How to Cook"). As you can see our copy of her culinary bible has seen some use. 'er Indoors thinks I'm being unkind - she says that Delia taught her how to cook a roast dinner - but she definitely gets on my wick (Delia that is).

catalan beef stew

My most recent encounter with short ribs was last Sunday. It had pissed with rain all weekend and 'er Indoors decided we needed a decent dinner. She was looking through the latest edition of Cooks Illustrated at the time and liked the look of their catalan beef stew recipe. I did too when she mentioned it used short ribs instead of stewing beef. Our experience with Cooks Illustrated recipes is that they are incredibly involved and precise - but if you follow them to the letter, they turn out beautifully. In this case you had to make a sauce base called a "sofrito" - deeply caramelized onions with tomato pulp and spices. After about three hours of cooking the gravy was thickened with "picata", toasted breadcrumbs and almonds, flavoured with garlic. Some mashed potatoes and broccoli and Robert's your Father's brother. We drank our Chateauneuf-du-Pape from French Country Wines - just fab. Let it rain as much as it wants.

hors d'oeuvres

Seems like a good title for the first post on this blog. Short ribs are a very economical cut of beef with a wonderful hearty flavour, but they are not at all tender and have to be cooked for some time to be edible, usually by braising. When you embark on the short ribs adventure you can expect to have your home scented beautifully with wine, beef and onion aromas for hours on end - and then you get to eat them. Trust me, they're fab.