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Frankfort Sausages
Mince very finely one pound of lean pork, from the shoulder, with three ounces of fat bacon; add a little red wine during the mineing process, just enough to keep the meat moist. Season with equal quantities of black pepper, and ground coriander-seed, a little nutmeg grated, and salt to taste. Fill skins-these should be scrupulously clean, well-soaked in salt and water, and wiped dry before being used. Bread soaked in milk or water, and squeezed dry, is sometimes used, either to increase the quantity, or to make the sausages less rich. Allow the same quantity of bread as of fat. Time to boil, half an hour. Probable cost for this quantity, 1s. 3d.
A fresh sausage rather than the cured, smoked, emulsified frankfurter of the delicatessen counter — closer to a coriander-scented bratwurst. Everything here works in a modern kitchen with a grinder or a food processor.
- The hinge: keep it coldThe wine is there to keep the mixture moist while mincing, but fat smeared by a warm blade or bowl will render out in the pot and leave the sausage dry and crumbly. Chill the pork, bacon and grinder parts thoroughly, and work quickly.
- Proportions1 lb lean pork shoulder to 3 oz fat bacon gives roughly 15 percent added fat, which is lean for sausage. Pork shoulder already carries fat; if yours is very lean, unsmoked fatback or belly is a better choice than bacon, whose cure and smoke will dominate the coriander.
- Seasoning quantitiesThe original gives no amounts. For 1 lb 3 oz of meat, about 1½ teaspoons salt, ½ teaspoon each of black pepper and ground coriander, and a scant ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg is a sound starting point. Fry a teaspoon of the mixture and taste before filling any skins.
- SkinsBuy salted hog casings and rinse and soak them per the packet rather than following the nineteenth-century salt-and-water routine. Hog casings, about 32-35 mm, would suit sausages of the size implied by the yield.
- The bread"The same quantity of bread as of fat" means 3 oz of crumb, soaked and squeezed — a panade. It stretches the mixture and softens the texture, but more than this and the sausage tastes of bread. Weigh the bread dry, before soaking.
- CookingHalf an hour of true boiling will split the casings and squeeze out the fat. Poach at a bare simmer, around 175-180F, for 20-25 minutes for sausages of this size, until the centre reaches 160F. They can then be browned in a pan if you want colour.
- StorageThis is uncured fresh meat with nothing to preserve it. Cook within a day of making, or freeze; it will not keep in a larder as the original book's readers might have assumed.
- Yield and costAbout 1¼ lb of mixture, roughly eight to ten sausages, serving four. The 1s 3d is late-Victorian retail pricing and has no useful modern equivalent.
Cassell's is reaching for the reputation of Frankfurt am Main, whose long thin pork sausage was already famous enough in Britain by the 1870s to sell a recipe. What is described here, though, is not that sausage: the genuine article is finely ground, cured, cold-smoked over beech and then only warmed through in water, never boiled. English cookery books of the period often rendered continental sausages as fresh minced-pork versions. Coriander with nutmeg and pepper may point towards the German tradition; the soaked bread is a thrift familiar from the kitchen's usual forcemeats. Wine in the mince is a further departure from the Frankfurt article.