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Devilled Sausages
Steam the required number of pork sausages for an hour; let them get cold. Fry small triangles of bread in butter to a golden brown; then drain and cover thinly with a curry paste. Skin and slice the sausages thinly, lengthwise, and lay half a sausage slice on each piece of bread, and spread over a small quantity of mango chutney. Cover, and put in the oven till thoroughly hot. Then lay them on a fancy paper on a hot dish, and serve with a garnish of parsley and sliced lemon.
A late-Victorian savoury: sausage on fried bread with curry paste and chutney, served hot as the last course or as a hot canape. The proportions are left entirely to the cook, so work backwards from how many pieces you want.
- Steaming timeAn hour of steaming is far longer than modern sausages need; thick pork sausages are cooked through in 15-20 minutes of steaming, and Victorian butcher's sausages may well have been coarser and fatter than most sold today. Over-steaming leaves them dry and crumbly once they are chilled and sliced.
- Why coldThe chilling step is the hinge. A warm sausage will not cut into clean thin lengthwise slices; refrigerate until firm, ideally several hours, before skinning and slicing.
- Curry pasteA concentrated paste rather than curry powder; ready-made versions were sold by Victorian grocers, though cooks also mixed their own, and a modern jarred Madras or Indian curry paste is the nearest equivalent. Use it thinly - it is intended as a seasoning film on the bread, not a sauce.
- "Cover" in the ovenCover the dish loosely with foil or a lid so the bread does not toast further while the sausage heats through. No temperature or time is given; a moderate oven of around 350F for 8-10 minutes should be enough.
- Fried breadCut the triangles from firm day-old white bread; fresh soft bread soaks up butter and collapses under the topping. Drain on paper before pasting.
- Fancy paperA doily or lace paper laid on the serving dish, a common Victorian presentation for fried and small hot dishes. It also helps absorb residual butter; parchment or a folded napkin does the same job.
- YieldAllow two to three triangles per person as a savoury course. One large sausage gives roughly four to six half-slices, so four sausages will serve six.