Sausages, Fried
INGREDIENTS. -Sausages; a small piece of butter. AVERAGE COST, if bought ready made, 10d. per lb.
Prick the sausages with a fork (this prevents them from bursting), and put them into a frying-pan with a small piece of butter. Keep moving the pan about, and turn the sausages 3 or 4 times. In from 10 to 12 minutes they will be sufficiently cooked, unless they are very large, FRIED SAUSAGES. for them. Dish them with or without a when a little more time should be allowed piece of toast under them, and serve very and served on toast. They should be hot. In some counties, sausages are boiled plunged into boiling water, and simmered for about 10 or 12 minutes.
TIME.-10 to 12 minutes.
March.
SEASONABLE. - Good from September to Note.-Sometimes, in close warm weather, sausages very soon turn sour; to prevent this, small piece of butter to keep them moist. When put them in the oven for a few minutes with a SAUSAGES, PORK. wanted for table, they will not require so long frying as uncooked sausages.
Sausages, Pork. (Author's Oxford Recipe.) - INGREDIENTS for 2 dozen sausages.-1 lb. of pork, fat and lean, without skin or gristle; 1 lb. of lean veal, 1 lb. of beef suet, lb. of bread-crumbs, the rind of lemon, 1 small nutmeg, 6 sage-leaves, 1 teaspoonful of pepper, 2 teaspoonfuls of salt, teaspoonful of savory, teaspoonful of marjoram. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Chop the pork, veal and suet finely to gether, add the bread-crumbs, lemon-peel (which should be well minced), and a small nutmeg grated. Wash and chop the sageleaves very finely; add these, with the remaining ingredients, to the sausagemeat, and when SAUSAGES. thoroughly mixed, either put the meat into skins, or, when wanted for table, form it into little cakes, which should be floured and fried.
SEASONABLE from October to March.
Two entries run together here: frying bought sausages, and Mrs Beeton's own Oxford sausage-meat mixture. Both are workable, though the fractions in the second ingredient list have not survived intact.
- Do not prick themThe instruction to prick is the one piece of advice modern practice has reversed. Pricking lets rendered fat and juice escape and gives a drier sausage; bursting is generally blamed on too-fierce heat rather than on the skins being left whole, so cook them gently and leave them unpierced.
- Heat and timingTen to twelve minutes over a brisk pan will brown the outside before the middle is done on anything thicker than a chipolata. Use medium-low heat and allow 15-20 minutes for a standard pork sausage, turning several times, to an internal 70C/160F.
- The butterModern sausages release plenty of their own fat, so a teaspoon of oil to start is enough; butter alone will brown and scorch at frying heat.
- Boiling and reheatingThe alternative given -- plunged into boiling water and simmered 10-12 minutes -- is closer to poaching and produces a pale, soft-skinned sausage. The oven note that follows it is a keeping trick from the days before refrigeration; sausage-meat that has begun to turn sour should be thrown out, not revived.
- Missing quantities in the Oxford recipeA few fractions have dropped out of the ingredient list. As printed it gives 1 lb pork, 1 lb lean veal and 1 lb beef suet; the likeliest readings for the gaps are 1/2 lb breadcrumbs, the rind of half a lemon, and half-teaspoons each of savory and marjoram. These are a matter of judgement, so taste-test a small fried patty before shaping the rest.
- Suet and mincingBeef suet here is raw hard fat from around the kidney, not the shredded packet suet coated in flour; ask a butcher, or substitute an equal weight of fatty pork belly. Chopping by hand gives a coarser, better texture than a food processor, which will smear the fat if run more than a few seconds.
- SkinsNatural hog casings are sold salted and need soaking and rinsing before use. The recipe's own alternative -- flouring the mixture into little cakes and frying them -- is simpler, and Oxford sausage is traditionally associated with being made skinless in this way.
- YieldThe mixture as written is for two dozen sausages, about 3 lb of meat and fat as printed before the crumbs go in. Uncooked sausage-meat keeps a couple of days refrigerated and freezes well.
Oxford sausage is among the best known of the English regional sausages, traditionally distinguished by the veal alongside the pork, the lemon peel and the heavy hand with sage, savory and marjoram; it is often said to have been shaped into flat cakes and floured rather than filled into casings, though this recipe offers skins as the first option. Mrs Beeton labels this version "Author's Oxford Recipe". The seasonable notes -- October to March here, September to March for the fried entry -- reflect the pre-refrigeration pattern by which fresh pork was autumn and winter food, pigs being killed after the harvest and fresh sausage-meat spoiling fast in warm weather, which is the problem the closing note about souring addresses.