No. 1803

Sausages in Bags

Saucisses en Sac

Make some muslin bags twelve inches long by two and a half inches in diameter; fill them up with cold American sausage meat (No. 68), then cut them across bag and forcemeat together in half inch thick slices; remove the muslin, bread-crumb the pieces and broil or fry them in butter in the pan or else place in a little water in a frying pan and boil, then finish cooking in a moderate oven or on a slow fire.

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For the Modern Kitchen

A method rather than a formula: the muslin sleeve is only a mould, used to shape loose sausage meat into a cylinder that can be sliced into neat rounds. Everything else is a straightforward cooked-pork problem.

The hinge: chill hard before slicingRaw sausage meat will smear rather than cut unless it is thoroughly cold and firm. Ranhofer says "cold" for a reason — pack the bags, then refrigerate several hours, or freeze for 30-40 minutes, before cutting through cloth and meat together.
The bagsTwelve inches by two and a half inches in diameter gives rounds roughly the size of a large sausage patty. Unbleached muslin or cheesecloth doubled works; scald and dry it first, and tie both ends. Plastic wrap twisted into a log, or a cleaned cardboard tube lined with wrap, does the same job with less fuss.
"American sausage meat" (No. 68)A separate Ranhofer preparation, cross-referenced rather than set out here; bulk fresh pork sausage from a butcher is the nearest modern equivalent. Avoid anything pre-cured or smoked, which will not behave the same way.
Removing the muslinPeel the cloth from each slice after cutting, not before. If it clings, the meat is not cold enough — return the log to the refrigerator rather than fighting it.
BreadcrumbingDry crumbs alone will not hold on wet raw pork. Flour lightly, dip in beaten egg, then crumb; or the coating will fall away in the pan.
"A moderate oven"Conventionally read as somewhere around 350F. The instruction to boil in a little water first and then finish in the oven or over a slow fire is a way of cooking the interior through without scorching the crust -- useful given the thickness.
DonenessFresh pork sausage should reach 160F at the centre. Half-inch slices in butter need roughly 4-5 minutes a side over medium heat; a further 8-10 minutes at 350F after the water method.
YieldOne filled bag of this size yields about 24 slices and will serve four to six as a course, though the original assumes a table where this is one dish among several.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for over thirty years, published The Epicurean in 1894 as an encyclopaedic record of what a first-class American kitchen of the period could produce. The muslin-bag trick belongs to a class of professional devices for imposing shape on a loose farce without natural casings: farces rolled in cloth and boudins moulded in paper. Casings presumably required a butcher's stuffing horn and a certain skill; one might suppose a hotel kitchen turning out uniform portions at speed had reason to want a cylinder it could simply slice. The label "American sausage meat" is telling: Ranhofer gave his headings in English with the French alongside, and marked out the fresh pork mixture familiar in the United States as distinct from the French charcuterie he otherwise drew on.