Friday, 8 January 2010

Fennel, chilli and chocolate sausages

Chocolate sausages?! Has Browners gone completely mad?

Pork goes well with chilli...

Pork also goes well with fennel...

Pork and chocolate is a combination that you’ll stumble across throughout Latin and South America...

So why not combine it all together?

The warmth of the chilli, the aniseed flavour of the fennel and all round depth from the chocolate build up to create a sausage that’s up there with my favourites.

Make your sausage meat using the 60/40 belly to shoulder ratios as I’ve mentioned elsewhere. Season liberally with salt. Then grate a generous amount of Willy’s Wonky Cacao into the mince. Then sprinkle with chilli seeds and finely ground fennel seeds. If you’ve got some fresh chillies to hand then finely slice them and add to the mix.

To continue the South American theme, Ancho chillies would work well, but if you wanted a smokier flavour then why not experiment with Chipotle chillies which are hard to get your hands on, but well worth the effort.

Fennel chocolate and chilli

Mix it all together with some breadcrumbs and then extrude into some natural casings. Leave to rest in the fridge overnight and then serve for lunch along with some buttery mashed potato, iron rich greens and fennel gratin. The chocolate helps to give them depth, whilst the main sensation comes from the fennel and chilli, both of which are very grown up flavours.

As an adventurous alternative make a Mexican mole and serve with the sausages with some rice.

Mole in a bowl

Gareth from Bibendum recommends drinking a bottle of Primitivo with these bangers, whereas Fiona the Winematcher suggests wolfing them down with some New Wave Tuscan red.

This is part of a series of posts about experimental sausages and a potential sausage-fest

7 comments:

spiltwine said...

Primitivo?!?!

Why not it's tougher older brother...Zinfandel! ;-)

Ravenswood Vintners Blend is an easy to find one at most supermarkets

There's even a really good one from India from a place called Sula Vineyards - available at Novum Wines

But the daddy is Ridge Geyserville - available at most independents

-louis (the californian)

Browners said...

@spiltwine - Nice suggestions. I'm going to have to try a few of them out. I'm particularly keen to try Ridge Geyserville. Cheers Louis.

sarahtriv said...

Well I wouldn't need much persuading, I'll eat chocolate in anything. These sound fabulous but sadly I lack the equipment for sausage making. I've done a surprise combination in my post today, why don't you check it out!

Graphic Foodie said...

I must say I am really liking your recipes at the moment - they just push it a little further. Totally "get" the chocolate in this. As Fennel and chilli are my favourite sausage flavours anyway, I would love to richen them further with cacao. Did you do the recipe by eye or do you know the measurements you used?

Good work sir.

Browners said...

@Sarah, Maison Cupcake - Why don't you try making porky meatballs with chocolate, fennel and chilli? Would work well I imagine. Very intrigued by your boursin invention with biscuits. What's the combination of sweet like with garlic?

@Graphic Foodie - I did it by eye to be honest. To check the flavours just make a mini pattie out of the mince and gently fry it. That way you can adjust the seasoning as you go rather than making masses of sausages and then getting all the flavours wrong!

aforkfulofspaghetti said...

Would love to have tried these - they have all the ingredients for super yumminess, for sure. Will do what you have suggested to others, and try making meatballs instead.

You might want to do a compare-and-contrast with Chadwick's venison, chocolate, and chilli sausages, which I tried just before Xmas. They were bloomin' good, too.

Browners said...

@aforkfulofspaghetti - Ah. A Chadwick's challenge. Good idea. It's a belting combo.

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