Merguez - spicy lamb sausages
Description
Merguez are originally North African, but very popular in France. They need fierce grilling - ideally over charcoal. Spicy and moreish as well as being Moorish! Absolutely ideal for the barbecue. And you could easily make feisty mini burgers from this mix if you don't want to stuff sausages.
The recipe has its origins in one printed in "Casa Moro", Sam & Sam Clark's 'home cooking' book - but I have considerably adjusted the balance of the spicing (and deliberately left out the dried Rose petals!).
Ingredients
At a glance
Cuisine
Cooking Method
Type
Main Ingredient
Budget
Seasonality
Course
Makes
About a kilo of sausages
- Sweet Red Pepper - 2
- Fennel Seed - a heaped teaspoonful
- Cumin Seed - 2 heaped teaspoonfuls
- Salt - 2 level teaspoons
- Garlic - at least 2 big fat cloves (don't skimp!)
- Fresh Coriander - about ten stalks and their leaves, to make about a tablespoonful when chopped as finely as you can. Add a bit more if you specially like it - that amount blends in without drawing attention to itself.
- Minced Lamb - 1kg (fatty is ideal, at the very least 20% fat, but do make sure its very cold)
- Harissa (not much, see below). Its the North African Chillie Sauce, so some crushed dried chillies and some tomato puree could approximate as a substitution.
- Rosewater (or other liquid, ideally something flavoursome, but cold tapwater will do) - 4 teaspoonfuls
- Paprika - 2 mountainous teaspoonfuls (I use one of sweet & 1 of smoked sweet paprika)
- Ground Cinnamon - about half a level teaspoonful
- Black pepper - ground, about 1/4 teaspoonful
- Sausage skins - probably more than 12 feet of sheep casings, depending on your casings, stuffer and whim.
Method/steps
- If you are going to stuff sausages, start by getting the casings soaking.
- Scorch the skin of the peppers. Use a gas flame, grill, gas blowlamp or whatever. Let them sit covered (so in their own steam) for a few minutes, and the skin should come off easily. Remove the seeds, and chop the flesh as finely as you can. Set aside to get properly cold.
- Toast (don't burn) the fennel and cumin seeds for a little more aroma. Once cool enough, grind them - a pestle and mortar should be fine, but I cheat with an old coffee grinder kept for spices. Set aside - you want them cold.
- The peeled garlic cloves can be ground to a paste with the salt using a pestle and mortar - otherwise, chop it as finely as possible, then see what sort of a paste you can make with the salt using a couple of spoons. Preparing the garlic as a paste allows it to distribute as evenly as possible through the sausagemeat.
- Chop the Coriander.
- Those advance jobs having been done, one can mix everything together to make a slightly sticky, just about cohesive sausage forcemeat. Having everything rather cold helps the sausagemeat to 'bind' better. Feel free to add extra spoonfuls of Rosewater (or even Olive Oil if your mince isn't very fatty). I use a Kenwood Chef, and a couple of minutes of slowish work with the K-beater makes a nice forcemeat.
- Don't forget the Harissa! It doesn't have a standard strength, so as a guideline, from my "Dea" tube I squeeze a 2" line of 'toothpaste' - your taste (and Harissa) may vary.
- Before you take the sausagemeat out of the mixing bowl, take a sample, fry it and taste-test. You might want to add (and mix in) a little more salt or chillie - I have given lightish amounts so that you can bring these up (if required) to what tastes right to you.
- When you are ready, either form into thin burgers or stuff into the chipolata sized sheep casings. The viciously hot Moroccan originals are linked quite short, but the merely spicy French ones tend to be quite long.
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