It’s all going in the world of sausages this week – well, it is UK Sausage Week after all.
Firstly, Pizza Hut entered the plant-based food game (where have you been Pizza Hut?) by debuting a new pizza topped with plant-based sausage, although it was only available for one day. In Arizona. USA!
Then, sausage producer Heck, who are just down the A1 from us at Bedale, revealed that plant-based food, i.e. sausages, will form the majority of its business in five years’ time.
But, easily the best sausage story of the week was the launch of the world’s first sausage podcast.
Now, we’re a big fan of the podcast in the SK kitchen (Kermode & Mayo’s Film Review, Serial, Gangster Capitalism and Caliphate being just four we can recommend) but a whole programme dedicated to a pork-based product didn’t exactly get us pressing the subscribe button.
But then we heard the first episode. And. We. Are. Hooked.
Called ‘Prick with a Fork – The Sausage Podcast’, it’s the brainchild of journalist Duncan Barkes whose aim is to “spread the sausage love far and wide”.
It contains sausage news, tastings, the odd interview, recipes and a weekly poll which addresses such searching issues such as the best sauce to have with your favourite banger. For the record the answer is, and always will be, brown.
So, I am taking my chef’s hat off to you Duncan, you have stolen sausage week and come up with a banging podcast (see what I did there) and double entendre name for it as well!
It is available from www.prickfork.co.uk as well as the usual places people get their podcasts from.
The aim of UK Sausage Week is to raise awareness of the great British sausage and this includes a competition where sausage makers compete in various categories, including best independent butcher, best foodservice sausage and best manufacturer own brand sausage.
Winners this year included a Cumberland with Banana Habanero Sausage, a Fruity Curry Pork Sausage and a Toffee and Apple Sausage.
The Overall UK Supreme Sausage Champion went to a traditional Shropshire pork sausage, which is a bit boring given some of the other weird and wonderful recipes just mentioned, but we are sure it was delicious.
I wonder if the sausage I made to mark the week was worthy of a prize. Why not try the recipe and let me know?
Chorizo and apple sausage roll
- 600g seasoned sausage meat
- 200g diced quality chorizo
- 1 white onion finely diced
- 15 ml of Spanish sherry vinegar
- 20 ml of white wine
- 1 apple finely diced
- 1tsp of smoked paprika
- 1 hand full of chopped parsley
- 1 pack or ready rolled puff pastry
- 1 egg yolk for glazing
- Pre heat oven 200oC.
- In a hot non-stick frying pan start by frying off your onions and chorizo, there should be enough oil in the chorizo so you don’t need any extra. Once the onions are cooked and the chorizo is crispy add your apples, vinegar and wine then cook just enough to make the apples tender and the liquid has evaporated. Allow this mix to cool, this is important as If you add to the sausage meat when hot it will cook it.
- Once the mix is cool add the sausage meat, paprika and parsley.
- With wet hands roll the sausage meat into sausage shapes and refrigerate for 20mins. Lay your puff pastry out and with your sausage fillings place on the pastry and using one edge taking it over the sausage and wrap it in the pastry leaving a little extra edge to pinch with a fork, trim any extra pastry to look neat and brush with the egg yolk.
- Bake 200oC for 25-40 mins depending on the size. Serve with a Mediterranean tomato chutney.
About Chris Brown
Sous Chef of SK Foods.
Your food. Our Passion.
