Excellent Sausages
Source: Eliza Acton, 1845
History
"Excellent Sausages" is a receipt from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families, first published in London by Longmans in 1845 — one of the first English cookery books to give lists of ingredients, exact quantities, and cooking times. Acton's version is a skinless sausage-meat. Equal weights (one pound and a quarter each) of veal "perfectly free from fat, skin, and sinew," lean pork, and the inside fat of the pig are chopped first separately and then together, then seasoned with salt, pepper, one grated nutmeg, and "a large teaspoonful of pounded mace". Rather than being filled into casings, the mixture is pressed into a clean pan and kept in a very cool place; when wanted for table it is formed into cakes "something less than an inch thick," floured, and fried in a little butter for about ten minutes, or roasted in a Dutch or American oven. It sits among Acton's other pork-chapter sausage receipts, including the plain cased "Sausages", "Kentish Sausage-meat," and "Pounded Sausage-meat". The historical record consulted here does not document who ate this particular dish or that it carried any social status, and it does not support a lineage of specific places for the recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 lb veal
- 1 lb lean pork
- 1 lb inside fat of pig
- 1.25 oz salt
- 0.5 oz pepper
- 1 nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon mace
- butter
- flour
Instructions
- Chop the veal first on its own until fine.
- Chop the lean pork separately until fine.
- Chop the inside fat of the pig separately until fine.
- Combine all three chopped ingredients and chop together until well mixed.
- Strew the salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and pounded mace over the meat.
- Turn and chop the sausage mixture until it is equally seasoned throughout and tolerably fine in texture.
- Press the seasoned mixture into a clean pan and keep it in a very cool place until needed.
- Form the sausage mixture into cakes something less than an inch thick.
- Dust the cakes with flour.
- Fry them in a little butter for about ten minutes, or roast them in a Dutch oven or American oven.