THE BEST OF THE WURST
Celebrate sausages from around the world,
I lost track of how many “cleaneating” cookbooks I get in my inbox. You know, the ones where the cover is a smoothie bowl with seeds so deliberately arranged you know the food stylist would have gone DEFCON 1 had a pepita fallen out of place?
Which is why I was relieved to see a copy of The Wurst of Lucky Peach arrive. For those unfamiliar with Lucky Peach, it’s the quarterly food magazine co-founded by Momofuku czar David Chang.
It’s a food magazine for people who wouldn’t usually pick up a food magazine. The dishes look like they were shot in a diner or home kitchen rather than obsessively worked over in a studio. Recipes aren’t season-driven but shaped by the issue’s overall theme, such as Chinatown, street food and uh, the apocalypse.
Product guides have been replaced by long reads such as the food James Bond would eat or the digestive patterns of sheep.
Like the mag, Wurst is a cookbook for people who wouldn’t usually pick up a cookbook. It’s the first in a new series of books diving into a single type of food. The book has encyclopedic entries on sausages divided into six continents ranging from Georgian churchkhela to Kenyan mutura. There are recipes too, and for those who don’t have a sausage extruder at home (who doesn’t?) some of the sausages don’t require casings.
Even if you have no intention of cooking anything, Wurst is a handy resource that celebrates sausages around the world. The book: Wurst, $34, is more of a guidebook dotted with photo-driven essays, odes and first-person narratives such as a bratwurst crawl across Germany during Oktoberfest and riding through Ontario’s Men- nonite towns. The second half of the book consists of recipes for cased and uncased sausages, as well as dishes as classy as pigs in a blanket and hotdog chili. The author: Chris Ying is the editor and co-founder of Lucky Peach. Keeping with the style of the magazine, Ying approaches the food with equal parts nostalgia, American kitsch, fine-dining and guilty-butnot-sorry pleasures. Case in point, his rant against homemade ketchup: “It’s not that homemade ketchup tastes bad per se; it’s just that it always, always tastes worse than the bottled stuff.” He’s not wrong. The tester: I love crumbling sausages into pastas, soups and casseroles. During Thanksgiving and Christmas I have to windmill myself through the St. Lawrence Market to get a particular type of fancy sausage to make my stuffing, so I was glad to learn how easy it is to make your own. I also ate five bratwursts at last year’s family barbecue, so . . . Recipes I’m dying to make: Green Chili Chorizo, Lobster Sausage, Breakfast Sausage, Pizza Sausage, Hotdog Chili.
Mexican Chorizo
Star Tested As the book says, sweet Mexican sausage often gets bastardized in North American supermarkets. The cheap store-bought stuff melts into a greasy blob when cooked and lacks the tangy, herbal flavour you want in a good chorizo. For the chilies and spices, head to one of the handful of Latin grocery stores in Kensington Market (I got mine from Perola’s). Ask the butcher for pork fat when buying the shoulder (it’s rarely kept in the display cases). Keep the freshly made sausage in the fridge for one or two days. After that, freeze it.
11/2 lbs (680 g) boneless pork shoulder (without fat cap), cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 lb. (225 g) pork back fat, cut into 1-inch pieces
12 medium ancho chilies, seeds and stems removed
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp (15 mL) fresh or 1 tsp (5 mL) dried thyme leaves
1 tbsp (15 mL) fresh or
1 tsp (5 mL) dried marjoram leaves
1 tsp (5 mL) dried oregano (preferably Mexican)
1/2 tsp (2 mL) ground cinnamon (preferably canela)
Pinch ground cloves
2 tsp (10 mL) kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/3 cup (80 mL) cider vinegar 2 tbsp (30 mL) water
Freeze pork and pork fat while preparing seasonings.
Tear chilies into flat pieces. In a large skillet over medium heat, press chilies onto hot skillet using flat spatula. Toast until fragrant, about 10 to 20 seconds per side.
Place chilies in large bowl. Fill with water and place a small plate on top to keep chilies submerged. Let soak for 20 minutes.
Drain chilies and transfer to food processor or blender.
In a mortar or spice grinder, pulverize bay leaves. Add to food processor or blender along with thyme, marjoram, oregano, cinnamon, cloves, salt, vinegar and water. Blend until smooth, adding more water if necessary. Press mixture through a medium mesh sieve into a large bowl.
Place meat and fat into food processor and pulse until it becomes a coarse-grind paste (you should still be able to see some little cubes of fat). Add meat to bowl of seasoning and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
To taste for seasoning, cook off a small patty in an unoiled skillet over medium heat until fully cooked.
Makes 2 1/2 lbs. (1.1 kg) chorizo.
Chorizo With Beans and Egg On Toast
Star Tested While this isn’t in the book, I figured it would be useful to show you one of the many ways you can use freshly made chorizo. Add it to nachos, tacos, soups or, in this case, sauté it with beans and onions to put on toast for a hearty and easy meal good for any day of the week.
6 oz (170 g) uncased chorizo 1/2 cup (125 mL) canned red kidney beans, drained and rinsed 1/4 cup (60 mL) diced onion Salt, to taste
2 large eggs
Hot sauce, to taste
Chopped cilantro, for garnish
2 slices sandwich bread
In a medium skillet over medium heat, cook chorizo, beans and onions until meat is fully cooked and onions have softened, stirring often to break up any clumps. Add salt to taste. Transfer to bowl and set aside.
In second skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Fry eggs until whites have set but yolk is runny.
Add beans and sausage mixture to toasted sandwich bread. Top with eggs. Add hot sauce to taste. Garnish with cilantro, if using. Serve immediately.
Makes 2 servings. karonliu@thestar.ca