Saturday, July 17, 2010

Home-made veggie sausages

I am a massive Delia Smith fan and this is just basically copy and pasting her "Cheese and Herb Sausages" recipe, which is one of my all-time favs. I've renamed them in the title because the recipe is super easily adapted to a vegan or meat version or whatever you fancy.

The original recipe goes as follows:

4 oz (110g) mature Cheddar, grated
2 teaspoons chopped fresh mixed herbs
5 oz (150g) fresh breadcrumbs (white or wholemeal)
1 medium onion, peeled and grated
3/4 teaspoon dry mustard powder
1 large egg yolk
salt and freshly milled pepper

For coating and frying:
1 oz (25g) breadcrumbs
1 oz (25g) parmesan, grated
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons groundnut or other flavourless oil for cooking

Basically, you mix it all the sausage ingredients together and form sausages out of them. then you dip them in egg white and then in the breadcrumbs and parmesan. fry them at medium heat on all sides.

The trick in this recipe is the fresh breadcrumbs and grated onion. It is therefore important that you make breadcrumbs freshly yourself and that you do grate the onion. they are your base for shaping and taste. The eggs are leave-it or take-it in this recipe and not at all important.

All the other ingredients are replaceable and open to experiment. When I make these for vegans, I replace the cheese with some tofu and marmite. If I'm out of fresh herbs, I use dried ones. I have added grated carrot, mushroom paté or apple.

Delia advises to have them with fruit chutney but I usually have them for dinner with a lentil salad or something alike. I make them for kids parties a lot, too, as they are cheap as chips and easy to make in large quanities.