I’m not a great fan of veggie sausages. There are quite
a few brands on the market now, which we are all grateful for, but I still find
they leave me with a light case of indigestion after eating them. Some are too
dense and some just fall apart in the pan and are impossible to fry. I have
tried making my own veggie sausages in the past but have never been quite happy
with the result. They were always too soft and therefore not firm enough to be
really called a sausage.
Two things have changed since then: I discovered methyl
cellulose and I saw French boudin blanc being prepared on a cooking show made
by Rick Stein.
Methyl cellulose is used a lot in the food industry and
has been for many years. It is harmless to the body – it just passes through
the system – and is therefore prescribed for constipation. The reason that it
is used in the food industry is that it has several properties. You could say
it sort of mimics eggs. When the powder is mixed with water it forms a gloop
that can will bring together dry mixes when reconstituted such as veggie burger
mix. It can be used as an egg replacement when bread crumbing, so much so, that
it is used in most breaded frozen foods.
It gets firmer as it heats up so it
forms a very crisp layer which you will also find in those crisps that are
somehow impossibly crispy. You can even make vegan meringue with a little help
with citric acid and other chemicals.
It is this property of firming up when hot that makes it
useful in the making of these veggie sausages. But I hasten to add that this
recipe works well even without it.
Boudin blanc is a very meaty white sausage but when I
saw it being made by French cooks on Ricks’ program I noticed that the base of
the sausage is bread soaked long enough in eggs and warm flavoured milk until
it forms a mush. The meat is held together by this mush after wrapping and
boiling and it is this fact that switched on the light bulb. If it can hold
meat it can hold vegetables.
This recipe makes about 16 to 18 sausages. If you want
to make less just half the recipe but I must tell you the boiled sausages freeze
very well while still in the cling film so you may want to stock up your
freezer. Here is the whole recipe but I have separated it in to parts so you
can make sense of each phase.
Phase 1
400g bread
8 medium sized eggs
Phase 2
800ml milk
1 onion
2 bay leaves
8 peppercorns
Phase 3
1 large onion
3 small leeks
10 tbsp vegetable oil
Fresh herbs such
as a sprig of rosemary, and thyme, or sage and oregano
14 sun dried tomatoes
3 heaped tbsp. potato flour
2 tsp methyl cellulose
1 tsp salt and 1 tsp black pepper
Phase 1
Break up the bread into chunks, place it in a bowl, and
break in the eggs mix it all together and leave it to stand whilst you make
phase two. You can use your favourite bread or preferably some old stuff that’s
a little past it’s prime. I used a half a white loaf in the pictures but I
generally use leftover focaccia buns.
Phase 2
You will need two pans for this phase. Cut the first
large onion into half-moons and place it in a pan with the milk, bay leaf and
peppercorns. Bring it to the boil and allow it to simmer very slowly so the
milk becomes flavoured. Heat for about half an hour and then take the pan off
the heat. Leave it t steep until it is required in phase three.
Finely chop the onion and leek, pour the oil in the
other pan, and start to fry the root veg. Keep the heat quite low because you
want to slowly soften the veg and bring out the flavours. Add whatever herbs
you want – I have suggested a few in the recipe. Dried herbs would be fine too.
Keep sautéing, stirring regularly, for about 30 minutes until the onions and
leeks are soft, sweet but not too browned. Take off the heat, chop in the
tomatoes, and allow to cool.
Phase 3
Mix the (sieve it first to remove the onion) flavoured milk into the bread and egg mix and
start mush it up with your hands and fingers and try and make the mix as smooth
as possible. Add the cooked onion mixture. If there are still a lot of big
lumps then let the mix sit until they can be broken down. Small lumps are ok.
When reasonably smooth add the potato flour, methyl cellulose (if using) and
the salt and black pepper. Mix thoroughly. This mixture will happily sit in the
fridge for a couple of days.
Next roll out some cling film and blob on a couple of
tablespoons of the sausage mix, spread it out a bit and then roll it up tightly
trying your best to keep out air bubbles. Inevitably some bubbles will remain
so don’t worry too much about it. The pictures give you an idea whats going on.
When they are nicely rolled and sealed you will need to
boil or steam them. Bring a deep tray of water to the boil and lift in the
sausages. After about 6 minutes they should be cooked and floating on the
surface. Lift them out carefully and place them on a tray or plate to cool. At
this point they can be frozen in their wrappers. This means you can take as
many out as you want, when you want, defrost and fry them up.
Now you know how they are made you can start experimenting
with your own flavour combinations i.e. adding a strong cheese such as stilton,
add smoked paprika to get a chorizo style flavour, or add cooked barley and
oats for amore haggis style taste.
