Dear Regular Newsletter Readers,
I trust this week’s newsletter finds you all well and as always I hope you click open some of the links that make up its content. As usual, there are various international and domestic news stories, both general and Japanese school education based; there is our long running section for those of you that want to learn a bit of English through the BBBC video Links that we provide; we have some desktop wallpaper images that you can download if you wish and we also have the contributions that I try to make every week in ‘Stephen’s Corner’ which usually include personal observations, opinions on certain things, food recipes and the odd bit of poetry from time-to-time. My contribution this week is cooking and eating based yet again with a few lines of poetry thrown in for that extra bit of seasoning.
I absolutely love Italian food and one dish that I am particularly fond of cooking and eating is peppers, onions and freshly made Italian sausages. If you have ever tried this combination of ingredients, whether eaten inside a bread cake/roll or together with roast potatoes, then you’ll know that the flavours that they impart on each other is something that is not so easy to put into words, tasty and delicious are two common adjectives typically used to describe excellent food, but they just don’t cut it for me (pun intended).
There are many recipes for peppers, onions and Italian sausages out there posted on the internet and also written into cookbooks, so it’s very easy for anyone to do the research and learn how to make the dish. I arrived at my own recipe through trying selected ones that I found on the internet and also ones that I found in some old Italian cookbooks that I have; I fused certain elements of all the recipes I’ve tried in order to personalize the dish to my own taste, and I believe I’ve managed to accomplish just that judging by the speed at which my family devour what comes out of the frying pan at the end of cooking. Below, you will find the recipe that I always follow; I’ve also included my go-to recipe for homemade Italian sausage that I have adapted from various recipes to suit my own taste.
I am lucky enough to own my own meat grinder and sausage stuffer (cooking is a serious hobby of mine), so I buy my own blocks of meat and fat and prepare my sausage from absolute scratch. The recipe below features mincemeat already prepared that you can buy from your butcher of supermarket, which works fine, but of course if, like me, you have your own sausage making equipment then you can grind your own meat to a certain level of coarseness and also you can experiment with the ratio of fat that you add to the meat. I hope you try to make this dish as you will love the taste; as already mentioned, the adjectives normally used to describe food that is just out of this word do not quite do the taste of this dish justice, perhaps the favour is best described through poetry which I will try to do at a later stage. Until next week, enjoy yourselves and keep safe and healthy.
My recipe for homemade Italian sausage
2.3 Kg of good quality freshly minced pork.
l (For those of you with sausage making equipment you would need 1.8 kg of pork shoulder and 500 grams of pork back fat and you would use a course grinding plate on your mincer. A #8 should work fine).
2 tablespoons of sea salt.
1.5 tablespoons of freshly ground black pepper.
1 tablespoon of ordinary white sugar.
1/2 cup of fridge cold white/red wine or drinking water.
3~4 cloves of garlic (grated into a paste).
1 teaspoon of thyme.
1 teaspoon of finely chopped rosemary.
1 teaspoon of finely chopped parsley.
1 teaspoon onion powder.
1 tablespoon of finely grated fennel seeds.
2 heaped tablespoons of freshly finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese.
A handful of dried breadcrumbs (finely ground ones are best).
l (When I buy or bake my own Italian bread I eat it fresh on the day and keep the remainder to use for other dishes such as Panzanella and also breadcrumbs when I need them for sausage making and other dishes I make. In regards to sausage making, I generally mix the breadcrumbs with the wine or water to make a kind of paste before adding it to my sausage mix as I find this adds a softer and juicier texture to the final result – there will be some of you that will say Italians don’t put breadcrumbs into sausage and that may well be true, but it works very well in this recipe).
1 teaspoon chilli flakes.
1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
1 teaspoon of mace.
1 teaspoon of nutmeg.
(Before making your sausage, regardless of whether you have bought meat already minced or you have minced your own, make sure that your meat has been in the fridge for about 2/3 hours and it is very cold as this makes it easier to work with).
How to make the sausages
In a large bowl put your minced pork and all the other ingredients in together and mix well together. Before forming into sausages (in this recipe a sausage stuffer is not used and the sausages are hand rolled without placing into hog casings) take a small amount of your mixture and form it into a pattie. Put a big frying pan (non-stick) onto your stove top, add a small amount of olive oil and cook the pattie. When cooked do a tasting test, I do this to make sure I have the seasoning just right before I form my mixture into sausages. There is nothing worse than making sausages and not having them seasoned enough as this will spoil the flavours from developing during cooking and you will be left having to add in additional salt and pepper at the end of cooking which simply spoils the dish. If you have spent so much time preparing your ingredients and you do not do a tasting test before forming your sausages and cooking them then you may well end up kicking yourself rather than patting yourself on the back if you haven’t seasoned enough, so make sure you do a tasting test. Once you are happy with the seasoning then form your sausages, add a bit more olive oil into your pan and then cook them on medium heat until browned all over, about 2/3 minutes on each side should be enough. Then put them to one side until you have prepared your peppers and onions – you have to remember that the sausages will cook further when you add the peppers and onions to them so you need to allow for this. If you cook the sausages too much at this stage they will be overcooked by the time the peppers and onions have softened and they will not be juicy and the texture will be too hard and dry.
Preparing your peppers and onions.
1 large red onion finely sliced.
1 large white onion finely sliced.
3~4 cloves of garlic finely chopped.
5 large green peppers deseeded.
5 large red peppers deseeded and sliced into strips.
2 large yellow peppers deseeded and sliced into strips.
2 medium sized fresh tomatoes with skins on and roughly chopped.
2~3 tablespoons of homemade tomato sauce.
A generous pinch of mixed dried herbs (oregano, thyme, rosemary).
I tablespoon of red wine vinegar.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Marrying the sausages with the peppers and onions and cooking them together
Put the peppers and all other ingredients into the hot frying pan containing the fat rendered from cooking the sausages and fry on medium high heat for about 10~12 minutes. You can discard the rendered fat and use fresh olive oil, but I prefer to use the rendered fat as it adds a lot of flavour to the finished dish. Make sure you stir the peppers and onions frequently; it is important that you do not overcook or stew the peppers and onions as you will end up with a rather tasteless mushy texture at the end of cooking. Then, add the sausages back into the pan with the peppers and onions and cook for a further 10~12 minutes. You want to make sure that the peppers still have some degree of crispness to them and that the onions are soft and somewhat caramelized and when you are happy that you have reached this point the dish is complete and ready to eat. And there you have it, Italian sausages, peppers and onions that can be eaten in a freshly baked bread roll (my favourite way to eat this Italian popular dish) or with roast potatoes or pasta, particularly a short pasta like Penne works very well.
My last meal on earth
The sweet caramelized translucent silkiness of the onions.
The crisp shiny subtle sweet juiciness of the peppers.
The fragrant spicy soft tender succulent meatiness of the sausages.
Such an array of textures and flavours the other ingredients helped to impart.
Collectively responsible for creating this dish.
This would be my last meal on earth for which I would wish.
A poem by Stephen Austwick