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When smaller is better

Step 1: Laying out the store-bought bangers, I readied them for a home butchery tweak.

Recently we made our own sausages in this column. This month our home butcher STEVE BAIN shares his approach to using those sausages with a twist.

By twisting differently flavoured sausages into smaller versions — you might call them chipolatas — your dinner guests can be presented with a variety of your wares in the one meal.

Three differently flavoured half-sized bangers seems about right, portion-wise, when they are accompanied by a lot of vegetables.

And there’s a ‘hack’ option as well. The hack is that you can use the method here to easily turn store-bought sausages into chipolatas.

Last weekend my local supermarket had a special on their sausage ‘variety triple packs’. Standing in front of them with my thumb and forefinger on my chin, I had an ‘aha’ moment that connected with Lynn having asked me for some little sausages in a mixture of flavours.

After purchasing a couple of packets of the ‘specials’, this is what I did when I got home.

Step 2: Firstly separate the sausages (by snipping them at the join with kitchen scissors) and then squeeze them in the middle.
Step 3: At the squeeze point, twist the two halves of the sausage (twist them about three or four times).
Step 4: A close-up of the twisted section.
Step 5: Now, using your kitchen scissors, snip the twisted section (snip it in the middle of the twists so that there are at least a couple of twists on each side of the ‘snip’).
Step 6: The finished chipolatas above the ‘original’ sausage.
Step 7: Keep twisting and snipping. Note: when I was first shown this tweak, I expected all of the filling to ooze out of the ends, but it doesn’t — the twists seem to ‘lock’ into each other and almost seal off the ends. However, don’t be put off if some filling does escape — when it does, any over-spill actually cooks crispy, and many say it adds even more to the dish’s taste when cooking is finished.
Step 8: About 12 chipolatas is ideal for four servings.