Sosis Bandari

The sausage is already cooked, so what you are making is a thick chilli and onion stew around it.

Not vegetarian — contains a sausage whose meat the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 500 g smoked sausage, sliced into 1 cm coins
• 3 onions, sliced
• 3 tablespoons tomato purée
• 2 teaspoons ground chilli
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 60 ml sunflower oil
• baguette or sub rolls, sliced dill pickles and sliced tomato, to serve

Method

1. THE SAUSAGE IS ALREADY COOKED, SO WHAT YOU ARE MAKING IS A THICK CHILLI AND ONION STEW AROUND IT. Its article describes the sausages used as tasting like kielbasa, smoked sausage or a hot dog -- all of them cured and cooked before you buy them. So none of the cooking time here is about cooking meat. The onions, tomato purée and chilli are reduced to a thick paste first, and the sausage coins go in near the end only to heat through and take colour. Simmered for half an hour they go rubbery and leach their fat and salt into the sauce.
2. THE SAUSAGE IS SLICED INTO COINS AND FRIED FIRST. One centimetre thick, fried hard in a little oil for three or four minutes until the edges are browned and slightly curled, then lifted out while the sauce is made and returned at the end. That browning is most of the flavour and it does not happen in a wet sauce.
3. THE ONIONS ARE COOKED DOWN SLOWLY AND THERE ARE THREE. Sliced, over a medium-low heat for twenty minutes until soft and gold. They are the bulk of the dish, not a background note.
4. THE TOMATO PURÉE IS FRIED OUT BEFORE ANY LIQUID GOES IN. Three tablespoons stirred into the onions for two minutes until it darkens from scarlet to brick red. This is what makes the sauce taste cooked rather than sharp and tinny.
5. IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE HOT. Its article calls it a very hot and spicy sausage dish and lists ground chilli among the main ingredients. Two teaspoons for four people, and the dish is not itself if you leave it out.
6. IT IS A THICK STEW, NOT A SAUCE. Its article calls it a hot thick stew used as a sandwich filling. It has to be stiff enough to sit in a split baguette without running out of the end, so it is reduced until a spoon leaves a channel.
7. LIME GOES IN OFF THE HEAT. Its article lists lime juice among the optional ingredients. Squeezed in at the end, where it stays bright against the chilli and the tomato.
8. IT IS SERVED IN BREAD, WITH PICKLES. Its article has it as a filling for a submarine or baguette sandwich, or as a meal with the same bread, sliced dill pickles and sliced tomato alongside. It is fast food and belongs on a plate with something sharp.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Iran · All recipes