Sucuk

Pressed flat between boards while it dries, which is why a slice is an oval and not a circle.

Beef, Lamb. Not vegetarian — contains beef, lamb.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg beef chuck, minced coarse
• 300 g beef or lamb fat, minced coarse
• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons hot red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon sweet paprika
• 10 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste
• 1 tablespoon ground fenugreek
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice
• 35 g salt
• beef or lamb casings, soaked

Method

1. IT IS PRESSED FLAT BETWEEN BOARDS WHILE IT DRIES, which is why a slice of sucuk is an oval and not a circle. The filled links are hung for a few days and then laid between two boards with weights on top for the rest of the drying, turned daily. That does two things: it squeezes out the last pockets of air trapped against the casing, which are where a drying sausage spoils, and it gives the flattened cross-section that makes sucuk sit still in a frying pan instead of rolling. A round dried sausage of the same mixture is a perfectly good sausage and is not sucuk, and the shape is the first thing anyone recognises.
2. THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF CUMIN AND IT IS THE POINT. Three tablespoons to a kilo and a half. With the garlic and the fenugreek it is what makes sucuk taste like sucuk rather than like chorizo, and a cautious hand gives something that tastes merely of dried beef. Fenugreek appears here and on the pastırma page for the same reason and in much smaller quantity: a tablespoon, where that one uses a hundred grams as a coating.
3. THE MEAT AND FAT ARE KEPT COLD ENOUGH THAT THE FAT NEVER SMEARS, which is what any fresh sausage needs. Cubed and part-frozen before mincing, the mincer parts chilled with them. Smeared fat coats every strand in grease, and in a sausage that is then dried for weeks the result is greasy throughout and goes rancid early.
4. IT IS FILLED TIGHT WITH NO AIR AND PRICKED WHERE AIR SHOWS. Air pockets under the casing are where mould starts and where a dried sausage rots from inside, invisibly. Filled firmly, and any visible bubble pricked with a pin and pressed out before hanging.
5. IT IS DRIED THREE TO FOUR WEEKS AND LOSES A THIRD OF ITS WEIGHT. The real test is the scales, not the calendar: weighed when hung and weighed again, it is ready at about a third lost. Firm to the touch can mean a dry shell round a soft middle, which is the one failure that is dangerous rather than merely disappointing.
6. The beef and fat cubed, spread on a tray and part-frozen 45 MINUTES. The mincer parts chilled with them.
7. Minced COARSE, straight from the freezer, into a chilled bowl.
8. CHECKED: the fat must be in distinct white specks, not smeared.
9. The cumin, pepper flakes, paprika, garlic, fenugreek, allspice and salt worked through by hand, briefly.
10. Covered and rested 24 HOURS in the fridge.
11. Piped into the soaked casings FIRMLY with no air, and tied into links about 25 cm long. Any air bubble PRICKED and pressed out.
12. WEIGHED and the weight written down.
13. Hung in cool moving air, 12 to 15°C, for 3 DAYS.
14. Then laid BETWEEN TWO BOARDS with 3 to 4 kg of weight on top, turned DAILY.
15. Pressed and dried a further 3 to 4 WEEKS in the same conditions.
16. WEIGHED again: ready at about a THIRD of the original weight lost. Firmness alone is not the test.
17. Sliced thin on the diagonal and fried in a dry pan -- it renders its own fat -- or eaten as it is.

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 Turkey · All recipes