Some months ago, I wrote about a seafood sausage I had eaten as an appetizer at Chanterelle, a world-class Manhattan restaurant owned by Chef David Wattuck and his wife, Melicia Phillips – it was one of the very best things I had eaten in my life. I would never have tasted this ambrosial sausage but for the generosity of my stepdaughter, Elisabeth Swan, and her husband, Scott Britten. They took my wife, Jeanne, and me on a weekend of cultural and culinary exploration in New York City as a birthday reward for our combined ages nearing 150 years.

    Scott often appears in this column as a rival for the position of head cook in our family. I think I will grant him the title and settle for head bread baker. All that is beside the point, however. Scott, a culinary adventurer and explorer, enjoyed the sausage as much as I did, and we decided to try to duplicate the recipe or devise a reasonable facsimile. We rifled through our memory banks, Googled and searched the Web, and finally found the following recipe, allegedly the grail of seafood sausage itself. Last week Scott and I made the sausage. It was a grand success!
    We made one fathom of sausage meant to serve as an appetizer course for eight. A single serving at Chanterelle costs $16, so we created $128 worth of sausage. Scott provided the kitchen, kitchen gear, sausage casings, booze and pignoli nuts. I provided the seafood.
    Our local fishmonger, Peter Fisher of Cataumet Fish, kindly sells my cookbook for me and owed me $75 from book sales (Peter pays me in seafood), so that amount plus $14 more bought the seafood. Our $128 worth of seafood cost us about $90 to make, along with four man-hours of work. This is valuable stuff.

Grilled Seafood Sausage
with Beurre Blanc Sauce
2 egg whites
½ tsp. salt
2 lbs. tilefish or black sea bass (we used cod) cut in ½-inch cubes
2 cups heavy cream
(The above ingredients should be very cold before proceeding.)
1 lb. fresh shrimp, peeled, deveined and coarsely chopped
1 lb. sea scallops, coarsely chopped
2 lobsters (1½ lb. each), cooked, shelled and coarsely chopped
2 oz. pignoli nuts, toasted
Salt
Cayenne pepper
Port
Brandy
Pork casings, cleaned
Nutmeg, optional

    Are you still with me? Do not be intimidated by the long list of ingredients! Remember that cooking is an act of love from which both you and your audience will benefit, and like many acts of love, it’s a bit messy. Here we go!
Combine chilled egg whites, salt and fish in either a blender or a food processor.
    Puree, gradually adding the heavy cream.
Pour mixture into a metal or glass mixing bowl.
Add shrimp, scallops, lobster and toasted pignoli nuts.
Mix well and season with salt (I would start with 1 tsp.), cayenne pepper (1/4 tsp.), port (1 ounce), brandy (1 ounce) – all of these are to taste.
Stuff the mixture into casings (not too tightly).
Tie off into 4- to 6-inch links.
    Poach in water over a low fire until thoroughly heated and water has approached (but not passed) the simmering point. If the water boils, the sausage will burst.
Remove from stove and cool in the poaching liquid. Chill.
    At serving time, heat oven to 350 degrees.
Slash the top of the sausage at intervals and brush with butter.
Broil until just slightly browned.
Place in oven until warmed through.
    Serve over beurre blanc sauce.
I like the sausage served with melted butter and lemon, but the beurre blanc will impress the heck out of your guests.

Beurre Blanc Sauce
¼ cup finely chopped shallots
¼ cup red wine vinegar
½ bottle white wine
3 TBS heavy cream
¾ lb. cold sweet (unsalted) butter cut into small cubes
Salt
Pepper
Tarragon (optional)

    In a non-aluminum pot, reduce vinegar, white wine and shallots until almost dry – the stuff should be syrupy.
Add the cream and reduce by half.
Put over low heat and gradually whisk in the butter.
Season with salt.
    Add additional vinegar if needed.
It is likely that not many of you will try this, but if you do, I promise you will not be sorry! For me, this was one of the best things I have ever taken part in preparing. You cannot go wrong when every ingredient you use is delicious all by itself. Just don’t do anything to destroy it.
    Now we get to my philosophical dilemma regarding this aristocrat of sausages. I see sausage as more of a working-class product made from the scraps, weird bits, extremities and trimmings left after butchering a large animal. For example, we have haggis (essentially a big sausage), blood sausage, various liver sausages, hot dogs (whose contents may include things too fierce to mention) and bologna, another mystery meat. All of these sausages are greater than the sum of their parts, but I cannot say that about this glorious fish sausage. Each part is great to begin with, so its construction may be likened to gilding a bouquet of already lovely lilies – yet it is still sausage, an almost reverential sausage, the summit of sausage making!
I could go on musing about sausage existentialism, but I will not. I can hear a collective sigh of relief from my readers, but I still feel ambivalent about seafood sausage being grouped in the sausage lexicon.
    Be that as it may, you will benefit from making this ethereal sausage at least once in your life. Follow the directions carefully, pour some beurre blanc on a plate, adorn it with this celestial sausage, serve it up to loved ones, enjoy your own, and bask in the accolades you will so rightfully have earned. Go for it – ambivalent or not!

Recipe Archive

9/07  10/07  11/07  12/07
1/08  2/08  3/08  4/08  5/08  6/08