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Mirkâs (Merguez Sausage)

Posted on 03/21/202203/24/2022 by Murienne

13th C Andulasian sausage recipe.

It is as nutritious as meatballs[1] (banâdiq) and quick to digest, since the pounding ripens its and makes it quick to digest, and it is good nutrition. First get some meat from the leg or shoulder of a lamb and pound it until it becomes like meatballs. Knead it in a bowl, mixing in some oil and some murri naqî’, pepper, coriander seed, lavender, and cinnamon. Then add three quarters as much of fat, which should not be pounded, as it would melt while frying, but chopped up with a knife or beaten on a cutting board. Using the instrument made for stuffing, stuff it in the washed gut, tied with thread to make sausages, small or large. Then fry them with some fresh oil, and when it is done and browned, make a sauce of vinegar and oil and use it while hot. Some people make the sauce with the juice of cilantro and mint and some pounded onion. Some cook it in a pot with oil and vinegar, some make it râhibi with onion and lots of oil until it is fried and browned. It is good whichever of these methods you use. – An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century, translated by Charles Perry

My Version

I didn’t have the budget for lamb so I used beef. As the dish was being served as part of vigil food for a gentle with an Arab persona I did not use pork as he would not have eaten that meat. I also did not have access to murri naqi so I substituted soy sauce. Murri is made from fermented barley and soy sauce from fermented soy beans, the taste is similar and they are both quite salty.

I ground the meat and fat coarsely to maintain a good texture. I added 3/4 of a pound of fat for every pound of meat. To the meat and fat I added sesame oil (not roasted),  and soy sauce. This made the meat much looser and easier to mix the spices in evenly.

The spices used were grain of paradise in place of pepper, coriander seed, lavender buds, and cinnamon. All of these were ground together with a mortar and pestle until fine. The spice miture was then added to the meat. I chilled the meat for 2 hours as it is much easier to stuff cold meat into casings. I used a modern sausage stuffer and natural casings that had been preserved in salt to make the sausages. The casings were washed thoroughly in cold water to remove the salt and to check for holes. The meat was stuffed into the casings and sausages as long as the width of my hand were formed and tied off. The sausages were fried in hot oil until cooked though. They were served with a sauce made by pureeing cilantro, mint and onion with a bit of oil.

Sources

An Anonymous Andalusian Cookbook of the 13th Century, translated by Charles Perry
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Andalusian/andalusian_contents.htm

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