Homemade Sausage Making

Your powder keg onions remind me of one of the many gifts that India has given to us The hallowed Onion Bhajia

I have made them many a time. Here is one of the recipes that I have:

125g gram flour (chickpea flour)
2 medium onions, chopped finely
1 tsp chopped fresh coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda salt
150-200ml water
Method:
Mix together all ingredients except for the water, then add the water gradually, until you have a thick batter. Deep fry in hot oil for 2-3 minutes, until golden brown.

You can use as much chili powder as you like or you can scrub it and use fresh green or red or a mixture of chilies.

When I go out for a curry I often avoid onion bhajia as they are dense solid blocks. By free frying them (I may have invented a new cooking term), do not compact them and let them do their own thing in the pan they puff up and become crunchy. To complement perfection you need a dipping sauce. I use a tamarind sauce, but you can use whatever tickles your fancy.

Mark

Ursula,
I have a theory! You need to be kissed by an ONION eater! Yup! A wild, western, ONION eather. Now, if I could just get you to settle down long enough to smooch you, you might change yer' mind!

That's just an onion dressed up. It's still an onion!
My father says steer clear of cowboys with strange theories.

Ursula

Dag Nab It! Did you always do what your father told you to do!

Hey Markjass! Your Onion Bhajia looks amazing. I can't wait to try it. Thanks for sharing.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon (the lonely onion eater).

P.S. Ursula, you'd just better watch out. I just might eat some breath mints then sneak up behind you for a lip lock!

There's an old Jewish folk tale about a man who heard that the neighboring kingdom had no onions. Thinking of possible profit, he loaded up a wagon of onions and went hundreds of miles to the king of the neighboring kingdom. That king liked the onions so much, he repaid the merchant by filling his wagon with gold.

The merchant's cousin thought, if they would pay so much for onions, what would they pay for garlic? He filled a wagon full of garlic and drove it to the king of the neighboring kingdom.

Upon receiving and tasting the garlic, the king said he'd never tasted anything quite so good and unique. He said gold could scarcely repay for this delicacy, and he would repay with the best thing his poor kingdom could offer...the wagon full of onions.

Hey laripu, that is a terrific legend. Thanks.

Hey C.W. do give them a go. The water needs to be very cold.

Here is my story (not in the same league as Laripu's). When I was training I moved into a hostel. This was about 1980. In those days goulash (in England) would contain 1/2 - 1 clove of garlic and one teaspoon of paprika (I still have my first cookbook which was published in 1974 - the roasts, cakes, preserves and desserts are still second to none). Now days I use tablespoons of paprika and a tablespoon of garlic, Anyway the first time I ever offered to cook for my girlfriend (lived in another block) I went to great lengths, she told me she did not like foreign food, onions and garlic. Needless to say we split up shortly afterwards.

Every time I read this sausage title I have to reset my thinking because I read it as an incomplete sentence calling for us to outlaw onion sausage.

markjass wrote: she told me she did not like foreign food, onions and garlic. Needless to say we split up shortly afterwards.

I also remember when I was growing up in a small city on the Canadian prairies, some folks would make fun of foods with garlic and of the people who prepared them. I think we have come a long way since then. Garlic is now in everything and even considered very healthy. And around here, good quality local garlic is darned expensive!

My New England parents were very scornful of garlic and of olive oil but they loved Polish sausage and Italian sausage.

Ross you must have been impeccable in English. We have signs that read slow children.

grasshopper wrote:Ross you must have been impeccable in English. We have signs that read slow children.

lol.

We've had a motto in this state ever since 1847... "If your woman objects to onions or garlic... find a new woman!"
Ross, look at the apostrophe in "outlaw's onions"! This is to show all you lawbreaker's out there that the word is a noun that shows possession. If I were to advocate outlawing onions, I'm afraid I would be banished from the state having been "bled" via .45 caliber orifices and hung with new hemp rope! Torricelli`s Law states, the speed of blood flowing from a Colt .45 caliber orifice is equal to the speed it would attain following 5 dudes shooting the poor disagreeable fool while standing on his chest while reloading!"

Okay, so I tried Chuckwagon`s "Outlaw`s Onion Sausage" recipe.

Okay, so I cheated. Well, I didn`t, really. Ya see, it was after Friday sundown so, out of respect to a couple of the world`s great religions (but mainly because I was holding back on a pound of pork for a batch of chorizo), I made an all-beef version of "Outlaw Chuckwagon`s Onion Sausage." ...kinda-sorta.

The problem was, I didn`t have any 70/30 ground beef, so I used what Beloved Spouse recently purchased for me, some "extra lean" ground beef, and mixed in some bacon fat. The other problem was, I didn`t have any biscuits, seeing as how Beloved Spouse is gluten intolerant and doesn`t allow the nasty things in the house, plus the fact that we eat things on corn tortillas around here instead of biscuits.

... so I went down to the local convenience store, which sits across the highway from the access road to the Corps of Engineers campgrounds and park at Canyon Lake, which is closed due to the Congress being unable to do anything. There being no campers, there`s a temporary excess supply of expiring hotdog buns due to lack of demand. I substituted hot dog buns for biscuits.

We don`t eat much gravy around here. We do eat "carne guisada," which youngest daughter (an Austin, TX, organic "local foods" advocate) translates as "greasy meat." It actually translates to "stewed meat," and the gravy is quite good, but I suspect it`s nowhere near what ol` Chuckles had in mind for gravy. More than likely, he`s talkin` `bout "saw mill gravy" or the like, which is a Southern recipe made from saw mill effluent. ...or maybe from sausage fat, flour, and cream, as older daughter (a Raleigh, NC, organic "local foods" advocate) suggests. Either way, it won`t be allowed in our house. Barred from using traditional ingredients from the old west and the old south, I turned to the east, to my refrigerator, and grabbed a squeeze bottle of curry ketchup which says "traditional German Recipe" right on the label and comes to us aus Bremen. (Hey, this area was settled by folks from Germany, so...)
√ ● Salt/pepper/thyme/dextrose
√ ● Sauté the onions
Mix it up, fix it up, slap it on the grill (rolled as sausages, which promptly came apart), serve it up on good ol` store-bought hot dog buns (no longer good for you in 8 or 12 different ways, now that the producers of `Wonder Bread` have gone bankrupt), and you have a feast fit for a king.

...but not a queen, Ursula. The onions come through. So does the thyme. Next time, out of respect to Ursula, I`m making "Ursula`s Outlawed Onion Sausage," which contains neither pork nor onions, nor biscuits, nor gravy, nor... uh...

Maybe I`d be better off stopping by CW`s place to try the recipe the original way. ...problem is, we no longer have a car. This month is part of that "equal opportunity" portion of deer season when we can`t shoot at deer but (in a sense) the deer get to shoot back. The place is swarming with `em. Thursday night, one jumped out and bit our car.
Duk