Sausage
SIZZLERS
Our grills now cook an incredible variety of different food, as we explore endless BBQ possibilities. But sometimes you just can’t beat a banger – basic, bizarre, or just bonkers
Olly Kohn - The Jolly Hog
Top sausage. Your absolute favourite and why:
The Jolly Hog’s Black Pudding Porker I believe to be the best sausage in the world. Big statement, I know, but it’s brilliant. It’s never let me down in a taste test. Black pudding can be marmite; however, the balance of pork to black pudding to dried apple is bang on. It’s the same recipe we’ve had since we started 15 years ago. I’d take it in to battle on a taste test against any other sausage.
Top tip for elevating your sausage on the BBQ:
The best way to cook our sausages over any other option is on the barbecue. Lid on, offset the heat and hot smoke. The natural skins get a lovely snap on the bite when you cook long and slow like this.
The ‘It shouldn’t work, but does’ sausage:
In the early days we had a venison, red wine and cranberry sausage and a lamb, mint and apricot. These were lush. I’m a traditionalist. I do love some of the sausages in the south of France. I had a 12-month Roquefort sausage this summer. Lovely job.
Top sausage person:
Michel Roux Jr. We have known Michel for a good while now, but we are still fanboys of one of the world’s greatest chefs. Michel loves BBQ cooking and when he said his favourite comfort food was our Porky Black sausage in sourdough with mustard, I nearly had to take the week off. Also Ron Sinclair. Ron is a family friend who owned a butcher’s shop. He gave us our first opportunity to make sausages in his shop. Butchers block and sausage maker. Legend.
Top sausage place:
Back in the day it was Woodbury Butchers near Exmouth in Devon. It was a proper old school butcher’s shop in the village that we would buy bangers from. As kids we would get through plenty when we were at our caravan for the summer holidays. Also love anything that the Hidden Hut by Simon Stallard in Cornwall is doing.
What’s next for the sausage world?
Premiumisation. Not sure if it’s just the world that I’m in, but everyone is upgrading their barbecue set ups. Also, making BBQ and hot smoking accessible to all; how can we make it easier for more people to cook better is on my mind. Personally, I love anything cooked over live fire and I really like what people like Tom Bray and Ana Ortiz at Fire Made are doing.
About you and your business:
I have a great wife, three lovely kids, a dog, a cat and three chickens. I played professional rugby for 14 years for Bristol and Harlequins, winning the English Premiership in 2012, and got capped for Wales. I’m a Liveryman at the Worshipful Company of Butchery at Butchers Hall. With my brothers, Max and Josh, I set up The Jolly Hog in 2008 and we are now the biggest premium sausage and bacon brand in the UK.
Ben Forte - Kamado Joe
Top sausage. Your absolute favourite and why:
Rather selfishly I’ve got to pick my own sausage that I made with Alasdair Clark at Sosij – smoked beef cheek and flame-roasted red pepper chimichurri and mozzarella. It oozed cheesy goodness. To me, chimichurri and beef are a match made in heaven. I love the way the acidity cuts through the meat.
Top tip for elevating your sausage on the BBQ:
I love the sausage raft. Impale two skewers through a line of sausages and you can flip them over easily, so they don’t roll around on the barbecue. You can then add a topping. I’ve done a pizza topping, cheese and tomato, which is lush.
The ‘It shouldn’t work, but does’ sausage:
The hot cross bun burger. We spiked up sausage meat with ras el hanout spice mix, melted Emmental cheese over it and smothered a hot cross bun in onion chutney. It just works.
Top sausage person:
Lap-fai Lee at the London Barbecue School makes insane hot links. His influences range from Texas to Thailand. Try the pork and beef hot link sausages, with jalapeños and cheese, spiced with chilli and garlic.
Top sausage place:
My best sausage experience would be Pigsty in Bristol, run by The Jolly Hog. If I could teleport anywhere for sausages, I’d return to Augusta Farms Meat Market in Queensland, Australia, where I had some out of this world jalapeño and cheese hot links.
What’s next for the sausage world?
We’ve moved from grilling sausages as standard, to now making the most of all these adventurous flavours by cooking them low and slow so they don’t burst and preserve all the juiciness.
About you and your business:
I am international marketing director at Middleby Outdoors, looking after Kamado Joe, Masterbuilt and Char-Griller.
One of my sausage highlights was my challenge with Elky Whittaker, The Smokin’ Elk. We had to come up with a winning recipe from a pack of sausages. Elky made the world’s longest (unofficially) bacon wrapped scotch egg, while I made a pizza with a sausage pinwheel base.
Alasdair Clark - Sosij
Top sausage. Your absolute favourite and why:
Controversial considering what I make, but a decent plain pork sausage wrapped in smoked bacon in the form of a pig in blanket. I find a standout plain sausage is hard to come by.
Top tip for elevating your sausage on the BBQ:
Take the sausages out of the packaging and let them air dry in the fridge for a few hours before cooking. Use good-quality charcoal and keep an eye on your temperatures. Low and slow is about control and minimal fluctuations.
The ‘It shouldn’t work, but does’ sausage:
I’ve spent a lot of time lately deconstructing curries. The aromatics work incredibly well with fatty pork, but the standout one for me was probably the cottage pie sausage. It took days to make the stock, prep the ingredients and finish, with gravy oozing from inside the sausage – something I’d never seen before.
The Kamado Joe Konnected is my choice of grill, perfect for slow cooks and a fantastic all-rounder for running hotter to get some colour on the sausages towards the end of the cook.
Top sausage person:
Most of my inspiration came from Cara Nicoletti, in my eyes the absolute sausage queen; the colour and flavours of her sausages out of this world. I get inspired by different dishes and even soups, using natural colouring to make the sausages so vibrant.
Top sausage place:
Vaca Preta in Brazil. A rest stop in Sao Paulo state on the way to the north coast. Their house-made sausage is cooked over fire and served in a roll with cheese and a salsa.
What’s next for the sausage world?
I have a line of hot dogs coming out soon, which I’m pretty happy with, focusing on good-quality British pork and proper smoke.
I am fortunate to be quite creative as a cook and I’m always coming up with new ideas and thinking to myself ‘how can I break down that dish and get it to work in a sausage?’
About you and your business:
Sosij makes small-batch craft sausages, specifically designed for low and slow cooking. I was a chef for 15 years, running a range of different kitchens. I have always loved deconstructing food and changing textures of components to mess with peoples’ heads! This works perfectly with my sausage creations, invoking nostalgia through creativity. Getting invited to cook at Meatopia this year was a massive career highlight.
Dan Cooper - Weber
Top sausage. Your absolute favourite and why:
An Irish Clonakilty Ispini sausage. It is considered by many to be a cheap, ultra processed sausage and that’s exactly what it is. My guilty secret, but it’s also delicious – soft, salty and laced with hot white pepper.
For me it’s the nostalgic childhood memories of cooking them on the beach in Ireland where my parents live. The experience was unforgettable, and I still do it to this day. They have a rather unnatural pink glow in uncooked form, very thin skins and over-salty succulent flavour. It just wins me over every time.
I know I’m not meant to like them and I have tried hard not to. But, the truth is, they are addictive.
Top tip for elevating your sausage on the BBQ:
I love slow-cooked onions in a pan with butter, brown sugar and salt. Cook the onions until they are very, very soft and just catching. I usually do this on the grill before I cook the sausages.
The ‘It shouldn’t work, but does’ sausage:
Slightly melted down marmalade can make a good basting liquid when brushed on most sausages, adding more flavour along with a sweet, sticky and glossy finish.
Top sausage person:
Alasdair Clark, the mastermind behind the company Sosij, makes amazing sausages – ideal for low and slow cooking, using local outdoor-reared pigs. Cheddar and jalapeño are a favourite of mine.
Top sausage place:
Gaffel am Dom Brauhaus in Cologne, Germany serves up immense sausages. Very sadly, the restaurant Le Boudin Blanc in Mayfair’s Shepherd Market is now closed but served up the most delicious boudin blanc in a glassy dark jus with pomme purée, which was mind-bending.
What’s next for the sausage world?
There are so many fantastic innovators out there. I have no idea what the future holds, but I do always look forward to trying new things.
About you and your business:
I am the culinary manager for Weber Barbecues Europe. I spent a fair amount of time dreaming up recipes on the barbecue, and often get to try and cook a wonderful variety of sausages from all over the world.
Paul Yates - Que Fresco
Top sausage. Your absolute favourite sausage and why:
Pork and wild garlic. It takes me back 30 years to a June evening on a campsite in
Le Mans when I first tasted saucisse de Toulouse straight off a charcoal barbecue. Pork and wild garlic is my English version; I freeze bags of wild garlic so I can make these bangers all year round.
Top tip for elevating your sausage on the BBQ:
A little bit of streaky bacon gives any pork sausage a real meaty flavour.
The ‘It shouldn’t work, but it does’ sausage:
Chicken tikka sausage. I love spice but the chicken tikka sausage is a really difficult sausage to make. I grill them on my Ozpig and stuff them into a pitta with salad, lemon juice and lashings of raita.
For me, sausages must be cooked on an open barbecue so you can see the grill smoke, hear the sizzle and savour the aroma.
Top sausage person:
German TV chef Stefan Marquard is the master of the Franconian sausage. Franconia is a historic region of Bavaria renowned for its sausage specialties, and I first got to know Stefan through our Monolith Kamado connection.
Top sausage place:
Les Bouchers Régionaux in Le Mans, France. Humble apologies to all my English and German butcher friends, but French sausage is still my favourite, and I know a great camping area just down the road where we can light the barbecue.
What’s next for the sausage world?
Lab-grown meat. Traditionally a sausage is the ground-up remains of the animal carcass that the butcher can’t sell, which is fine. It follows the honourable harvest philosophy to ‘take only what you need and use all that you take’. The sausage of the future is the perfect way to serve up lab-grown meat, although I haven’t got my head round that yet.
About you and your business:
I founded Que Fresco 11 years ago and started cooking sausage at a local farmers’ market on a charcoal barbecue, before making, selling and supplying sausages commercially. Que Fresco is now the UK distributor for the Monolith, Ozpig and Pit Barrel brands.
Andrew Twine - A. Twine Butchers
Top sausage. Your absolute favourite sausage and why:
Our old Sussex sausage (our shop is in Hassocks, West Sussex) as I love thyme with pork. When I cook pork chops, I always end up basting them with butter and thyme.
Top tip for elevating your sausage on the BBQ:
Try to always cook them over a lower heat if possible and keep turning them. But, most importantly, don’t cook them straight from the fridge, as this can lead to them splitting more often.
The ‘It shouldn’t work, but it does’ sausage:
Of all the sausages I have made in my career, the strangest I have ever been involved in making was the Jubilee Sausage. It contained champagne and strawberries. Sounds bad, but really does work well! In fact, so well I remade them every summer to coincide with the Wimbledon tennis.
Top sausage person:
I would probably have to say it’s my old colleague Dan Turner. He helped teach me the finer arts of sausage making. Together we came up with some very different flavours, some that worked really well and some that just didn’t!
Top sausage place:
The much-loved, much-missed Kennedy’s, butchers in Croydon, south London. Their sausages had fantastic flavours and textures.
What’s next for the sausage world?
Continuing to embrace global influences. During the pandemic we decided to make ‘flavours of the world’ sausages – over 25 in total. We had mango for the Caribbean, red wine and garlic for France, Peking duck for China, German bratwurst, South African boerewors, an American cheeseburger sausage, merguez for Morocco, and a lamb doner sausage for Turkey.
About you and your business:
Growing up in Sussex, I started working in the butcher’s shop I now own as a 13-year-old Saturday boy. I trained there as a butcher, before moving to another shop locally. I then returned to Hassocks to become my own boss.
