South African Boerewors recipes can be numbered in their hundreds as each proud cook tries to produce a better, tastier sausage.
In times past each farmer's wife had her own closely guarded Boerewors recipe.
These
Secret Boerewors Recipes may have differed only in the amount of garlic or nutmeg used, or may have introduced other ingredients such as tomatoes or tomato sauce.
The Boerewors recipe given here is for the basic, original boerewors, with suggestions as to how you can ring the changes.
Boerewors Ingredients
· 3 lb beef
· 3 lb pork
· 1 lb bacon
· ½ cup red wine vinegar
· 1 clove garlic
· 4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
· 3 to 3 ½ oz sausage casing
· 2 tbsp salt
· 1 tsp ground pepper
· 2 tbsp ground coriander
· ½ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
· ½ tsp ground dried thyme
· ½ tsp ground allspice
· ¼ tsp ground cloves
Raw Boerewors, ready for the braai (BBQ)Making the Boerewors
Dice the bacon into pieces not larger than 1 inch
Cut the beef and pork meat into 1 to 1 ½ inch cubes. Mix it well with all the other ingredients except the sausage casing.
Grind the meat using a medium-coarse grinding plate.
Fill the sausage casings firmly, but not too tightly with the meat mixture.
Refrigerate for 24 hours before using. Boerewors can be kept for a week or for 3 months if frozen
Makes 6 to 7 lbs
BOEREWORS can be fried, grilled or barbecued over coals.
Before cooking prick the skin with a fork in a number of places to let the fat escape as the wors (sausage) cooks.
Some purists would be horrified by this as they like the sausage to retain it's fat, enabling it to burst into the mouth when eating.
This makes it difficult to ensure that the boerewors casing does not split, allowing the ingredients to escape on cooking...
Pricked or not, how you cook your "Wors" is entirely up to you.
Although traditionally Boerewors is made with a combination of pork and beef
it can be made in a beef only version,
but add 2 teaspoons oil or fat for each 1lb of beef, to ensure the finished result is not too dry.
You can experiment with the filling and resultant taste, of your boerewors, by adding different combinations of spices, tomato paste, onions, chili's, tomato ketchup or whatever other strongly flavored ingredient you fancy.
It was and still is, a point of honor with farmers wives and butchers not to add breadcrumbs or soya to bulk up the meat filling.
Starting with the basic Pork/Beef filling you can end up with some incredibly delicious Wors. You will soon find this becoming an absolute favorite at BBQ's.
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