Tag Archives: Polish sausage

Chick pea salad

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Like most folks, I’d normally use chorizo sausage when making this sort of salad.

But I just happened to have a segment of the superb Polish sausage available at Slavonija Continental Butchers in St Albans, so …

As with so many dishes, this can be made ahead of time. In fact, it needs some time – a few hours at least – for the flavours to combine properly.

But avoid refrigerating unless saving leftovers for the next day.

INGREDIENTS

About half a cup of dried chick peas, soaked overnight

Sausage – chorizo or Polish

Two small tomatoes

Small Lebanese cucumber

About a quarter of a small red onion

Flat-leaf parsley

Small amount of lemon zest

Lemon juice

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

METHOD

1. Boil chick peas until soft; drain and let cool at least a bit.

2. Slice and fry sausage in a little olive oil. Later use pan juices to fry pita bread for eating with salad.

3. Put sausage in with chick peas in a bowl.

4. Slice and chop cucumber, chop tomatoes, add both to the salad. Best to find a balance in which the pieces are a bit bigger than the chick peas – but not too much bigger.

5. Slice slivers of red onion and place in salad.

6. Roughly chop about a quarter of a cup of parsley and throw in salad.

7. Season with salt, pepper, lemon zest.

8. Dress with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. This salad requires a lot of dressing.

9. Let stand for at least a couple of hours.

10. Eat with pan-fried pita bread.

11. Try to avoid getting sausage grease on computer keyboard.

Slavonija Continental Butchers

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Slavonija Continental Butchers, 75 Main Rd West, St Albans. Phone: 9366 2336.

The lovely staff at Slavonija Continental Butchers tell me the business has been in operation at these premises for about 30 years.

They answer my pesky questions as a succession of regular customers come and go.

They stock a nice but restricted line groceries such as pickled vegetables and so on.

But the main action here without a doubt surrounds the smoked meats and sausages.

Everything bar the salami is made in-house, I am informed.

There’s several different kinds of Polish sausage, the difference between them being something I only dimly grasp.

I buy a long length of low-fat Polish sausage at $20 a kilogram. If it tastes as good as it looks, it may become our default position for pastas, salads and bean soups and stews in which we use chorizo.

I buy, too, a half dozen frankfurts at $11 a kilogram.

This is about twice what we pay for unsmoked beef numbers at Al Amena at the Circle in Altona but still way short of what Andrews in Yarraville charges for their franks.

These are fat and pale pink, as opposed to the long, skinny and red that is more familiar. They are smoked, though.

Most of them go in the freezer, but I have two for dinner – just with bread roll, dijon mustard and pickled cucumber slices.

They’re damn fine, juicy and with a only a mild smokiness.

And yes – joy of joys – they go “pop”.

At that sort of acceptable price, these, too, could become regulars in our household.

I’m looking forward to exploring the Slavonija range at greater depth, especially with a view to tarting up our work/school lunches.