Medisterpølse

Denmark's coarse pork sausage seasoned with allspice and onion, poached and then fried, eaten with potatoes and red cabbage

Origin: Copenhagen & Denmark

From the journey of Allspice.

Medisterpølse is a coarse pork sausage seasoned with allspice, onion, and pepper, sold in one long unlinked coil and cooked in the pan. It has no smoke, no garlic, and no herbs, and its whole character rests on the allspice, which Danish cooks use in a quantity that surprises anyone accustomed to sausage seasoned with sage or fennel. Allspice reached Scandinavia through the northern European spice trade in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and stayed in a way it did not elsewhere in Europe. The Nordic countries use it in cured herring, in meatballs, in braises, and in sausage, to the point that kryddpeppar or allehånde is treated as a basic pantry spice rather than an exotic one. That it is a New World berry from Jamaica, and that a Danish Christmas plate is therefore seasoned with something the Maya were using three thousand years ago, is one of the quieter results of the Columbian exchange. The name is old and its origin is disputed. One reading takes it from Latin mixtura, a mixture; another from the medieval Danish meddister, a shortening of a term for the ground meat itself. Neither is settled and both are repeated. The texture is the second signature. The pork is ground once, coarsely, with a good proportion of fat and a little flour or breadcrumb and milk worked in to keep it succulent, and the mixture is beaten rather than mixed so that it becomes sticky and holds together. It is poached gently before frying, which stops the skin bursting, and it is served with boiled potatoes, red cabbage, and pickled beetroot.

Ingredients

Sausage

1 kg pork shoulder with a good proportion of fat, coarsely minced
200 g pork back fat, coarsely minced
2 onions, very finely chopped
2.5 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp salt
1.5 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp ground cloves
60 g plain flour
200 ml cold milk
2 m hog casing, rinsed and soaked

To cook

40 g butter

To serve

1 kg boiled potatoes, to serve
600 g braised red cabbage, to serve
200 g pickled beetroot, to serve

Method

Soften the chopped onions in a little butter for eight minutes without colouring and cool them completely.
Mix the minced pork and back fat with the cooled onion, allspice, salt, pepper, cloves, and flour.
Beat in the cold milk a little at a time with a wooden spoon or a mixer, working the mixture hard for five minutes until it turns sticky and pale.
Beating it is what makes a medisterpølse rather than a crumbly one. The protein has to be worked until the mixture will hold together on a spoon turned upside down.
Fry a teaspoonful in a pan and taste it, then correct the salt and allspice. Do this before the mixture goes anywhere near the casing.
Fill the casing loosely into one continuous coil, without linking it, and leave slack; overstuffed sausage bursts the moment it meets heat.
Prick the coil in several places with a fine needle and chill it for an hour.
Poach the coil in barely simmering water for fifteen minutes. The water must not boil at any point or the fat renders out and the sausage goes dry.
Lift it out and drain it.
Melt the butter in a wide pan over a medium heat and fry the coil for eight to ten minutes a side, until deeply browned and cooked through.
Turn it once only, using two spatulas so it stays in one piece.
Cut it into lengths and serve with boiled potatoes, red cabbage, pickled beetroot, and mustard.

Notes

Allspice in this quantity is correct and is what makes the sausage Danish. Beat the mixture until it is sticky, and fry a test spoonful before filling. Fill loosely and prick the coil. Poach below a simmer and then fry; going straight to the pan splits the skin. Without casings the mixture can be shaped into a flat coil in a frying pan and cooked the same way, which is what many Danish households do. It freezes well raw.

The Gastrographer

Name: Medisterpølse
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Copenhagen & Denmark
Ingredients: 1 kg pork shoulder with a good proportion of fat, coarsely minced; 200 g pork back fat, coarsely minced; 2 onions, very finely chopped; 2.5 tsp ground allspice; 2 tsp salt; 1.5 tsp coarsely ground black pepper; 1 tsp ground cloves; 60 g plain flour; 200 ml cold milk; 2 m hog casing, rinsed and soaked; 40 g butter; 1 kg boiled potatoes, to serve; 600 g braised red cabbage, to serve; 200 g pickled beetroot, to serve

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control