Beer-Glazed Sausages with Charred Onions and Polenta

A few weeks ago, Emily's friends from Vienna were in town, visiting New York. They spent the week walking around the city, shopping and dining, clubbing and drinking. Whenever they were around the apartment, I naturally inquired about Viennese cuisine -- its pastries, its savories, its sweets. As the week progressed, I began craving German food, though I had rarely -- if ever -- had during my life. I proposed that on their last night I make everyone dinner to satisfy my craving, which had manifested itself in a craving for sausage.

I came up with this recipe for a sausage meal, which I think seems to be a marriage of German food (with the sausages and beer) and Mediterranean cuisine (with the polenta and roasted tomato. In keeping with this Austro-Mediterranean theme, we served the meal with a rich Catena Malbec wine instead of beer, which paired rather well with the buttery sausage and the charred onions. But to top off our meal, the Austrians pulled out some strong vodka, which we served with a Sour Cherry Tart from Silver Moon Bakery, and a lesson in key German phrases.

Somehow, the beer "sauce" that I originally intended to make came out as more of a glaze, perhaps because of the high yeast content of the beer I used. The result was deliciously thick, salty, and a bit sweet: a perfect last meal with new friends to say auf wiedersehen, a bittersweet goodbye.

BEER-GLAZED SAUSAGES WITH CHARRED ONIONS AND POLENTA

Serves 4-6

Six uncooked sausages, bought from butcher
1 small yellow Onion, cut into quarter-circle slices
½ cup Dark German Ale
2-3 vine tomatoes, cut in half
Fresh thyme
Olive oil

1 cup Polenta corn meal
2 cups water
½ cup grated Parmesan Cheese
Pinch of salt and pepper

Turn on broiler to high.

Cut tomatoes in half along their width. On a small dish, pour a circle of olive oil, add a sprinkling of salt, pepper, and fresh thyme leaves. Rub tomatoes, on the cut side down, in olive oil and herb mixture (these will be the tops of the tomatoes that face up in the broiler). Sprinkle a bit of Parmesan cheese on top of oiled tomatoes. Arrange tomatoes in a broiler pan, and put under broiler. Cook all the way through, until soft. Remove from oven and let cool.

While tomatoes are under broiler, heat a large sauté pan on high. Add oil to pan, turn down to medium heat, and add sausages. Begin cooking sausages by browning on all sides. Add onions and fresh thyme leaves to sausages. Turn sausages occasionally to cook through on all sides. When onions begin to brown, cut sausages in half length-wise and then in half across, keeping links in pan to continue cooking. Sauté sausages, cut side down, adding ale. Turn town heat to let mixture simmer, cover, and cook sausages all the way through, allowing onions to char.

In a medium-sized pot, bring two cups water to a low boil. Add polenta in a thin stream, stirring mixture with the other hand. Turn down heat to a simmer and stir polenta slowly. As the mixture begins to thicken, add parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper. Turn off heat, stir occasionally.

Keep an eye on the sausages to be sure that the meat cooks all the way through. When onions turn black and begin to char and the beer turns to a thick glaze, the dish should be ready.

Spoon a helping of polenta on a plate, arranging sausages and onion on top. Set one half of a roasted tomato on the side. Garnish with a sprinkling of fresh thyme leaves.

Guten appetit!

Sage-Wrapped Lamb Sausages with Lentil Salad

As I write this entry from my parent's sunny porch in Connecticut, violet dragonfly bugs of various sizes are buzzing around my chaise, stopping now and again to perch atop my laptop keyboard. Summer has finally arrived in New England: it is cool and breezy in the shade, but hot and bright in the noonday sun.

Last night I shared dinner with my parents outside around their gas-powered fire pit, where we stayed outside late sipping Bordeaux until my younger sister came home with a handful of friends, marshmallows and samurai-sword-shaped grilling spears to make s'mores.

With long days and a fire pit to keep the nights warm, summer dinners are best when begun late and linger through the late hours of night. I love the summer season because local produce is at its best: heirloom tomatoes, peaches, yellow squash and red peppers are some of my seasonal favorites. My mother's herb garden is always pouring over with foliage by July; with two kinds of basil, large-leafed sage, chives, mint, oregano, rosemary, cilantro and garlic, we are always equipped to prepare a meal with the freshest of ingredients.

Late this summer, Goûter will be undergoing a few exciting changes. By summer's end, I will run a feature on the benefits of eating locally and give you recipes from my farmer's market dinner party. To tempt your palate, here is a sample recipe from the forthcoming farmer's market meal, which we tested around the fire pit last night. These Sage-Wrapped Lamb Sausages with Lentil Salad use locally-made lamb sausages from a farmer in East Lyme, CT, herbs and garlic scapes from my mother's garden, and a special sea salt from the Netherlands Antilles. Coincidentally, this recipe is a nice combination of the food I discovered in England, made with these few special ingredients I can only find at home.

SAGE-WRAPPED LAMB SAUSAGES with LENTIL SALAD

For the sausages:

8 large links lamb sausages

16 large sage leaves

For the lentil salad:

1 cup dried French green lentils

4-6 c water

1/2 c baby carrots

4 garlic scapes, separating upper bulb from tender part of stalks

1/4 c fennel, diced

1/4 c fennel fronds

1/4 c celery leaves, finely chopped

3 Tbsp chives, chopped

3 Tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped

2-3 Tbsp red wine vinegar

4-6 Tbsp fine extra virgin olive oil

Herbed sea salt and finely ground pepper, to taste

Heat grill on high heat.

Bring 4-6 cups water to a boil. Add baby carrots and tender scapes. Lower heat, remove once carrots are cooked but still slightly firm. Remove carrots and scapes, finely dice, and put into large bowl. Set aside.

Bring water to a boil again, adding one cup of dried French green lentils. Do not add salt to the water as it will cause the lentils to toughen. Add 1-3 smashed garlic cloves, a stem of a fennel frond, and stir. Bring heat to medium and let cook for 20mins.

While lentils are cooking, finely chop the fennel fronds, celery leaves, scape bulbs, chives and mint. Add to carrots and stalks in large mixing bowl.

When lentils are tender, strain water, then add lentils to ingredients in mixing bowl. Add red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Gently mix to incorporate all ingredients. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

To grill sausages, use two skewers per sausage stack to hold sausages in place while grilling. Pierce skewers through sausages on either end of links, with about 1-inch between the skewers. Alternate sausage links with lengthwise sage leaves, so that the sage leaves "wrap" around the sausages while grilling. This will infuse the sausages with the flavor of sage.

Turn grill to low and grills sausages, flipping occasionally, until cooked. Attend to the sausages regularly to be sure that the sage leaves to not catch fire. Because fresh leaves are used, the water in the leaves should keep them from catching fire, and they will crisp nicely.

Arrange sausages, grilled sage, and lentil salad on a plate, garnishing with a colorful piece of grilled vegetable, such as yellow squash. Serve sausages warm and enjoy with a French Bordeaux.


Bon Appétit!