Chipolatas are small, thin, mild pork sausages in sheep casing — about the width of a finger and four inches long. They are the sausage a British cook wraps in bacon for “pigs in blankets” at Christmas, lays round a roast turkey, or serves at breakfast for children. What separates a chipolata from a banger is size and delicacy: it is finely ground, gently seasoned (white pepper, a little nutmeg, allspice, coriander and thyme), and stuffed into narrow sheep casing so it cooks in minutes and snaps when bitten. The name is French, borrowed from Italian cipolla, onion, because the original was a dish or garnish involving onions; the British chipolata contains none. In France a chipolata is a slim fresh sausage for the grill, and in Britain it settled into a rusk-bound breakfast and party sausage. Sheep casing is the only awkward part; it is thin and tears if the stuffer is pushed too hard. I have not made these yet; the formula is built from Marianski’s chipolata and is untested.
Ingredients
MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight
- 1634 g (3 lb 10 oz) lean pork shoulder — 72%
- 636 g (1 lb 6 oz) pork back fat — 28%
BINDER (% of meat weight)
- 386 g dry rusk or fine dried white breadcrumbs (17%)
- 590 g ice water (26%)
SEASONING (% of meat weight)
- 39 g fine salt (1.7%)
- 6.8 g white pepper (0.3%)
- 2.3 g ground allspice (0.1%)
- 2.3 g ground coriander (0.1%)
- 1.6 g nutmeg (0.07%)
- 1.6 g dried thyme, rubbed (0.07%)
- 0.7 g cayenne (0.03%)
- 22–24 mm natural sheep casing, about 35–40 ft (11–12 m)
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: Allspice and white pepper. For a full-size British breakfast sausage from the same idea see English Bangers.
- Soak the rusk: stir it into the ice water and let it take up all the liquid, 10 minutes.
- Grind in stages: chill everything hard. Grind the lean through a 5 mm plate and the fat through a 6 mm plate, combine with seasonings and rusk, then grind everything together through a 3 mm (1/8”) plate. The fine final grind is what makes a chipolata smooth enough to fill a narrow casing without clogging it.
- Mix: mix 2–3 minutes until sticky. Keep the paste below 4 °C / 40 °F; in a small casing, smeared fat shows immediately as greasy, grey links.
- Taste: fry a little. It should be mild and savoury — a chipolata is a background sausage, not a show-off.
- Stuff gently: use the smallest stuffing tube (10–12 mm) and fill the sheep casing at low pressure, slightly under-filled. Sheep casing is the thinnest and tears if packed tight. Twist into 10 cm (4 in) links, alternating the direction of the twist, or tie them.
- Rest: hang or lay them in the fridge uncovered for a few hours to dry the casing, which helps them brown.
- Cook: fry, grill or roast at 200 °C / 400 °F for 12–15 minutes, turning, to 71 °C / 160 °F. They cook through very quickly.
- Pigs in blankets: stretch a thin rasher of streaky bacon round each chipolata and roast 20–25 minutes, until the bacon is crisp and the sausage reaches 71 °C.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Marianski’s chipolata is the backbone: 500 g lean pork, 200 g back fat, 120 g rusk soaked in 180 g water per kilogram, 12 g salt, with white pepper, allspice, coriander, nutmeg, thyme and cayenne; lean through 5 mm and fat through 6 mm, then all through 3 mm; stuffed into 28 mm sheep casing in 4-inch links. Deviations: (1) the formula is re-based on meat weight (72/28 lean to fat, rusk 17% and water 26% of meat); (2) salt is 1.7% of meat to land close to his figure on the whole mix; (3) the casing is 22–24 mm, the common range for sheep casing — 28 mm is the very top of what sheep casing comes in. He notes that red colouring was sometimes added to the rusk; it is left out. Untested.
Where the chipolata came from. The word is French, and French and English dictionaries derive it from the Italian cipolla, onion — the earliest chipolata was a ragout or garnish with onions and small sausages, and the name passed to the sausage. In nineteenth-century French cookery a garnish à la chipolata combined small sausages, chestnuts, glazed onions and bacon. The sausage crossed to Britain and became the small rusk-bound party and breakfast sausage. The exact date of the first English use has not been checked here.
Pigs in blankets. In Britain the phrase means chipolatas wrapped in bacon, a fixture of the Christmas dinner plate; in the US it means small sausages in pastry. The British version is the one this recipe is for.
Variations. Herb chipolatas with parsley and chives; cocktail chipolatas twisted at 5 cm; Marianski also gives a chipolata with rice in place of rusk. French chipolatas are usually rusk-free pork, salt and pepper, closer to a thin Toulouse sausage.
Sourcing and gear. Sheep casings come in hanks from sausage suppliers, graded 20–22, 22–24 and 24–26 mm. A vertical piston stuffer with the smallest tube makes them much easier than a grinder attachment.
Still open. No historic English chipolata recipe has been compared against Marianski’s formula.
Read more on the site. Casings · Casing or Not