A crépinette is a flat French sausage patty wrapped in caul fat instead of a casing. The name comes from crépine, the French word for caul — the lacy membrane of fat from around a pig’s stomach. The caul holds the patty together while it is raw and then melts in the pan or on the grill, basting the meat and leaving a thin, browned, crisp lace behind. That is the diagnostic: no casing, no shape from a gut, but a sausage that cooks and eats like one. Its English cousin is the faggot, which puts liver inside; its Roman ancestor is the isicia omentata of Apicius, minced meat wrapped in caul. The everyday crépinette is good fresh pork sausage-meat with shallot, parsley and a little brandy or wine. Grander ones have truffle, pig’s trotter, lamb or game in them, and the Christmas crépinette truffée is a classic of French charcuterie. It needs no stuffer, so it is a good use for a sausage mix when there are no casings in the house, and caul fat is easier to find than most people think. I have not made these yet; the formula is built from standard French charcuterie practice and is untested.
Ingredients
MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight
- 1816 g (4 lb) pork shoulder (Boston butt) — 80%
- 454 g (1 lb) pork back fat — 20%
SEASONING (% of meat weight)
- 41 g fine salt (1.8%)
- 6.8 g black pepper (0.3%)
- 2.3 g quatre épices (0.1%)
- 68 g shallot, finely chopped (3%)
- 9.1 g garlic, crushed (0.4%)
- 27 g flat-leaf parsley, chopped (1.2%)
- 45 g cognac or dry white wine (2%)
WRAPPING
- 450 g (1 lb) pig’s caul fat (crépine), approximately
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: caul fat and good pork. The British cousin with liver is Faggots (Pork Offal Balls in Caul); the plain French fresh sausage is Saucisse de Toulouse.
- Soften the caul: soak it in lukewarm salted water for 10 minutes so it relaxes and stretches without tearing.
- Grind: chill the meat and fat and grind through a 6 mm (1/4”) plate, or 8 mm for a coarser, more rustic crépinette.
- Mix: add seasonings and cognac and mix 1–2 minutes until sticky. The bind matters, because the caul is thin; an under-mixed patty falls apart once the caul melts.
- Taste: fry a teaspoon. It should be well salted and peppery with shallot coming through.
- Shape and wrap: weigh 100 g balls and flatten into ovals about 2 cm (¾ in) thick. Cut the caul into 15–18 cm squares, lay a patty on each, and wrap, overlapping the edges underneath. One layer only; a double layer stays chewy.
- Rest: chill the crépinettes 30 minutes so the caul sets around them.
- Cook: grill over medium coals or fry in a heavy pan over medium heat, seam-side down first, 6–7 minutes a side, to 71 °C / 160 °F. The caul should render to a crisp lace. Medium heat is the point: high heat chars the caul before the inside is cooked.
- Serve: with lentils, mashed potatoes, braised cabbage, or a green salad and mustard.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. There is no single authoritative crépinette formula; this is ordinary French chair à saucisse (sausage-meat) — about 80/20 lean to fat, 1.8% salt, pepper and quatre épices — with shallot, parsley and cognac, which is the most common seasoning in French charcuterie books, wrapped in caul. All quantities are judgement. Untested.
Where the crépinette came from. Wrapping minced meat in caul is very old: Apicius’s Roman cookbook gives isicia omentata, forcemeat patties wrapped in omentum, the Latin word for caul. In French cooking the crépinette is a long-standing charcuterie product, sold fresh by every pork butcher, and in its luxurious forms — with truffle, foie gras or pig’s trotter meat — a feature of the Christmas and New Year season. When the French word first appears has not been checked here.
The name. From crépine, caul, itself related to crêpe in the sense of something crinkled — the caul looks like crinkled lace.
How caul works. Caul is not a casing. It holds shape while raw and renders almost entirely when heated, leaving fat on the surface and a thin, crisp web of connective tissue. It cannot be used for anything that is dried or kept, because it cracks and does not control moisture; it is for food cooked the day it is made.
Variations. Crépinette truffée with chopped black truffle; crépinette de pied de cochon with boned, cooked trotter meat; lamb crépinettes with thyme and garlic; chicken or rabbit with tarragon; venison with juniper; a crépinette of Toulouse sausage-meat on a bed of lentils. In Provence the gayette, pork liver and greens wrapped in caul and baked, is the French dish closest to the British faggot.
Sourcing and gear. Caul fat is sold frozen by Asian, Latin and whole-animal butchers and keeps for months frozen. Lamb caul is finer; pork caul is easier to find.
Still open. A historic French formula with weights (for instance from a nineteenth-century charcuterie manual) has not been compared.
Read more on the site. Patties and Bulk · Casing or Not