Medisterpølse is the Danish and Norwegian dinner sausage: finely ground pork and pork fat seasoned with onion, allspice, cloves, salt and pepper, loosened with a little stock or milk, and stuffed as one long unlinked length. It is simmered gently, then fried brown in butter, cut into lengths at the table, and served with boiled potatoes, brown gravy, red cabbage or pickled beets. It is a fixture of the Christmas table in both countries.
The diagnostic detail is the coil and the clove. Medisterpølse is never linked — it is cooked as one piece and portioned afterwards — and its sweet-warm allspice-and-clove seasoning separates it from a German bratwurst or an English banger. It is also ground finer than most fresh sausages and carries a little flour or potato flour and liquid, which makes it soft and juicy.
The name is a description: Middle Low German met, pork, and ister, the gut fat of a pig, according to the Danish dictionary. Pork and lard is exactly what it is. The word is in print in an early sixteenth-century Swedish housekeeping book.
I have not made this one yet. The formula follows the Danish encyclopedia’s description and a Danish home recipe, scaled to percentages; it is untested.
Ingredients
MEAT BLOCK (2,270 g / 5 lb), % of meat weight
- 1,700 g (3 lb 12 oz) pork shoulder (butt) — 75%
- 570 g (1 lb 4 oz) pork back fat (spæk) — 25%
SEASONING (% of meat weight)
- 39 g salt (1.7%)
- 6.8 g white or black pepper (0.3%)
- 4.5 g allspice (0.2%)
- 1.1 g ground cloves (0.05%)
- 1.1 g nutmeg (0.05%)
- 136 g onion, grated (6%)
- 57 g potato flour or plain flour (2.5%)
- 270 ml cold pork or chicken stock, or milk (12%)
CASING
- 28–32 mm hog casings, about 4 m, stuffed in two long pieces
TO COOK
- 30 g butter
Directions
Key ingredients
- In the collection: Allspice, Salt, Black Pepper.
- Grind fine: pork and fat through a 4.5 mm plate, chill, and grind again. The old method was hand-chopping with knives; the modern sausage is fine and even.
- Grate the onion: to a pulp, so it disappears into the meat instead of leaving pockets.
- Mix: salt, spices, onion and flour into the meat, then the cold liquid a little at a time, mixing until it is smooth, sticky and soft — softer than a bratwurst mix. The flour holds the extra water; without it the liquid runs out in the pan.
- Taste: fry a teaspoon. It should taste faintly sweet from the allspice and cloves, and well salted. Clove is easy to overdo; if it tastes medicinal, the batch has too much.
- Stuff: in one continuous length per casing — do not twist into links. Coil it on a tray. Stuff a little loosely; it swells as it cooks.
- Simmer: lay the coil in a wide pan of lightly salted water at 80–85 °C / 176–185 °F — never boiling — for 15–20 minutes. Boiling splits the casing.
- Fry: drain, dry, and fry in butter over medium heat, turning once, until deep brown on both sides and 71 °C / 160 °F inside, 8–10 minutes. Or skip the simmer and fry slowly from raw for about 20–25 minutes, pricking it lightly.
- Decision point: a split casing means the water was too hot or it was stuffed too tight; a dry, crumbly sausage means too little liquid or fat. Cut into lengths at the table. Swedish relations are Falukorv (Swedish Falun Sausage) and Potatiskorv (Swedish Potato Sausage); the nearest English cousin, also coiled, is Cumberland.
Notes
Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. Backbones: Lex, the Danish national encyclopedia, which defines medisterpølse as a sausage of minced pork, liquid, flour, spices and lard, mostly sold raw and boiled and/or fried; Wikipedia’s description (onion, allspice, cloves, salt and pepper; one continuous piece, portioned after cooking); and a Danish home recipe from Mundfuld (1 kg pork at 15–20% fat, 200 g spæk, 1–2 dl milk or stock, a large onion, 2 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, ½ tsp allspice, ½ tsp nutmeg; simmered 15–20 minutes, then fried). Deviations: (1) fat raised to 25% of the block; (2) cloves added from the general Danish description; (3) potato flour added, as Lex lists flour; (4) quantities set by weight. I have not made it; it is untested.
Where medisterpølse came from. Lex describes it as a way to use the less desirable cuts of the slaughter pig, hand-minced, seasoned and stuffed; because minced meat spoils quickly, it was salted, dried or smoked to keep — today it is sold fresh. Wikipedia reports the word first in print in an early 16th-century Swedish housekeeping book; that book has not been checked here. In Denmark it is a winter and Christmas dinner; in Norway medisterpølse and medisterkaker (the same mince shaped into patties) sit beside ribbe, the roast pork belly, at Christmas.
The name. Den Danske Ordbog and Lex give medister from Middle Low German met, pork (compare German Mett), and ister, the fat round the intestines, especially of pigs. So the name means ‘pork-and-fat sausage’.
Variations. Medisterkaker (Norwegian patties, no casing); Christmas medister with extra cloves; smoked medister; versions with milk rather than stock; coarser hand-chopped versions; Swedish medisterkorv.
Sourcing and gear. Pork butt and hard back fat; a grinder with a 4.5 mm plate; 28–32 mm hog casings. A wide sauté pan holds a coiled sausage whole.
Still open. Old Danish recipe books with weights were not checked. The 16th-century Swedish attestation has not been traced to the book.
Read more on the site. The Nordics and Baltics