Lorne Sausage, a Taste of Scotland

Hello dear readers! Welcome to the new subscribers, the sheep are happy to see you and are willing to nibble kiss your fingers if you let them!

I’ve been on a bit of a British and Irish food kick lately. Diving a bit into my heritage thru food so to speak. It’s been fun trying different things over the past few months. A light in the midst of my dark.

My grandmother was from Scotland, but sadly, she never cooked any of the traditional dishes from there. No bangers and mash, no toad in a hole, no scones. I wish she had as I would have loved to learn these foods from her.

This week I tried my hand at Lorne Sausage.

Per wiki it is thought that the sausage originated in the Lorne region of Argyll in the western region of Scotland. The same area my grandmother is from. It is also called square sausage, flat sausage or slice. It is not made in a casing.

I found the recipe on a Scottish cooking fb page and it is as follows. The recipe is attributed to C. B. Ondersma.

Lorne Sausage

Ingredients:

2 lbs Ground/minced Beef

2 lbs Ground Pork

3 Cups Fine Bread Crumbs (Panko or Rusk)

3 tsp Black Pepper

2 tsp White Pepper (optional)

2 tsp Freshly grated Nutmeg

3 tsp Ground Coriander

3 tsp Ground Mace

3 tsp Salt

1 Cup of water

Directions:

The beef and pork should not be too lean or the sausage may be too dry.

Mix well by hand then place in an oblong loaf pan lined with plastic wrap, about 10" x 4" x 3". You might need two pans. Place in the freezer for a little while till it's just partially set — firm enough to slice.

Remove it and cut them to the thickness you like and put them into freezer bags then put back in the freezer.

When required, defrost and fry in a little fat or oil until brown and cooked thoroughly — keep on low/med heat to let them cook well, then crank it up to brown more if you like that..

Since it is difficult to find unseasoned ground pork at my local grocery store, I bought a 1lb pork chop and got to use the grinder attachment for my mixer for the first time. It worked great!! One pass thru was enough to give me the consistency needed for this recipe.

I only made half a batch of this since I was not sure how much I would like the finished product. The only other change from the recipe above is that I did not put it in the freezer to set up. I left it in the fridge overnight and it was firm enough.

This morning, I took it out, and after a few whaps on the counter, it came out of the pan. I did try to line the pan with plastic wrap to no avail. Dang stuff kept bunching up and folding in on itself. I was not up for a fight yesterday, so I gave up on it.

I got 16 1/2” slices out of it. I froze the batch save 2 I had with breakfast.

Boy was it good!!! The taste is different than what you find commercially made, the nutmeg really came thru. I might back off on how much I put in the next time I make it. I did get enough fat into the meat that it was not dry or crumbly when I cooked it. It was quite tender and juicy. It has a good “chew” so to speak.

I will be making more for sure!

Give it a try and let me know what you think of it!

Farm Notes:

The bad cold is going to hit us starting tomorrow night. Down to sub zero temps, but I have not seen any windchill warnings so far. Should only be 4-ish days. I think we will survive!

We had two days of really nice warm for January temps. Almost 40 yesterday and just over 40 predicted for today.

We are as ready for this as we can be!

Have a great week!

Blessed Be!