Sausage is not just for... sausage!

I love the wide variety of sausages we make.  They are like little, fully seasoned flavour profiles ready to go. But to be honest, I rarely eat them as sausage in a casing anymore. We often have broken ones or leftovers in the stuffer of loose seasoned meat, I’ve gotten so used to taking them home and cooking with them that now I find myself zipping open full sausages to use the meat loose even when I don’t have to. Lots of the fast and easy dishes we make at home use loose sausage meat as a base. I use the following technique of broiling little chunks or torpedos in many ways. The Red Thai curry or Chicken Thai with shallot and Lime is amazing scooped with all the juices onto a salad of greens, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, roasted eggplant and toasted peanuts.  

The following is one of my favourites for a quick dinner with a salad.  I take the Moroccan lamb sausage (loose already or split out of the casing) and make small torpedoes with a spoon directly into a heatproof pan with shallow sides.  

Get ready a small bowl of something I like to call ‘big-little herb salad’.  It’s a mixture of whatever herbs you have on hand, small leaves plucked but not chopped and tossed together.  It’s like a little salad but big on the hit of flavour and texture. For this dish I like a mixture of Italian parsley, mint, cilantro and a bit of dill but even if you just have parsley it’s worth it.

For the chickpeas, crush about half of what you will be enough for your meal keeping the other half whole. Sometimes I put a large handful on my cutting board and crush them with the side of my knife or I use my mortar and pestle gently.

Broil the torpedoes on high for about 8-10 min, keeping and eye on things.  You want them just cooked through but nice and brown on top. Using an oven mitt pull the pan onto the stove top and add all the chickpeas.  On low heat stir everything together, letting the chickpeas soak up some of those amazing juices! Once it’s hot throughout, scoop into bowls, add a handful of the little-big salad and a dollop or yogurt.

It’s really that easy......