French Provincial Cooking - Elizabeth David [132]
(2) Put your large sausage (the quantity of dough is enough for a 12 to 14 oz. sausage) into a pan in which it will lie flat. Cover completely with cold water. Bring very gently to simmering point and thereafter let it cook with the water barely moving for 45 minutes to an hour. Take it out and put it on a board or dish until it is cool enough to handle. Now remove the skin, very carefully.
(3) Allowing yourself half an hour the first few times you do this dish (afterwards it will be much quicker) make the final preparations. Very lightly rub a baking sheet with butter. Put your dough on this, sprinkle it with flour, and with your hands spread and pat it out into a rectangular shape on the baking sheet. Turn it over (by this time you can, or should be able to, handle the dough as easily as if it were a piece of material). Put your skinned sausage, still warm, in the centre. Gather up the edges of the dough and, having dipped your fingers in cold water, pinch the edges lightly together, along the top and at the ends, so that the whole thing looks rather like a small bolster. Now dip a pastry brush in cream and paint the whole of the exposed surface with it (cream makes the best glaze for these sorts of dishes—not so shiny as egg and smoother than milk). With the back of a knife lightly mark a few criss-cross lines on the dough. The sausage and its brioche can now be left for 15 to 20 minutes, ready on its baking sheet, before it goes into the centre of a pre-heated oven at Gas No. 5, 375-380 deg. F., to bake for 30 minutes. When you take it from the oven, leave the brioche standing for 5 minutes before transferring it, with the aid of a flat fish slice, to a serving dish, and carving it deftly into thickish slices, starting in the middle and working outwards. It will be ample for four.
One should not perhaps expect this dish to come exactly right the first time, except for those accustomed to working with yeast doughs. But although it may sound complicated, after one or two tries it becomes a matter of timing rather than of any special knowledge, and you get a splendid-looking delicious dish with absurdly little trouble. It is mainly a question of assembling all your ingredients and utensils before each of the two main operations—the original mixing of the dough and the final wrapping of the sausage in it. Points to observe carefully are:
(1) Brioche dough is very much more liquid than bread dough, but if after the initial mixing it is really too soft to handle, it may be because you have added a little too much milk to the yeast, or because the eggs were unusually large, or because you are using a soft flour. A little more flour sprinkled in will put matters right.
(2) The sausage is to be put into the dough while it is still warm, because if it is left to get quite cold it will separate from the brioche when it is cut; but if it is too hot the fat running from it will make your dough liquid and difficult to handle.
(3) Be sure to join the edges of the dough well together round the sausage without drawing it too tightly or the sausage will burst through during the baking. This does not detract from the taste of the dish, but rather spoils its appearance.
(4) It is essential that the sausage be cooked right through to start with; once inside its casing of brioche, it will heat but will scarcely cook any more.
SAUCISSON CHAUD À LA LYONNAISE
POACHED SAUSAGE WITH HOT POTATO SALAD
This is an exceedingly simple, almost primitive, dish which is very popular in Lyon and in many country districts of central France. It consists of a large pork sausage, the seasoning and exact composition of which varies according to local tradition, simply poached very slowly (a 12 to 16 oz. sausage takes about 1 hour) in plenty of water to cover, and served on a long dish surrounded by a hot potato salad.
This is made by slicing boiled waxy potatoes into thick rounds while they are still hot, and seasoning them with a little oil, vinegar, salt and pepper dressing. The dish is usually served as a first course, or hot hors-d