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© Copyright 1995-2023, Clay Irving <clay@panix.com>, Manhattan Beach, CA USA
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Recipe from: Gulfcoast Fisherman
Given the many kinds of splendid sausage along the Gulf Coast, it should be no surprise that sausage and seafood recipes abound. It's a bit of a surprise that seafood sausage isn't a bit more popular. Granted, that seafood sausage requires close attention to see your ingredients don't get too hot, but a single session can produce enough sausage for three or four months, about the limit of time you can expect to keep fine ground seafood. Other possibilities worth considering are soups and rice dishes that combine seafood and sausage in interesting ways. Among other advantages, the recipes that follow improve on reheating and solve the problem of mixed groups of carnivores and "piscavores."
Fish and seafood sausages do offer other advantages besides delicate taste and, if you can avoid adding cream — as we can't — lower calories. Given a light hand with the seasonings so you don't hide the taste of your fish, shrimp or scallops, and ensuring that your mixing bowl and ingredients stay cold so cream and such are absorbed, you can't miss. You can, as usual substitute the catch of the day and whatever shellfish, save oysters, for those that follow. 1 ½ pound fish, boned and skinned
2 egg whites, chilled
1 ½ cup heavy cream, chilled
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon ground white or green pepper
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons fresh or 2 teaspoons dry, of your favorite of tarragon,
chervil, lemon grass or rosemary
½ cup parsley, chopped
¼ cup mushrooms
1 cup scallops in ¼ inch cubes
1 cup shrimp, crab or lobster cut into ¼ inch pieces.
3 teaspoons minced green onion
Put food processor blade and its bowl and another 4 quart bowl — we use metal or glass — into the fridge for a half hour. Cut one pound of fish into one inch cubes and freeze for 15 minutes. Cut one half pound of fish into ¼ inch cubes and refrigerate.
Grind large fish chunks in the processor until smooth. Add egg whites until blended. Add cream bit by bit and dump in and stir seasonings. Move ground fish into your cold bowl and stir in the salmon chunks, mushrooms, scallops and shellfish. Add other seasonings. At this point you can poach a dime-size ball of the stuffing in hot water, move the rest to the fridge. Taste test seasonings. You might like to add a little Pernod, sherry, white wine or even a dash of Lee & Perrins.
You can stuff the sausage into casings or poach it in liquid — we put the sausage into plastic bags and poach it in simmering water so it stays together. It's your choice. Cooking time only runs from 15 to 20 minutes. You can tell as the fish changes color when it's done. We like these in breakfast sausage-size casings as hor d'ouvres. Their only drawback, besides the fact guests eat them so fast, is they don't freeze well. Given the rate they are usually eaten, that's seldom a problem.