Italian sausage recipe with roasted pepper and kymak

For this Italian sausage recipe, I used „leftovers“ from my fridge. All because of savings. Did you perhaps forget how to save 🙂 ? Here’s a reminder.

Leftovers

Leftovers from my trip to Italy. The sausages were made of pork meat but they also contain some spice note of ground fennel.

I am not using sausages in my meal planner that often. They are not so healthy and it is very difficult to find the healthier ones. If you follow this text to the end you will find out WHY.

Roasted pepper?

I always have fresh peppers for a salad, but sometimes we don’t manage to eat everything that we have. In that case, I usually put them into the oven and make them roast.  When I remove them from the oven, I put everything in a plastic wrap. Let them stand for 20 minutes to chill slightly and absorb the smoky flavors. Before serving them, I remove skin and seeds.

How to choose the best sausages?

Not an easy job.

It is necessary to choose sausages with the good balance of meat and fat. If they contain too much meat, baking will be very dry, and if there’s too much fat, you will stay without lunch. The best solution would maybe be to get pork ‘crisps’, popularly named in Serbian language „čvarci“.

For me, the best solution is to find sausages with 90% of pork meat (83% from pork shoulder and with 6-7% of fat). That combination is almost impossible to find in supermarkets.

Why is it so important to eat healthier sausages?

According to some researches, eating sausages on a daily basis can increase cancer risk by 20%.

For sure, we don’t want to be at any risk, especially the risk of getting cancer.

However, sometimes it is allowed to satisfy our souls with something that we love to eat 🙂 . The selected sausages should be without additives, preservatives, sugar …

It’s almost impossible to do so, therefore, you should consume them only occasionally.

What is „kymak“ ?

If only you knew how great it tastes! Yummy!

Kaymak is a creamy dairy product similar to clotted cream, made from the milk of water buffalos, cows, sheep, or goats. In this recipe, it is made of cow milk.

The traditional method of making kaymak is to boil the milk slowly, then simmer it for two hours at a very low heat. After that, we have to leave it to chill for several hours or days. Kaymak has a high percentage of milk fat, typically about 60%. It has a thick, creamy consistency and a rich taste.

Italian sausage recipe

I’m sure that you can already find all these ingredients or substitutes in your fridge.

It isn’t necessary to have exactly Italian sausages, you can use any that you already have according to your taste. You also need red roasted pepper, kymak, or instead of it, sour cream as a substitute, some spices (ground fennel, salt, pepper and fresh thyme) and one egg.

Sausage casing

The Italian sausage had its natural casing which I took off.

I place the sausage in a large skillet over medium heat. I didn’t put oil in the pan because sausages contain enough of it.  I grilled the sausages turning occasionally until they brown. Then I added roasted red pepper and all spices. All together I cooked them for about 7 minutes.

Then, I use my favorite ethno baking dish. I placed the sausages in it and cover them with a mixture of one egg, sour cream, and kymak, although it isn’t necessary to use it, if you don’t have it.

Put it into the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 180°C.

You can serve it with a fresh green salad.

For my taste, I put some chili. I can’t help it I just love chili …Someone told me that it means I am going to live longer 🙂 . You can also do that if you like.

I believe in chili pepper 🙂

And  voila…finito 🙂