WHAT’S COOKING: Chipolatas and mash — they’re bangers, but smaller

I was passing the sausages section of my local store the other day when I spied pork chipolatas. They were a favourite in my mom’s kitchen when I was growing up in Oranjemund, and in recent years they’ve been a top choice during our Karoo stoep-sitting days.

The local butchery in Cradock, De Wilge, makes excellent chipolatas and friends would grill them for a stoep-sitting snack with a mustard sauce to dip them in.

Chipolatas aren’t always made of pork meat – you get beef, chicken and plant-based ones too. But traditional bangers and mash require a pork banger, so if we’re going to do it on a miniature scale it seems right to use pork chipolatas.

“Chipolata” seems to be a bastardisation of “cipolla”, the Italian for onion. Somehow, a derivation of the word came to be used to identify baby pork sausages in France and later in Britain, and the name stuck.

Yet, there is no onion in chipolatas, usually. They contain minced pork, salt, and various herbs and spices, depending on their makers’ whims.

Wikipedia argues that: “A 1750 English cookery book refers to ‘Tendrons of veal en Chipolata’, and ‘Fillets of pork à la Chipolata’. In the 19th century Louis Ude in his The French Cook (1813) gives a recipe for ‘Tendrons of veal en Chipolata’ which includes the direction, ‘take a few small sausages, some small onions stewed very white’.”

It would seem, Wikipedia’s author concludes, that “the French came to apply the term ‘chipolata’ to the sausages rather than the accompanying onions. By the 1830s the name had widely been transferred to the sausages.”

Tony’s chipolata bangers and mash

(Serves 2)

Ingredients

8 to 12 pork chipolata sausages (4 to 6 per serving – look, they’re small)

2 Tbsp butter for greasing the pan to fry the chipolatas in

4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut in two

Salt for boiling the potatoes

4 heaped Tbsp butter for the mashed potatoes

Salt and pepper to taste, for the potatoes

For the onion gravy:

1 extra large or two medium onions, sliced

2 generous Tbsp butter

1 tsp sugar

Fresh thyme leaves, picked from their stems (at least 4 or 5 sprigs)

600ml beef stock

100ml port, sherry or other sweet red fortified wine

1 Tbsp hot English mustard

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 heaped tsp cornstarch dissolved in milk, stirred until there are no lumps

Method

Put the peeled and halved potatoes in a pot of plenty of cold water and salt generously. Bring to a boil and cook until tender. Drain, then return them to the pot and toss them around on the heat to get rid of residual water. Mash them very well, stir in plenty of butter and season with salt and pepper. You can keep it to one side and reheat quickly, while stirring, when everything else is ready.

Cook the chipolata sausages your preferred way. I recommend slow frying on a gentle heat, turning or rolling them around often. 

If cooking them in an air fryer, preheat it to 180°C, spray them with cooking oil spray, and air fry them for about 10 minutes, shaking the pan frequently to turn them over and turn golden brown evenly.

Meanwhile, caramelise the sliced onions in butter slowly over a very low heat for up to half an hour, with the sugar and thyme leaves, until they are lightly browned and packed with caramelised flavour. Shortening the time and cooking at a higher heat will only reduce the depth of flavour.

Add the beef stock, port (or a substitute) and mustard (stir it in, it will dissolve quickly) and reduce gently until the gravy thickens and its flavours intensify. Season with salt and pepper to taste, stir in the dissolved cornstarch, then stir the gravy while it thickens, for about three minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

Serve a pile of mashed potatoes with 4 to 6 little chipolatas cuddled on top, and don’t be too shy with the onion gravy. DM

To buy a copy of Tony Jackman’s Retro Karoo Food (Penguin Random House) signed by the author in gold, send an email to him at tony@dailymaverick.co.za
Or buy it through the Daily Maverick shop.

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award.