Lamb sausage: sandwich
October 02, 2013
A friend recently asked for a restaurant recommendation near New Brunswick. At that point I was still thinking about my recent meal(s) at Destination Dogs, and gave him that quite excellent recommendation.
This transaction caused an immediate reaction in my head and gut: I needed some damned gourmet sausage with interesting toppings, right then.
Unfortunately, time constraints and laziness conspired to keep me from driving an hour to eat the sausage sandwiches at Destination Dogs, but I did come up with a reasonable Plan B: make something on my own.
The first problem was finding any sort of decent, interesting sausage. I kinda had my heart set on lamb sausage, and thankfully I recalled that the Swiss Pork Store in Fair Lawn makes a lovely lamb sausage (as well as plenty of others).
On the way to the Swiss Pork Store, I was pulling together the rest of the plan. I figured I'd go with an Middle Eastern feel, not much unlike the "Achilles Meal" at Destination Dogs. This is a lamb sausage with tzaziki, tomato, cabbage, and onions. Mine was going to have tzaziki, tomatoes, shredded lettuce dressed with o/v/s/p/oregano, feta, and onion. And some sriracha.
Rather than make the tzaziki, which is easy enough, I swung by the most excellent Chicken Kebab in Glen Rock, to buy a little cup of their white sauce. This is a great little spot that I should write more on, but suffice it to say their white sauce was just what I needed.
I had a wonderful, ripe, beauty of an heirloom tomato from the Ridgewood Farmers' market on hand. I'm hoping they stay in season for a few more weeks.
I knew this sausage was going to be too big for a standard issue supermarket hot dog bun, so I got a plain white sub roll from Kings Supermarket. These are soft, generic, and perfect for subs/hoagies/grinders/whatevers, and for this. The roll is a bit long, so it was cut to length, and of course it was gutted. A bit of toasting finished it up.
The lamb sausage is fully cooked when you buy it, so a quick simmer to bring it up to temp and a quicker drop on a grill was all it needed. The rest of the stuff gets applied and you're done.
Having access to some decent ingredients is a blessing. This meal cost just a few dollars, and tasted like a million bucks.
I highly recommend all of the stuff I bought and all of the things I did and all of the food I ate and all of my recommendations in general, as usual.