Maltese sausage
You can do a lot more with Maltese sausages than a quick grill on the barbecue. Matty Cremona has the recipes.
Maltese sausages, like all traditional sausages, are a consequence of thrift with food. When animals were butchered in the past, nothing was wasted. The blood and trimmings went into the making of sausages. The sausage-skin itself came from the animal. Times are different now, but sausages haven’t been discarded because they are liked so much. The traditional Maltese-sausage mix is pork, salt, pepper and crushed coriander seed. Sometimes a little garlic and parsley is stirred in. Coriander is the defining flavour; in Sicilian sausages, which are similar, it’s fennel.
In days gone by, people didn’t just go out and buy their sausages at the supermarket. They had their butcher make up a batch, then draped them in muslin and hung them in the tromba tal-bejt or stair-head, where there was sure to be a cool draught to dry and preserve them.
Maltese sausages suffer from a generally undeserved reputation as being too salty. This is probably because some butchers use too much salt. This isn’t necessary, and there are others who make their sausages without all that saltiness, which isn’t good for the health in any case. The best is to sample the sausages of a variety of butchers and to find out which you prefer. I buy mine at Charles Butcher in Naxxar, opposite the parish church. They make a barbecue version of the traditional recipe which tastes just right. The original, slightly salty recipe can be served raw.
There are lots of good ways to cook Maltese sausage. One or two of them sliced into a simple pork stew will add tremendous flavour. You can strip off the sausage-skin and crumble the filling into minestra. Split the sausages and grill them, serving them with salad. Cut them into large chunks and roast them with small wedges of potatoes scattered with rosemary.