Cotechino Sausage with Kelp

Resident chef, Jared Ingersoll, gets potted in to a contemporary take on an Italian classic.

This is a slight twist on a very simple classic and at its core is a delicious pork sausage. Cotechino is a sausage made using pork meat and pork rind, and it is one of the nicest things you can eat! I get mine from a little butcher in Dulwich Hill called the Chop Shop where Melinda makes them by hand. The presence of the rind makes for a delicious gelatinous and gorgeously soft and rich pork sausage that is great to eat straight away but slightly better (in my opinion) the next day.

This recipe is one of the kings of the ‘one pot wonder’. It is super simple to make and if you can’t get a good quality Cotechino then any good pork sausage will suffice, you will just need to adjust your cooking times. The seaweed in the recipe is the tweak from tradition – cooking legumes with kelp is a delicious thing to do as the natural salt helps enhance the lentils’ flavour. There are also ‘oligosaccharides’ present in legumes which your body has a really hard time digesting; the presence of seaweeds helps the digestion process.

Ingredients:

1 Cotechino sausage

6 large carrots, peeled and left whole

1 onion, peeled and cut in half

2 sticks of celery

1 large blade of Kombu (or wakame)

300g lentils

1 bunch parsley

Method:

1. Place your sausage, onion, carrot, celery, carrot, kelp touch of salt and a good grind of black pepper in a large saucepan and cover with plenty of cold water. Place on a moderate heat and bring to a simmer, turn down the heat and cook for about 45 minutes.

2. Add your lentils and stir through, cook for about another 30 min or until the lentils are tender. You may need to add a little more water as the lentils are cooking to ensure everything is moist.

3. To serve, cut your sausage into thick 1 cm slices. Coarsely chop your parsley and stir through the lentils just before plating up.

This is best served with hot mustard and mustard fruits, a chunk of bread and a crisp white wine.