Instructions
It could have been a script for The Goon Show: ‘The Case of the Exploding Sausage’. I can hear it now. Neddy Seagoon and Major Bloodnok fight back the approaching hordes with a rucksack full of ‘bangers’.
But did you ever wonder how it was that the humble sausage came to be called a ‘banger’? The answer is dynamite.
In earlier and more thrifty times butchers used to make sausages in the most unscrupulous of ways. They used techniques that would make even the basest of modern supermarket meat-sticks blush. Not simply contented to mince the entire redundant carcass, including some organs for which only a biologist might have a name, butchers went even further.
Initially they extended their sausage mince with rusk (dried breadcrumbs) but soon found that powdery sawdust did the same thing at half the price. In case the sausage might turn out dry (heaven forbid) they beat a large quantity of water into their mix and stabilised it with lecithin.
And you wonder why sausages get a bad reputation!
When such a devilish creation was exposed to heat, either in the pan or the oven, you’d have thought the Hun was testing his artillery. The water turned to steam which was absorbed by the rusk until the pressure caused it to de-emulsify and mix with the sizzling oil inducing a massive and uncontrolled explosion.
Bangers indeed!!!!
These days sausage manufacture is reasonably well-regulated and dinner is no longer ‘danger close’.
Pork sausages are the high point of English butchery, especially when made in an artisan fashion. Quality pork is triple-minced until fine and smooth. Then it is partnered with gentle spices like nutmeg and cinnamon, before binding with just a smattering of salt.
Always prick your sausages to ensure the maximum amount of fat can be released, but never overcook them. Just like any other piece of meat, sausages can easily be dried out if attention is not paid to them.
Oh, and as for the crucial question? Always hot mustard, never relish. If the sausage can’t explode, then surely your mouth should.
Toad-in-the-hole