Inspired by great hosts like Kirti, Ips and S, I decide to make fresh starters for our latest party. It was another matter that I ended up cooking the main course too after the guests arrived. But then they came early. Not very Bong I must say.
I chose sausages for the starters. Cold cuts cook easily unlike chicken or pork. There is a lot you can do with them. They are quite well behaved and don’t give out water unlike mushrooms or prawns when you fry them. So, quite hassle free. I used Thai condiments as I had some stock left from what I had bought to make the Thai curry. I used chicken sausages as chicken is more acceptable than pork. Works for a larger group. I assume you could do this with paneer too.
The plan worked. It was very quick to cook. It is so simple that even the culinarily challenged can cook it. Looked colourful and different too. Focus groups showed that it was quite well accepted.
Here’s the recipe:
Prep:
- Buy 250 g chicken sausages. You can experiment with versions such as spicy sausages. Pork would work well of course. Finely chop them into little rings
Cook (5 minutes):
- Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a non stick pan
- Add two finely chopped bird’s eye chillies, 8-10 Thai brinjals, a few slivers of galangal (Thai Ginger) and a few shreds of lemon grass stalks
- Stir
- Add the sausages
- Add a tablespoon of ketchup. Gives the pale sausages a touch of colour and a bit of sweetness. This balances the heat of the chillies and the brinjals. You don’t need to add salt as the sausage has it
- Stir till the sausage skin has a slight crisp look to it (two minutes)
- You are done
We had a two and a a year old in the party who couldn’t have enough of it. He kept smiling and saying ‘jhaal’ (Bengali for spicy) as he ate them. His mother said that she had to serve him fried sausages on toothpicks for breakfast the next morning. The jury is out on whether the novelty of toothpicks worked for him.
The thirty and forty year olds liked it too 🙂
