Martin Sikula doesn’t make it easy to buy his sausages. You can’t order them online and The Craft Butcher is a tiny store way east of East, in-Rathdrum, the ultimate far-from-anywhere one-horse town.
But who amongst us wouldn’t make the journey to the best sausage maker in Ireland. Yes, we’re calling it. Nobody makes a better banger than Martin Sikula.
And, anyway, that’s what deep freezes were invented for.
So, we joined many many other BBQ devotees to make the journey east, and once there, we stocked up on literally every sausage on sale in the shop. And there are quite a few.
“My craft made sausages are an expression of my culinary travels throughout the world. I have extensively researched various culinary and cultural traditions and hope this shows in the end product.”
Martin Sikula “Smoking Soul: The Recipes”
Martin’s bangers are famed mostly for their command of the grill. Put a Craft Butcher sausage of any flavour on your BBQ, and it will outshine everything else. Compact, juicy and full of flavour, these sausages are seasoned with such skill and they cook beautifully every time.
But we wanted to look beyond bbq and take a deep dive into where each sausage originates, what are Martin’s intentions in creating them, and what we can cook with them inside the kitchen rather than outside on the grill.
So, here is our roll call of sausages, and this is what we cooked with them.
Martin describes the Apple and Pork sausage as his twist on the classic British Banger. This is a meat only (no rusk), lean pork sausage seasoned with the classic sausage spicings: white pepper and nutmeg, to which Martin adds a hint of ginger and some dried apple.
These are the sausages to use if you want to make bangers and mash. We have a family recipe, a favourite with all kids, called Sausage Boats. Yes, sausages, cooked and sliced down the middle, and stuffed with mashed potato. Add a cocktail stick with a triangle of carrot for a mast. Man overboard!
For cooking all sausages Martin recommends browning them first to get a good sear, then finishing them in a low oven, heated to 130-140ºC for about 15-20 minutes.
Martin also says the air fryer is an amazing tool in which to cook sausages. So, if your bbq is packed away for the winter, time to pull out the air fryer.
This classic regional sausage from northern Bavaria needs a German street-food approach. The flavour of these sausages is nothing less than spectacular. Serve them German-style with sweet mustard and sauerkraut. Use a crusty roll for this (not a soft roll - that’s for currywurst according to the Berliners in our family). And if you hanker for the flavours of curry and German sausage, make these into home-made sausage rolls and serve with curry ketchup.
Martin tells us, these Bratwurst are actually one of his favourites and he makes a more traditional skinny-skin version once a year, for the German Embassy’s Oktoberfest in Dublin.
Martin describes these as “a Louisiana andouille with a bit of sunshine in it”. The flavours come from sweet paprika, oregano and garlic “with a touch of quality cayenne for warmth, and coriander and cumin to bring that deep southern glow”.
Martin thinks they’re best in a gumbo, or stirred into a jambalaya with shrimp. We gave them the Po’Boy treatment and served them in crusty baguette rolls with a spicy Cajun Remoulade Sauce and pickles.
These sausages are made from both beef and pork, and the flavourings are paprika, fresh herbs and a splash of red wine. Here’s how Martin serves them: “Grill over hardwood embers, butterfly it as the skin crisps, then flash the open flesh, so the coarse meat caramelises at the edges. Pile it into a roll to make a choripán (an asado sandwich that combines chorizo and bread - chori-pán) and finish with a generous spoon of chimichurri.” What could top that?
These Tuscan sausages are rustic and bold, made with coarse-cut pork and flavoured with black pepper, fennel, rosemary and a splash of white wine. Salsiccia actually translates as “sausage” in Italian and we can’t think of a better way to serve them than with some soft polenta with plenty of Parmigiano Reggiano.
This is actually the best-seller in the shop. Martin describes it as “rooted in Sicily and perfected by Italian Americans in early 1900s New York”. The flavours here are fresh basil, sweet pepper flakes and a hint of orange rind. Martin recommends it as a topping for bruschetta with sweet fried onions, ripe tomatoes, peppers and courgettes. We skinned it, broke up the flesh and made it into a pasta sauce with cream, lemon and kale.
This sausage was developed with BBQ gurus Smokin’ Soul. When you add Irish cheese to a sausage and cook it on a grill, it does what cheese should do. It melts! Whatever it is that they put in American cheese, however, it stays chunky and cheesy despite the heat. In other culinary situations we would be suspicious, but for keeping the cheese element in the sausage until the end, these are pretty delicious. They've also got jalapeno – Tex Mex dishes maybe?
But Martin says these sausages are “close to my heart as a Czech butcher. Czech immigrants carried klobása from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Texas.”
However you cook it, let it take its time, and remember, that cheese will stay cheesy and chunky.
This one’s made from lean pork, and flavoured with garlic, black pepper and, says Martin “a hint of mace, plus a little dried herb that should never quite give itself away”. Martin describes it as a “proper winter warmer”. We had to cook them in a cassoulet of course.
If you’re making cassoulet or any other dish where the sausages are cooked in liquid, sear the sausages first over a high heat, then finish cooking them to perfection with the beans and vegetables.
There had to be an Irish sausage, didn’t there? Well this is it. It’s the only one from the range to which Martin adds rusk, and it’s really just a bigger version of the Craft Butcher breakfast sausage.
We adapted a Noor Murad recipe, and baked them in a sheet pan with heads of garlic, quartered skin-on potatoes, and red plums. The whole dish was seasoned with pomegranate molasses and sumac. Not very Irish, but the sausages were perfect for it.
Martin confides that the recipe for this Algerian, North African classic was given to him by a butcher in La Rochelle. The flavours are cumin, coriander, smoked paprika and, of course, harissa. These sausages are made with lamb, not pork. You really have no choice but to serve these with some form of couscous, being careful not to lose any of those oily harissa-flavoured juices.
~SMcK
“On Sunday, 8th of November, Wicklow Naturally marks Samhain the traditional way at Powerscourt Distillery. One building. Five hours. Butchery, BBQ, cheesemaking, baking, blacksmithing, crafts, brewing, distilling, wine and mead-making, and more.”
Catch Martin Sikula this Sunday, 8th November at Samhain at Powerscourt Distillery, fire, feast and craft. More details here.
Book now for your free place (limited availability).
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