morteau sausage?

[helenas]

Is this french sausage available in US?  Or can be substituted by some other sausage?

[Bux]

Are you trying to use it in a recipe? I associate the name with a dried sausage. Well maybe not, I find several recipes for it in cooked dishes on Google.

It's a sausage from the Franche-Compte and it is lightly smoked and sold uncooked and uncored. It has Appellation d'Origin Controllée status regarding the parts of pork to used, seasonings allowed/required and specifiec geographic origin.

http://b-simon.ifrance.com/b-simon/au15.htm is a page with photographs and a couple of recipes for using a sacusse de Morteau.

http://www.best-gourmet.com/uk/produits/p13.html describes it as a "sausage with a distinctive sweet and smoky flavour."

My best French chef sources tell me that it's exact taste and flavor are unique, but that most uncooked sausages can be sustituted. Of course they will not impart the uniqueness of the Morteau.

[Bux]

Oh yes, the question of "is it available in US?" I'm not aware of any imprted sausage that is not cured or cooked.

[col klink]

Bux,  what do you mean when you refer to some sausages being "uncored?"

[Fat Guy]

He probably meant uncured.

[helenas]

My quest for this sausage started, when recently i found the site with a recipe for sausage gratin, (second link in Robert's post). I just liked the idea of smoked sausage, being simmered for  30 minutes or so. I remember this technique was used by my mom for cooking the thick smoked sausages whole, and then serving them as a main course.

The interesting think about morteau sausage, that it's smoked in juniper and pine, which probably a reason for specific flavour. I'll try to experiment with several different smoked sausage brands. We''ll see what happens.

[Fat Guy]

There are some very good, pretty much raw sausages available from Yorkville Packing House in New York. Also Kurywyczki or however you spell it in the East Village. I bet you can get an approximation. Schaller & Weber might have something close too, and they're online. You can probably add a little juniper to your recipe. Or maybe some gin!

[Wilfrid]

Are French sausages about the most difficult thing to find in New York in the culinary line.  I have asked here and on other boards about andouille, and hunted high and low with no luck.  I´ll be amazed if morteau is available.

[Catseye]

Quote: from Wilfrid on 1:54 pm on Feb. 7, 2002

I have asked here and on other boards about andouille, and hunted high and low with no luck

You'll have better luck if you think of it as an offering from the realm of Cajun/Creole cuisine.  It's a pork sausage, in casings, smoked ideally over pecan wood and sugar cane for 8-10 hours.  It's flavored with garlic, pepper, cayenne and paprika, chiefly.  It's thought to have been brought to the US by emigrants from Brittany and Normandy in the mid-18th century.

I also found this website: www.mhr-viandes.com/en/recherche/recherche/php, which provides a search thingie for companies in France that sell andouille.

Cats

[Peter B Wolf]

Anduilles from (or in) France and Anduilles from New Orleans are two totally different species. Steven Shaw previously wrote something about that somewhere else. Also the best Morteau Sausage I ever obtained was in the town Morteau in Departement Doubs, and it was called "Jesus de Morteau", or simply "Jesus". I once obtained it here in the States in D.C. in a tiny French shop on Wisconsin Ave, 1800 block, Georgetown. Forgot the name. That was in 1984.

[Wilfrid]

Thanks, Cats Eye, but the Cajun sausage has indeed evolved far away from the French sausage I am chasing.  The characteristic thing about French andouille is that it is made from smoked chitterlings.  Seems to me there is a clear gap in the New York food market for a serious importer of sausages (other than just Italian).  If I am overlooking any place, please let me know.

[Catseye]

If I am overlooking any place, please let me know.

Well, that MHRViandes website I provided lists 27 vendors of andouille in France.  If you get desperate, maybe one of them will ship you some.

Or if you get *really* desperate, you can maybe make your own.  I found a recipe for it at www.recipesource.com/main-dishes/meat/pork/andouille1.html.

Cats