Chipolata
Small fine sausage whose name comes from the Italian cipollata, originally an onion dish. The word then designated the whole garnish, not the sausage alone.
| Lean pork shoulder | 750 g |
| Pork jowl | 250 g |
| Fine salt | 18 g |
| Ground white pepper | 2 g |
| Grated nutmeg | 1 g |
| Ground coriander | 1 g |
| Dried thyme | 1 g |
| Iced water | 60 ml |
| Sheep casing (Ø 20–24 mm) | — |
- Preparation: Trim and cut the meats into cubes. Chill hard to −2 °C.
- Mincing: Mince finely through the 4 to 5 mm plate for a tight, homogeneous texture.
- Seasoning: Mix all the spices with the iced water. Add into the meat, then knead for 3 to 4 minutes until the forcemeat is well bound.
- Resting: Refrigerate for 4 to 6 hours.
- Stuffing: Stuff into the fine sheep casings. Form sausages of 8 to 10 cm, twisting them, or leave them in a chain.
- Cooking: Grill, pan-fry or use to garnish poultry. Quick cooking: 8 to 10 minutes.
The chipolata is a fine, fresh sausage whose name derives from the Italian cipollata, which designates a dish based on onions (cipolla). The semantic shift is documented in French from 1740 in Le Cuisinier gascon, where a recipe for chicken wings à la chipolata describes a garnish of blanched small onions and small sausages. The term then designated the whole preparation, not the sausage alone. By progressive reduction, it came to designate only the sausage, losing all reference to the onion that had given it its name. Its introduction to France is tied to the culinary exchanges between Italian and French kitchens, which were particularly active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Its use as a garnish for roast poultry is likewise attested from the nineteenth century. Alexandre Dumas, in his Grand Dictionnaire de cuisine (1873), gives recipes for Oie à la chipolata and Perdrix aux choux, garnished with chipolatas.
The sheep casing, finer and more fragile than hog casing, calls for cooking over medium heat. Too fierce a heat bursts the casing before the forcemeat is cooked through; a very finely minced forcemeat is, besides, prone to drying out at high temperature.
The chipolata has no codified regional variants in France. Its basic composition is stable without a product specification or geographical protection. Some artisan butchers add sage or parsley, but these variations remain local and informal. It should not be confused with the cocktail sausage, which is smaller and of a different composition, nor with the British chipolata, which incorporates rusk as a binder and whose composition is closer to that of the English banger (see that recipe entry).
It is eaten grilled or pan-fried, alongside roast poultry, as a garnish for simmered dishes or at the English-style breakfast in France.
The chipolata, along with the saucisse de Toulouse, is one of the best-selling fresh sausages in France. It is present in every distribution channel, from supermarkets to artisan butchers. In the United Kingdom, it is known under its French name, but its composition there differs from the French version (a ‘sub-class’ of the banger, so to speak, with added rusk).
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