Growing up at a true gourmet mother’s home, our sucuk used to be sent from the famous city Tokat, the brand was Aşık Baba. It was nutty, peppery, meaty, flat rather then round, like the others and stuffed in tülbent -cheesecloth- instead of intestines. Years passed, around 1998 I came across that brand again in Ankara, and then I started pairing it with wine rather than eating it with eggs. Then lost again. Then appeared in Istanbul couple of years ago. Still stuffed in tülbent, but also vacuum packed. Taste changed obviously… Like playing hide and seek after sucuk, just the thing for me! Home free bez sucuk!
Anyway, I was planning to write about sucuk, not about a special brand. Sucuk is, the easiest way for me to describe it, is very similar to chorizo, or like a fresh sausage some might say, I rather stick with chorizo likeness. A mincemeat mixture is stuffed in intestines the filling is usually consists of beef, garlic, salt, pepper, black pepper and cumin. This mixture may vary according to personal taste or the recipe relied upon, always a secret! The fattier the better, some butchers also add some lamb cuts, which makes it more desirable in my case. The fat is not added separately like suet or a tail fat, just plain fatty meat cuts should be used.
These babies, aka kasap sucuğu, have been made by my butcher Hulki Usta, hung to air-dry, to mature and taste even better. Best enjoyed with eggs, sucuklu yumurta, or sucuk ekmek -sandwich with grilled sucuk- is eaten and cherished by most of us, me as a habit having a couple of kangal sucuk -loop sucuk- at home, all the time…
Warning: I am talking about artisan sucuk here, the one that you know who prepares, which cuts of meat used, spices, where and how. Not the factory made, chemical filled so-called-sucuk!