MAIN INGREDIENTS
This unique, skinless, deep-fried sausage is a popular snack that is mostly consumed in Belgium and the Netherlands. There has been a long dispute whether frikandel is originally Belgian or Dutch, and although the exact origin of frikandel is unknown, it is certain that the dish first appeared in the 1950s.
The original frikandel sausage consisted of a variety of meat, most commonly pork, chicken, and horse meat. However, since eating horse meat is sometimes regarded as taboo these days, most producers eliminated it from their recipes. Traditionally, it is served plain, with a dollop of mayonnaise on the side.
Braadworst is a typical Dutch sausage characterized by its large size. The name means roast sausage in Dutch, so braadworst is typically pan-fried with butter or grilled at barbecues. It consists of finely ground pork, beef, or veal meat that is lightly seasoned with spices and herbs such as nutmeg, pepper, fennel, and coriander, although the primary flavor should be that of meat.
The sausages can be paired with anything from stamppot and mustard to onions and cucumbers.
Metworst is a traditional sausage made from ground pork. The sausage is always dried in the open air and has a very strong flavor. In the past, due to its preservability, metworst was mostly used in cases of emergency, when the farmers had shortages of fresh meat, but over time, it started to be consumed by field laborers as a light lunch.
Today, the sausage is most often eaten as a cold cut on bread.
Rookworst is a Dutch smoked sausage made with either pork, pork and beef, or pork and veal, but in recent years there's also a turkey-based rookworst that's available in most Dutch stores. The meat is typically flavored with saltpeter, nutmeg, and sugar before it is placed into pork intestines and left to smoke over smouldering woodchips.
There are two distinctive varieties of this sausage – Gelderse rookworst and raw rookworst. The Gelderse variety is pre-cooked and sold vacuum-packed, so it can simply be reheated, while the raw variety should be cooked before consumption.
MOST ICONIC Rookworst
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