Merguez in Chicago

Many years ago I came back from a trip to France with a serious merguez jones. Merguez are ground lamb sausages, cigar-shaped and highly spiced, from the Morocco-Algeria part of the Middle East, hence their prevalence in Paris where even 15 years ago they had escaped the ethnic realm and made their way onto bar menus generally. Cooked right, they are delectable, spicy, gamy. Overcooked, as is so easy with lamb, they're dry and chewy.

I watched and shopped for them for years. Here's my list of what I found, please add to it:

--Packaged gourmet merguez at Marcey St. Market. They were okay, a little too packaged-preserved tasting. I also learned about overcooking lamb the hard way with these, many years ago. All in all, kind of like those chicken sausages you get at Whole Foods that leave you thinking "This isn't bad for something made from the wrong frickin' ANIMAL for sausage."

- Le Loup-- okay French-middle eastern place, I think may now be closed, near Leona's on Sheffield. I was excited when I saw them on the menu, less excited when I got them as I recall, though not sure why.

--That little Turkish coffeehouse place on Lincoln near Wellington that isn't Cafe Demir or A La Turka-- these were the most real-seeming I've had, pretty good flavor and cooked properly, all in all the best thing I had at this place which remains a bit inconsistent in my book. Not sure if they were made inhouse or bought from somewhere, but fresh all the same.

Mike, like you, I love Merguez sausage in all it's forms. My standard approach when I can't find what I want in stores is to make it myself.

I strongly recommend the book: "Professional Charcuterie" which is a 3 volume series from France translated into workable English. The book has recipes for 3 variations of Merguez. There is also also a TNT recipe for Morteau sausage whic I love so much, I make all the time.

The books are expensive. If anyone wants, I'll try to find the time to key in the recipe. Let me know.

These sausages are available at Fox and Obel, though I haven't tried them.

Merguez

Mike G:

I believe I came acorss them for sale some years back at Sam's deli/gourmet counter. Cooked them up and thought they were awful -- I've never tried them from there again, so perhaps my experience was not typical.

More recently I got some little spicy lamb sausages from one of my favourite butcher shops, City Noor (first block of Kedzie south of Lawrence, west side of street); they were delicious.*

Merguez are quite popular in Belgium (which, like France, has a large Maghrebi immigrant population). When I lived in Leuven, there was a butcher shop that sold only lamb and made excellent merguez, which we would grill in the summer. I also use to get some excellent (and presumably more authentic) ones from Arab groceries in the neighbourhood near the Brussels-South station. They also sold harissa from big open bowls that was so fiery it would sometimes send my stomach into spasm -- a touch of that stuff with merguez is pretty good eating...

A

* Perhaps the ones sold at City Noor, a Palestinian-owned shop, actually are called something else and are seasoned to some degree differently than the classic Maghrebi merguez, but they were close to what I remember of real merguez and, in any event, very tasty.

Antonius, Marcey Street Market IS Sam's deli counter, so we probably tried the same thing. By the time I found them it had been so long since I had had the real thing that I don't know that I had a standard of comparison any more, but they didn't do much for me and I've never bought them again.

By the way, your Belgian reveries (I enjoyed Brussels and Bruges greatly, my wife and I have a poster of the Bruges carillon in our entryway to this day, also became huge fans of the architect Baron Horta and have ordered many others to tour his home) remind me of another of my favorite things to have in Belgium, the peach lambic beer. I find the cherry and raspberry lambics way too fruity, dominated by the berry flavor, but the peach was mild and wonderfully refreshing on a warm summer day hanging out in the Grand-Place. I've never found one over here which compares, including the time I brewed it myself, either it's because they use peach extract rather than real peaches or because, well, it wasn't summer in Belgium drinking peach lambic in the Grand-Place.

Mike G wrote: I've never found one over here which compares, including the time I brewed it myself, either it's because they use peach extract rather than real peaches or because, well, it wasn't summer in Belgium drinking peach lambic in the Grand-Place.

For many years, when I would go back for a visit to Belgium, a major part of the pleasure was tied to food of various kinds, tobacco (I confess though I've long since quit that) and, of course, beer. Many of the Belgian specialties were until relatively recently not available here in the States and I would stock up on boxes of fresh Leonidas pralines for distribution to various parties back on this side of the ocean. Maybe a bottle of genever or korenwijn... beer glasses... stroop... Anyway, it remains that a visit there is always a delight for things are just naturally and for various reasons better in situ. But I have also come to think that some of the edge of the delight has been lost on account of the increasing availability of all manner of products around the world.

Anyway, back to merguez... a fond memory of merguez in Brussels involves a cold, snowy night in Brussels... En route to a marionette show, Amata decided she needed a snack and on the way to the Theatre Toone she got a merguez sandwich from a little stand just off the Petite Rue des Bouchers/Kleine Beenhouwersstraat... I got a couple of bites of that sandwich and, boy, was it good... all the better because of the cold, wet weather...

Try the little lamb sausages from City Noor. I remember too that one of the regulars here also bought such sausages from the butcher counter at Al Khyam grocery, just north of City Noor and --if memory serves me well -- I think the report on them was very positive.

A

Fox & Obel has them occasionally. I've eaten some at Tizi Melloul and they were quite good. Another good sausage book is Bruce Aidell's. I've used it extensively over the past few weeks. I know that it has a recipe for merguez. It also has a wonderful lamb with pine nut and sundried tomato sausage recipe that I made this weekend. Really good with a yogurt sauce.