A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders.
Head cheese or brawn is a cold cut terrine or meat jelly that originated in Europe. It is made with flesh from the head of a calf or pig, typically set in aspic, and usually eaten cold, at room temperature, or in a sandwich. Despite its name the dish is not a cheese and contains no dairy products. The parts of the head used vary, and may include the tongue but do not commonly include the brain, eyes or ears. Trimmings from more commonly eaten cuts of pork and veal are often used, and sometimes the feet and heart, with gelatin added as a binder.
Hungarian or Magyar cuisine is the cuisine characteristic of the nation of Hungary, and its primary ethnic group, the Magyars. Hungarian cuisine has been described as being the spiciest cuisine in Europe. This can largely be attributed to the use of their piquant native spice, Hungarian paprika, in many of their dishes. A mild version of the spice, Hungarian sweet paprika, is commonly used as an alternative. Traditional Hungarian dishes are primarily based on meats, seasonal vegetables, fruits, bread, and dairy products.
Salami is a cured sausage consisting of fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. Historically, salami was popular among Southern, Eastern, and Central European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature for up to 45 days once cut, supplementing a potentially meager or inconsistent supply of fresh meat. Countries and regions across Europe make their own traditional varieties of salami.
Pastrami is a food originating from Romania usually made from beef brisket. Later recipes use lamb, pork, chicken or turkey. The raw meat is brined, partially dried, seasoned with herbs and spices, then smoked and steamed. Like corned beef, pastrami was originally created as a way to preserve meat before the invention of refrigeration. One of the iconic meats of Eastern European cuisine as well as American Jewish cuisine and New York City cuisine, hot pastrami is typically served at delicatessen restaurants on sandwiches such as the pastrami on rye.
Romanian cuisine is a diverse blend of different dishes from several traditions with which it has come into contact, but it also maintains its own character. It has been mainly influenced by Turkish but also a series of European cuisines in particular from the Balkan Peninsula and Hungarian cuisine as well as culinary elements stemming from the cuisines of Central Europe.
Pancetta is a salt-cured pork belly meat product in a category known as salume. In Italy, it is often used to add depth to soups and pastas.
Tripe soup or tripe stew is a soup or stew made with tripe. It is widely considered to be a hangover remedy.
Lardo is a type of salume made by curing strips of fatback with rosemary and other herbs and spices.
Lecsó is a Hungarian thick vegetable ragout or stew which traditionally contains yellow pointed peppers, tomato, onion, salt, and ground sweet and/or hot paprika as a base recipe. The onions and peppers are usually sauteed in lard, bacon fat, or sunflower oil. Garlic can also be a traditional ingredient. It is also considered to be traditional food in Czech, Slovak and former Yugoslavian cuisine and is also very common in Poland, Austria, and Israel.
Hungarian sausages are sausages found in the cuisine of Hungary. Hungary produces a vast number of sui sausage types. They may be boiled, fresh or dried, and smoked, with different spices and flavors, "hot" or "mild". Many were influenced by their neighbors and brethren.
A debrecener is a pork sausage of uniform fine texture and reddish-orange colour, named after the Hungarian city of Debrecen. The sausages are heavily spiced with paprika and other seasonings like garlic, pepper and marjoram. Usually they contain tiny pieces of pork fat as well. They are usually unsmoked or lightly smoked, and sold in pairs joined at one end. Traditional cooking technique calls for the Debreceni to be transversely slashed at intervals and baked, broiled, or fried. The sausage tends to curl away from the slashes, creating a linked series of sausage coins.
Čvarci is a specialty popular in Southeastern Europe, a variant of pork rinds. They are a kind of pork cracklings, with fat thermally extracted from the lard.
Szalonna is Hungarian for fatback made of smoked pork fat with the rind and is traditional in Hungarian cuisine. It is often smoked or cooked in some manner before purchase so that the buyer can eat it without further preparation. It is very different from popular American bacon, which is typically sold soft and uncooked.
Salt pork is salt-cured pork. It is usually prepared from pork belly, or, more rarely, fatback. Salt pork typically resembles uncut side bacon, but is fattier, being made from the lowest part of the belly, and saltier, as the cure is stronger and performed for longer, and never smoked. The fat on the meat is necessary for the curing process as it allows the salt to soak in and preserve the meat. Salt pork is made by layering salt and thin layers of meat, then dousing it in a brine mixture once the desired size has been reached.
Montreal-style smoked meat, Montreal smoked meat or simply smoked meat in Quebec is a type of kosher-style deli meat product made by salting and curing beef brisket with spices. The brisket is allowed to absorb the flavours over a week. It is then hot smoked to cook through, and finally is steamed to completion. This is a variation on corned beef and is similar to pastrami.
Cured pork tenderloin is found in various cuisines in Mediterranean Europe and South America. It is typically salted or brined then dry-cured or smoked.
Speck can refer to a number of European cured pork products, typically salted and air-cured and often lightly smoked but not cooked. In Germany, speck is pickled pork fat with or without some meat in it. Throughout much of the rest of Europe and parts of the English-speaking culinary world, speck often refers to South Tyrolean speck, a type of Italian smoked ham. The term speck became part of popular parlance only in the eighteenth century and replaced the older term bachen, a cognate of bacon.
Pork rind is the culinary term for the skin of a pig. It can be used in many different ways.
