Skinless Sausages

Inspired by the Romanian "mititei" recipe, these homemade skinless sausages are so delicious, tender and juicy that they will delight you. This recipe is best suited to be grilled. Only then will it receive the perfect flavour and taste, and it is ideal when you want to cook in the garden at a BBQ.

Jump to:

• Why We Love This Recipe?
• Ingredients
• How to Make the Homemade Skinless Sausages?
• How to Fry the Skinless Sausages
• Serving
• Skinless Sausages

These skinless sausages are widespread in the Balkans with different names. From "Kebapche" in Bulgaria to "Cevapcici" in the countries of the former Yugoslav and "Mici" or "Mititei" in Romania. They have the same shape, and the essential ingredients are different combinations of pork, sheep or beef. But their seasoning differs slightly.

Why We Love This Recipe?

With the arrival of spring, beautiful and warmer days, almost every week, we cook something outside on the grill. So these skinless sausages are practically indispensable on the menu.

Although you can buy from the market these sausages ready-made and frozen, I preferred today to prepare them at home for the following reasons:

• I can decide what kind of meat to use and what proportions to combine them if I use several types of meat.
• I can make minced meat at home and grind it as small or coarse as I want.
• I can season the mince as I like, according to my and my family's tastes.
• If I do it in larger quantities, which I recommend after I have formed them. I will freeze them in portions, and I can use them at any time in the future.
• Skinless sausages can consume very easily. They do not require plates and cutlery, just some toothpicks with which we handle them.

Ingredients

The difference between this skinless sausages recipe and the Romanian "mititei" recipe is the minced meat used. I will use a combination that you have never encountered before. That is, 800 g of minced pork and 800 g of minced turkey that I chopped at home. That's how I like it.

If you want the sausages not to come out dry and hard to chew, the minced meat mixture must also contain some fat. Some experts consider the fat percentage around 30%. So you need to chop fatter pork, such as belly, or add fat, as I did, two tablespoons of pork lard.

I seasoned it according to the recipes of the Romanian mititei using the following ingredients:
- sea salt, which cannot be missing from any food,
- freshly ground pepper is put in any sausages,
- sweet paprika (if you can make it Hungarian) will give colour and taste,
- dried summer savory, a spice often used in Romania; if you don't have one, use thyme,
- finely chopped or pressed garlic; the amount used depends on everyone's taste,
- sodium bicarbonate to be fluffy sausages,
- cold water.

How to Make the Homemade Skinless Sausages?

When starting this recipe, you have to remember that if you want to get the best-tasty sausages, the seasoned meat must stay cold for a while so that the flavours blend in. That is why it is advisable to prepare them one day before using them.

Preparing the Mince Meat

I'll start by mixing the two types of meat well, and for this, I put the minced pork and turkey in a mixing bowl and add two tablespoons of lard.

Mix well by hand for a few minutes until the minced meat perfectly blends with the fat. If the pork is fatty, no extra fat is needed.

Seasoning the Mince

Now I will season the mince; I add all the ingredients over the meat, except the water.

I remix it by hand, pouring water over it and incorporating it into the meat until I get a soft and airy paste. In my opinion, I mixed for about five minutes until I included all the water.

The next essential step is to let the meat paste rest, and for this, I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until the next day, but it must stay for at least 6-8 hours.

Rolling the Mince Meat

You do not need special equipment to form these sausages, only if you want them to appear perfectly identical. I like them to be more rustic, so I dipped my hands in the water, and by rolling, I started to form these sausages in a cylindrical shape, trying to make them the same size, about 60 grams each.

From this amount of pasta, I obtained 30 pieces of skinless sausages, of which I will use ten, which I think is enough for two servings, and I will freeze the rest for another time.

How to Fry the Skinless Sausages

In the original recipes, the "mititei" are made only on the grill, on a charcoal grill, to have the smell and taste of smoke; only this way, they will be the tastiest.

Because the weather is bad outside, I will choose a compromise method: fry the sausages in a cast iron pan at home. If you want, try it in a frying pan with very little sunflower or tasteless oil.

I heated the cast iron pan well, greased it with a bit of sunflower oil to avoid sticking, and put the sausages to fry.

I fry them for about two minutes on each side, over medium to high heat, taking care not to burn them but also to stay raw. They must have a fried crust on the outside and remain soft and juicy on the inside, so be careful not to overcook them.

After they are fried and have an elastic texture, I take them out in a bowl and cover them with aluminium foil to keep them warm until we serve them.

Serving

The skinless sausages are served hot, mostly with bread and mustard, but if you want a more complex menu, you can add French fries and even a tomato salad. And don't forget the cold beer, of course!

Try these skinless sausages, made in Romanian style, because you will surely be delighted with them. If you want other exciting recipes from our kitchen, I can recommend the following:

• Tripe Soup Recipe
• Layered Sauerkraut Casserole
• Hungarian Stuffed Peppers
• Pan-Fried Rainbow Trout Recipe
• Best Meat Jelly Recipe
• Easy Oven Baked Pork Steak Recipe

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