Introduction

This note describes the preparation of sausages, crisps, chips and other products from fish, particularly from the less popular species. Brief comments are also made where appropriate on storage, presentation and use of the products.

The amounts of the main ingredients, such as fish, fat, starch and water, given in the sausage recipes are critical and should be adhered to, but variations in the flavourings and other additives may be made as desired.

The raw material

All species of white fish, with the exception of dogfish and skate, may be used. The recipes are particularly suitable for some of the less popular species, such as saithe or redfish, either alone or mixed with cod, haddock or whiting for example. Products made from white fish have a good appearance and do not taste strongly of fish. Dyes and flavourings can be used to give the desired colour and taste.

The white fish should either be properly chilled and used not more than 7 days after capture or, if quick-frozen, should be of good quality and properly cold-stored. White fish should not be kept in cold storage at minus 30°C for more than a year. Stale fish will adversely affect the quality of the finished products, and should not be used.

Herring, or other fish with a high fat content, usually have a darker colour which is difficult to disguise in the product, and a stronger taste which is less easily modified. Moreover, fatty fish products keep less well in cold storage than ones made from white fish; the fat begins to go rancid after about 7 months at minus 30°C. Herring for the kipper recipes given here should be kept chilled and used within a day of catching, or should be frozen and kept in cold store for not more than 9 months at minus 30°C.

The recipes

The amounts of ingredients are sufficient to make 100-kg batches of finished product; the amounts offish, fat, starch and water are critical and should be adhered to. White fish products can be kept in cold storage at minus 30°C for at least a year without detectable change; products from fatty fish should not be kept for longer than 9 months at this temperature.

The equipment for making the sausage products is the same as for meat sausages, namely a bowl chopper and a sausage-filling machine.

Frying sausage

The ingredients required are:

	kg		g
skinless white fish fillets	48·5	coriander	200
pork fat	30·0	polyphosphate	300
rusk	10·0	pepper salt	70
water	10·0	red 2G dye if required	20
salt	1·0

The fillets are chopped in a bowl chopper until the flesh is finely mashed. The other ingredients are added in the following order: rusk, salt, spices, polyphosphate, water, with dye added if a pink sausage is required, and fat. The total chopping time is 4½ minutes. The mixture is filled into edible sausage casings which are then twisted into sausages of the length required.

The product resembles a British breakfast sausage in appearance and taste; it is perishable and should be kept chilled or frozen. It will keep in good condition for 5 days at 4°C; when frozen and cold stored it will keep for more than a year at minus 30°C.

The sausages must be cooked before being eaten; they can be fried, grilled, or cooked in the same way as meat sausages.

Slicing sausage

This product resembles a polony sausage. Although it is cooked and ready to eat cold, it can if desired be fried. The garlic seasoning is optional; other flavourings can be used instead.

The ingredients are as follows:

	kg		g
skinless white fish fillets	70·0	garlic salt	300
pork fat	15·0	pepper salt	200
water	6·5	cayenne pepper	30
rusk	5·0
salt	2·0
powdered cereal filler	1·0

The fillets are chopped in a bowl chopper until finely mashed, then the other ingredients are added to the bowl in the following order: cereals, seasonings, water, including any desired colouring, and finally the fat. The mixture is chopped for 5 minutes and filled into 80-mm diameter cellulose casings, which are then tied off to make sausages 200 mm long. The sausages are heated for 2 hours in water at 80-90°C.; to prevent the sausages bursting, the water temperature must not rise above 90°C. Finally the sausages are cooled in iced water for ½ hour. The product should be kept chilled or frozen; it will keep in good condition for 10 days at 4°C, and for longer than a year when frozen and stored at minus 30°C.

Smoked slicing sausage

This is a variation of the preceding recipe in which smoking is used to flavour the product. The sausage becomes wrinkled during smoking, and it then more resembles a smoked meat sausage. The finished product is cooked and ready to eat, but the consumer can heat it again if required.

The ingredients are as follows:

	kg		g
skinless white fish fillets	70·0	pepper salt	200
pork fat	12·0	cayenne pepper	100
rusk	6·0	coriander	100
rice	5·0	garlic salt	100
powdered cereal filler	4·0
salt	1·5
water	1·0

The rice is cooked in boiling water for 30 minutes and then drained. The fillets are chopped in a bowl chopper, and the other ingredients are added in the following order: cereals, seasonings, water and fat. The total chopping time is 4 minutes. The rice is then added and the mixture chopped for a further 15 seconds. The mixture is packed into 45-mm diameter cellulose casings which are then tied into suitable lengths. The sausages are hot smoked at 60°C in a mechanical kiln for 6½ hours and then heated for ½ hour in water at 80-90°C; to prevent the sausages bursting, the water temperature must not be above 90°C. Finally the sausages are cooled in iced water for 1 hour. The product will keep in good condition for 10 days when chilled at 4°C. The shelf life is more than a year when the produce is frozen and stored at minus 30°C.

Frankfurter sausage

This product is similar to a frankfurter made with meat. It is only partly cooked during the process and must be cooked by the consumer before it is eaten; frying or grilling gives the best results.

The ingredients are as follows:

	kg		g
skinless white fish fillets	55·8	pepper salt	200
pork fat	20·0	coriander	200
water	10·0	garlic salt	200
rusk	6·0	cayenne pepper	100
powdered cereal filler	4·0
polyphosphate	2·0
salt	1·4

The fillets are chopped in a bowl chopper until the flesh is finely mashed. The dry ingredients are added, then the water and finally the fat. The mixture is chopped for 4½ minutes and filled into 16-mm diameter cellulose casings which are then tied off in suitable sausage lengths. The sausages are hot smoked for 3½ hours at 60°C in a mechanical kiln, then immersed in water at 90°C for 2-3 minutes; finally they are cooled in iced water for 3 minutes and then skinned.

The frankfurters have a shelf life of 7 days when chilled at 4°C, and will keep for more than a year when frozen and stored at minus 30°C. They can also be bottled or canned in brine.

Kipper sausage

Kipper sausages, unlike the white fish sausage products, taste fishy; they taste much like conventional kippers. This product should be made from herring with a fairly high fat content; the quantities given are designed to suit herring containing about 15 per cent fat.

The ingredients are:

	kg		kg
skinned fillets of herring	75·0	polyphosphate	2·0
rusk	8·0	salt	2·0
pork fat	5·0		g
powdered cereal filler	4·0	pepper salt	350
water	4·0	coriander	350

The fillets are chopped in a bowl chopper until the flesh is finely mashed, and the other ingredients are added in the following order: cereals, seasonings, water and fat. Total chopping time is 5 minutes. The mixture is filled into 16-mm diameter cellulose casings which are then tied off into suitable lengths. The sausages are hot smoked in a mechanical kiln for 3½ hours at 60°C. They are then heated in water at 80-90°C for ½ hour and finally cooled in iced water for 3 minutes; the casings are then easily removed.

The sausages can be eaten without further cooking, but preferably they should be grilled for 5 minutes before serving.

They will keep in good condition for 7 days when chilled at 4°C; when frozen and cold stored they will keep for 9 months at minus 30°C.

Fish crisps

These crisps are of the type that the consumer expands by cooking in oil before serving; they do not resemble potato crisps, but are more like some of the savoury crisps, made for example from prawns. The pilot-scale process described here would require some adaptation for factory production. The ingredients for a 100-kg batch are:

	kg		kg
skinless white fish fillets	43·0	salt	3·0
amylopectin starch	43·0	sugar	1·0
water	10·0

The fillets are minced and mixed with the other ingredients for 15 minutes in a dough mixer, until the mixture is firmly bound and comes away cleanly from the side of the bowl; the precise amount of water added to achieve the right consistency will vary depending on the water content of the fish.

The mixture is packed into 450-g cylindrical cans which are seamed and then heated in a steam box for 3 hours at atmospheric pressure. The cans are cooled in running water and left to stand for at least 48 hours. The cooked mass is then removed from the cans and cut into slices 2 mm thick. The slices are dried slowly in a current of warm air at 30-40°C until they are hard and brittle, and are then packed in airtight containers, where they will keep in good condition for 6 months at room temperature.

The crisps are made ready to eat by frying them for 10 seconds in vegetable oil at 200°C; time and temperature are critical; if the crisps are kept in the hot oil too long, they burn. The crisps expand and puff up during frying, but they lose their crispness about an hour afterwards; they should be served within that time. The finished crisps are almost white; they can be darkened by the addition of a suitable brown dye to the mix if required. A variety of flavours, for example onion or bacon, can also be added as essence in the mix if desired.

Fish chips

These look like ordinary potato chips but contain roughly equal amounts of fish and potato. They can be made from white fish or herring; when made from white fish they are pale buff in colour; when made from herring they are grey. Additional flavourings can be added if desired.

The following ingredients are required:

	kg		kg
water	35·0	starch	6·0
dried potato powder	3·0	salt	1·0
skinless fillets	33·0		g
		monosodium glutamate	360

The ingredients are mixed in a food mixer until the mixture is smooth and pliable; the amount of water added may be adjusted to give a dry or a moist chip as required. The mixture is extruded into a ribbon of square cross-section and cut into suitable lengths. The chips are immediately partially fried by immersion in vegetable oil at 200°C for 2 seconds, freed of excess fat, and then quick frozen and put into cold store, where they will keep in good condition for more than a year when made from white fish, and for 9 months when made from herring. The chips are prepared for eating by partially thawing them, and then frying in deep fat at 200°C until they are light brown in colour.

Savoury fish fingers

The dark flesh of saithe or redfish usually precludes its use for making fish fingers; this product is a variant of the fish finger that makes possible the use of these species. Tomato sauce, or some other suitably coloured ingredient, is used to mask the Slightly darker colour of saithe.

The following ingredients are required:

	kg		g
skinless fish fillets	58·0	salt	600
tomato purée	16·0	polyphosphate	300
milk	16·0	pepper	60
rusk	6·0

The fillets are put through a disintegrator, which reduces the flesh to a fine pulp. The other ingredients are mixed with the pulp in a food mixer; then the finely mixed mass is spread in layers 12 mm thick on trays and frozen into slabs. These are cut into rectangles 75 mm x 50 mm, dipped in batter and breadcrumbs, and then refrozen. The product will keep in cold storage at minus 30°C for more than a year. It should be sold frozen, and requires frying or grilling before serving.

Fish pies

Basically these consist of fish, in a suitable sauce, baked in pastry cases; this recipe is no more than a pointer to the range of products that can be made. Skinless white fish fillets are cut into 25-mm squares and boiled in water for 10 minutes. The pieces are drained, mixed with sauce in the ratio of 2 parts fish to 1 part sauce, and the mixture used as a pie filling; good results have been obtained with cheese or curry sauce. The pastry can be in foil cups or folded in the form of a pastie or turnover. The pies may be sold uncooked, or ready baked for subsequent reheating; in either case the pies should be frozen and stored at minus 30°C.

Kipper pâté

This is a strongly flavoured product which is used as a savoury spread on biscuits or bread.

The following ingredients are required:

	kg		g
kipper fillets	76·0	vinegar	800
pork fat	10·0	cinnamon	160
starch	5·0	white pepper	80
tomato purée	4·0	ginger	80
salt	3·0	cloves	40
polyphosphate	1·0

The kipper fillets and pork fat are pulped in a disintegrator, mixed with the remainder of the ingredients, and the whole converted to a smooth paste, which is packed into 60-g jars. The jars are sealed and heat-processed at 115°C for 30 minutes. The product will keep in good condition for at least 5 years.