Game on! Last Wednesday saw the opening round of Sausage League play and it was a very close match. The League is the creation of Ryan Donovan, butcher-charcoutier at Marben restaurant and features a series of chef-versus-chef sausage stand-offs on Wednesday nights over the coming months. By the time we get down to the championship match on September 28th only three chefs will be left.
Wednesday’s encounter was a merry one with chef Anthony Rose from the Drake hotel squaring off against The Harbord Room’s Cory Vitiello. I sat at the counter that looks into the kitchen which was even busier than usual as Marben’s own chef, Carl Heinrich, and his team put forth their regular dinner menu for a packed restaurant and a large private party downstairs. Lots of people opted to eat the two sausage dishes as part of dinner ($25 bought both dishes and a bottle of cold, refreshing Steamwhistle beer). Those who did were entitled to vote for the winner.
There were some attempts at influencing the decision, notably by Vitiello who added a persuasive postscript to the description of his dish that read “For your consideration, people: Anthony Rose supports the murdering & slaughter of giant pandas & baby seals to produce his signature giant panda & baby seal bacon burger. As far as the rest of us are concerned, so do you if you vote for him. Ethically yours, The Harbord Room.” I don’t know how many hearts and minds were swayed by this libel but all is fair in Sausage League play.
Chef Vitiello served his sausage to me first. It was a thick slice of smoked veal bockwurst finished in a frying pan and had a very fine texture like a mousseline – lightweight, almost bouncy – and a delicate, sweetly smoky flavour. With it, chef served a little salad of shaved fennel and celery heart (lovely crunchy contrasts to the sausage) and there were tartly pickled mushrooms, crispy capers and crisp-fried shallots on top. The salad was dressed with a juniper-verjus vinaigrette that brought all the flavours to life and the whole thing was crowned with a panko-crusted fried egg yolk to add extra richness. The dish was a delightfully harmonious affair, the sausage very much a team player.
Chef Rose offered a very creative take on bangers and mash. His sausage was another soft, delicate affair, a mousseline of scallop containing nuggets of very tender lobster meat wrapped in prosciutto and then pan fried. The cloudlike texture was brought deliciously to earth by the prosciutto and by the green mashed potato on the plate (green because the spuds were stirred with a purée of wild leek. Four different-coloured varieties of cooked cherry tomatoes lay around on the plate, each one a warm, tangy juice bomb that exploded in the mouth, and again a vinaigrette quickened the entire experience.
Hoping to stay long enough to find out who won the competition I moved on to Ryan Donovan’s charcuterie plate and sausages of a very different kidney. He had made a fabulous salami, coarse-grained but beguilingly tender and flavoured with Fernet Branca in honour of British chef Fergus Henderson, whose favourite tipple it is. What a dazzlingly brilliant idea! The hint of bittersweet herbs added a fascinating extra dimension. Also on the wooden board were ribbons of lardo cut so thin they were almost translucent, the blocks of lard rubbed down with fennel, coriander, paprika and dried chilies then cured for three months. Here was a terrine of rabbit loin and pork enhanced by the rabbit liver, egg, milk and red wine. And over there silky slices of Berkshire ham glazed with walnut syrup and then set for a while in the smoker with smouldering chips of applewood from Donovan’s parents’ orchard. The last element of the collation was a chicken ballotine, incredibly juicy and tasty. Donovan makes it by making a farce of the chicken’s brown meat mixed with mushroom, wrapping it like a sausage in the chicken skin and then cooking it very slowly, sous-vide, before a finishing stint in the frying pan. Gorgeous stuff – and even more delectable with pickled ramps and cornichons, Kozlick’s triple crunch mustard and a cool, subtly sweet compote of carrot and cardamom.
Meanwhile the votes were being tallied. I was in two minds… Vitiello’s dish was a better dish in terms of balance, but Rose’s sausage was more interesting. And it was a sausage competition. I put my x next to Rose’s name but, as is often the case in life as well as in the Sausage League, the majority did not share my opinion. So Cory Vitiello goes on to the next round.
I can’t help thinking Ryan Donovan’s Henderson salami would win the whole enchilada if only he entered the competition…
Future dates are as follows: Wednesday May 25th, C5 v. Marron Bistro; Wednesday June 8th, La Palette v. Parts & Labour; Wednesday June 22nd, The Stop Community Food centre v. Table 17; Wednesday July 6th, The Healthy Butcher v. Trevor Kitchen; and Wednesday July 27th, Torrito v. Pizzeria Libretto/Enoteca Sociale. Playoffs take place August 10th, 24th and September 21st. The final Championship match, as mentioned, is on September 28th.