Slovak potato sausage

Slovak potato sausage, or bobrovecké droby (or liptovské droby depending who you ask), is a mixture of potatoes, pork, onions and bacon stuffed in a casing, boiled and often lightly fried before serving. I made the dish while I had my sausage making equipment out for Polish sausage. I wanted something a little different and this recipe fits the bill! It’s like an entire breakfast shoved into one sausage link.

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Bobrovecké or Liptovské droby

Bobrovec and Liptov are villages in northern Slovakia near the Polish border about 100 miles south of Kraków. They lend their names to this peculiar sausage because the dish is popular in this region and possibly originates there. Incidentally bobrovec is the Slovak word for ‘beaver’ which makes this dish sound like “beaver sausage” but it is made with pork meat.

This sausage appears to be unique in Eastern European cuisine. I was able to uncover a similar Slovak dish of potatoes, onion, bacon and egg, the frittata-like “pudding” called švábkový koch (‘cockroach pudding’!). But nothing like it in the form of a sausage. The Swedes have a potato sausage as well but it seems that recipe was introduced only recently. The Slovak version also sometimes contains ham.

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A slightly different sausage experience

Slovak potato sausage making is fundamentally the same as making other sausages yet the addition of the potatoes and onions in the mincemeat adds a significant amount of moisture inside the casing. This extra moisture puts the links in risk of bursting during cooking so you’ll want to take care not to overstuff and to cook them gently. Another difference is you cook some of the ingredients before grinding and casing the sausage.

In putting this recipe together I consulted several versions in Slovak online and a couple English language recipes. They were all over the place on proportions of potato and meats. I created a recipe that I think is a good balance of those and maintain the spirit of the Slovak original. As far as flavor goes it’s on the blander side, like a Polish sausage. Eastern European cuisine on the whole isn’t very spicy after all. So if you’re a fan of hot Italian sausage, I suggest adding some spice or serving it with a piquant condiment or side dish.

Getting started

You’ll need some sausage casings; I prefer natural hog casings. You could use beef if you want bigger sausages or synthetic casings if the thought of eating animal intestines turns your own. You’ll need about 10 feet of hog casings (fewer if using beef). Soak and rinse these before using; it may require a couple rinses. Repack any unused casings in salt and store airtight.

I use a meat grinder and sausage stuffing attachment on my KitchenAid mixer. It works fine for me. You could grind the meat and even stuff the sausages by hand with a funnel. Each of those processes creates significantly more work; I know from experience.

Remove much of the very thick fatback from 2 pounds of boneless pork butt (also called shoulder) but don’t trim it completely of fat. In sausage making, more fat means more flavor. Peel 5 pounds of Idaho potatoes and cut into cubes. Submerge the cut potatoes in water until ready to put them through the grinder. This will keep them from oxidizing and turning dark. Grate one large onion and peel 5 cloves of garlic. Chop ¼ pound of bacon into bits and mince the garlic cloves. Now you’ve prepped your ingredients and are ready to make sausage.

Cook the meats

In a pan, submerge the pork shoulder in water and cook it for 15 minutes over medium heat. Meanwhile sauté the bacon until beginning to brown. Add the grated onion to the skillet and cook for 5 minutes with the bacon. Stir in ¼ cup semolina or all-purpose flour, mix well and cook until no longer raw. This will help absorb some of the moisture from the onions and potatoes within the mixture. Remove the cooked pork from the pan to cool; reserve the cooking water.

When the cooked pork has cooled, cut it into chunks. Fit your grinder with a medium grinding plate. Fill the hopper meat and potato chunks. Push the chunks into the grinder shoot and collect the forcemeat in a large bowl under the grinder. When all the meat and potatoes are ground, stir in the bacon-onion mixture, minced garlic, the salt, pepper and 2 teaspoons of marjoram. If the forcemeat mixture is very stiff, stir in a little of the reserved cooking water to make it easy to work with.

Forming the sausage links

You can test your forcemeat for flavor before filling the casings by forming a little patty from about a tablespoon and frying it. Adjust salt or seasonings accordingly to suit your taste. Fit your grinder with a sausage stuffing attachment and the appropriate plates for stuffing. It may help to grease the stuffing tube before threading on a casing. Push the entire casing onto the tube, leaving a few inches hanging off the end. Tie a knot as close to the end of the casing as you can.

Taking it slow

Starting at a slow speed, feed the forcemeat from the hopper through the grinder/stuffer. Push the filling to the end where the knot is tied, massaging out the air as you go. Remember that this filling will release a lot of moisture when cooked so don’t over stuff the casing. Let your links be a little “looser” than you might with another type of sausage. The links pictured above were actually filled just a little too much, as you’ll see when I show you what happened when I cooked them. The process can be a little messy.

When you completely fill one casing, tie off the open end and fit the stuffing tube with another casing. Twist the filled casing at 6-8 inch intervals, twisting each link in the opposite direction of the previous one (that keeps them from unraveling). Different casings will be different length; you may not be able to make every length exactly the same length. Chill your sausages until you’re ready to cook them.

Some people insist on letting the forcemeat or stuffed sausages “cure” for 24 hours before cooking. I tried that with these sausages and I caution against it. Because they are filled with potato, they will oxidize over time giving the uncooked sausages a purplish hue. This doesn’t affect taste or quality but they aren’t as pleasant to look at. Since we eat with our eyes, you risk changing the perception of how they taste if this happens.

Cooking the sausage

Because this sausage contains so much moisture, some recipes recommend pricking the sausage along the length to allow air bubbles to escape during cooking and prevent bursting. I tried this with one link and found that it made the link shrivel and tighten. The result was a dense and dry sausage that was not pleasant to eat. Therefore I recommend handling and cooking these sausages gently rather than pricking them before cooking.

In the middle picture above you see the link that I pricked before cooking and another one that I left intact. The pricked sausage shrank considerably in diameter. The third picture shows the interior of that shriveled sausage. It was dry, crumbly, and dense.

Generally you will want to gently boil these sausages in salted water for 10 minutes and then finish them off in a skillet, browning them in a little oil or lard. I tried cooking them in three ways: boiling only, frying only or parboiling and then frying. I much preferred the third, combination method. Start by cooking them in water over moderate heat, loosely covered. Then brown them on all sides on the stovetop, still being careful not to cook too quickly or they might burst.

Serve Slovak potato sausages with cooked cabbage or other side of your choice–probably not potatoes as they already contain them!

The Slovak potato sausage recipe