Vantrabianka

Ingredients

The sausage

• 600 gvantrabianka
• bought ready made
• or any liver and buckwheat sausage
• kaszanka wątrobiana, or wątrobianka
• not home-made, see the note
• from a Belarusian, Polish or Eastern European shop

To fry

• 2large onions, sliced
• 2 tablespoonslard or oil
• black pepper
• a pinch of marjoram
• optional
• 1apple, sliced
• optional

To serve

• boiled or mashed potatoes
• kvashanaya kapusta
• or any sauerkraut
• black rye bread
• mustard
• gherkins
• sour cream

Directions

1. Heat all the way through addresses it. It should be firm with an intact casing.
2. Check the date and use it promptly. Cut it into thick slices. Liver sausage is soft and it crumbles.
3. Leave it on to hold the slices together. Take it off if you want a crumbled hash.
4. Fry it over medium heat and do not move it. It needs to form a crust before it will lift.
5. Turn it once. Do not overcook it. Use a fish slice rather than tongs. Fry the onions first until deep brown and sweet. Give them fifteen minutes.
6. Fry the onions, lift them out, fry the sausage in the same fat, return them. Onions need three times as long.
7. Use a firm tart apple. A soft sweet one collapses to sauce. Serve it hot from the pan. Cooked, it keeps two days refrigerated.

Technique

• Buy the sausage ready made. The atlas gives no method for it because it is made from fresh offal at a slaughter — liver and other organs that must be used within hours and deteriorate faster than muscle meat — and it is made as part of that slaughter rather than as a detached kitchen procedure.
• It is sold already cooked, so you are reheating rather than cooking from raw, but reheat it thoroughly all the way through. This is a cooked product handled after cooking, and that handling is where contamination happens.
• Do not overcook it. Liver goes grainy and bitter with too much heat, which is its particular failure and the way it differs from blood sausage — blood sausage forgives longer frying and this does not. A dark crust and a hot soft centre is the target.
• Fry it over medium heat and do not move it until a crust has formed, then turn once with a fish slice. Tongs squeeze it and it breaks.
• Cut it thick, about two centimetres. Liver sausage is soft and crumbles, and thin slices fall apart in the pan. Leaving the casing on holds them together; peeling it off gives a crumbled hash.
• Fry the onions first, lift them out, fry the sausage in the same fat and return them. Onions need three times as long, so cooking them together means one is wrong.
• Use a firm tart apple if you add one — a soft sweet apple collapses to sauce.
• Marjoram is the herb for liver and offal in this region, appearing both in the sausage and again in the pan.
• Judge it by an intact casing, firm grey-brown to pinkish flesh and a clean cooked-liver smell. Sliminess, a sour or metallic smell, or a bulging or leaking pack all mean leave it. Offal sausage has a short shelf life, so check the date.
• Buckwheat itself contains no gluten, but the sausage may contain wheat as a binder — anyone avoiding gluten must read the label.
• Liver is extremely high in vitamin A, and public health advice in several countries tells people avoiding excess vitamin A, specifically naming pregnancy, to limit liver. This is a sausage with liver in it rather than a plate of liver, so the quantity is much smaller. The atlas records both facts, makes no medical claim, and leaves it to a doctor or midwife.
• German Leberwurst is usually a soft spreading sausage; this is firmer and full of grain. They are not the same thing.
• Pork is avoided in several religious traditions. Say plainly what a dish contains.

Substitutions

• Polish wątrobianka substitutes exactly.
• Any liver sausage firm enough to slice and fry works.
• Kryvianka, the blood sausage, is the sibling from the same slaughter.
• Barley replaces buckwheat in some regional versions.
• Butter or oil replace lard for frying.
• Pear replaces apple.

Variations

• Kryvianka is the blood sausage made at the same slaughter.
• A crumbled version is fried without the casing as a hash.
• Baked with apple and onion in the oven is a common household version.
• Polish wątrobianka is the direct cousin.
• Leberwurst in Germany is the soft spreadable relative.
• Fried with mushrooms is a forest-season variation.

History

Made at the Belarusian pig slaughter to use the offal, close kin to Ukrainian and Polish liver sausages.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vantrabianka?

Vantrabianka is a charcuterie & cured from Belarus: liver and buckwheat sausage, boiled then fried in slices. Made at the Belarusian pig slaughter to use the offal, close kin to Ukrainian and Polish liver sausages.

How long does Vantrabianka take to make?

Vantrabianka takes 10 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 4. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Vantrabianka?

Yes, within limits. Polish wątrobianka substitutes exactly. Any liver sausage firm enough to slice and fry works. Kryvianka, the blood sausage, is the sibling from the same slaughter. Barley replaces buckwheat in some regional versions. Butter or oil replace lard for frying. Pear replaces apple.

What is the most important thing to get right in Vantrabianka?

Fry it over medium heat and do not move it. It needs to form a crust before it will lift.