Merguez Aioli Sandwiches
Jeff on Wednesday, January 20
After coming across beautiful looking, local Merguez lamb sausage in the grocery, I wanted to try recreating the amazing Merguez sliders I had at a French restaurant (in the US). The basic components are a lemon aioli sauce, arugula, and of course, well-grilled Merguez sausage.
Preparation
The cooking comes fast and furious, as nothing takes very long, so it definitely pays to have everything laid out ahead of time.
The Aioli
I combined the following and whisked, but feel free to mix & match!
- Mayonnaise
- A little olive oil
- Lemon juice, from a quarter to a half lemon
- Black pepper
- Garlic powder
The Arugula
Simply toss some fresh arugula in a bowl with a simple dressing. Here’s what we did:
- Lemon juice
- Olive oil
- Black pepper
- Mustard powder
- A little red pepper flake
- Garlic powder
What you don’t need for the sandwiches makes for a great simple salad.
The Merguez Sausage
Finally, to get the sausages into prime sandwich form, I like to use a knife and slice them almost — or next time, I’ll try fully — in half. Letting the flat side get crispy on the skillet makes for a lot more flavor, and a much more manageable sandwich since we aren’t using hot dog buns!
Cookin’ Time
Now, simply cook the sausages until they’re done. You can use a meat thermometer, but since we sliced them, they’re pretty thin and should be fine after a few minutes on each side.
The more you can brown the sausages, the more flavor you’ll get — don’t be afraid to press them down a bit for maximum surface area contact. I put a small amount of butter in the pan and got it fairly hot before the sausages hit.
After you’ve gotten all your sausages where you want them to be, set them aside (I recommend a few paper towels) and toast your bread in what can only be described as pure flavor left in the pan.
Bring It All Together
Now that you’ve got all your components done, it’s time to finish it off and build your sandwich! I opted for
- Bread
- Aioli
- Merguez sausage
- A generous amount of arugula
- Bread
But there’s truly no wrong way to go, structurally. Slice it in half for easier eating and to check out the cross section…
…and enjoy!
Bonus open-faced version
With a side of oven-roasted asparagus — a highly recommended pairing.
