Cevapi sausages or cevapcici are spicy sausages from the Balkans. Small, delicious, dead easy.
It is not widely known but there was significant immigration into Australia in the 1950s and 1960s from the former Yugoslavia. I remember Mum buying cevapcici sausages at the supermarket in the late 70s and early 80s so the flavours of the Balkans were going mainstream in South Australia that long ago.
Many years later, I ate my body weight of these delicious morsels in Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia. Normally served as a starter in the Balkans, these are great as part of a BBQ or as a main with your choice of accompaniments.
The strange ingredient in these sausages is baking powder. It seems weird but just go with it. It works.
Cevapi Sausages with flavoured cottage cheese
Ingredients
750g mixed minced beef and pork
1 egg white
1 red onion (really finely chopped or minced)
2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp baking soda
Pepper and salt
Sauce:
1 tub of cottage cheese
1 finely chopped gherkin
Lemon juice
1/2 tsp of nigella seeds
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
Flatbreads
Instructions
Cevapis
Mix everything well in a bowl. Shape in to finger length sausages which are about 2cm thick. Place in fridge for at least 30 mins to allow the flavour to develop.
These little sausages are best cooked on a BBQ or a griddle but can easily be shallow fried.
Cottage cheese:
Put the cottage cheese in a bowl and add the nigella seeds, fennel seeds and a squeeze of lemon juice.
Finely chop a gherkin and stir through the cottage cheese. If using a gherkin from a jar, add 1 tbls of the juice to the cottage cheese for some extra flavour.
Serve with warm flatbreads.