Loukaniko
Meat
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Loukaniko (Greek: λουκάνικο) is the traditional pork sausage of Greece and Cyprus, distinguished above all by orange zest and the warm, liquorice note of fennel or anise. Coarsely ground, lightly air-dried or fresh, it is grilled, pan-fried or simmered, and turns up sliced into eggs, on the meze table, or split inside a roll.
Picking a good onedrag
Fresh from the butcher: firm, clean, orange-scentedOff: slimy, sour, grey-green or mouldy
Cold and sealedBuy itRead the label. Drying alone does not make a link shelf-stable and smoke does not cook one: an air-dried or smoked loukaniko still says Keep Refrigerated.
The label and the packCold and sealed, the date now only a few days off
Casing and surfaceFirm all along, faintly moist from the pack, still clean
The cut faceChunks still distinct, colour even, the face a shade duller
Smell at the cutOrange and anise quieter, the pork behind still clean