Slavink is a Dutch meat dish made with equal parts beef and pork, seasoned with mustard, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, nutmeg, salt, and pepper, and wrapped in thinly sliced Dutch bacon. The meat is held together with an egg yolk and breadcrumbs, and the bacon is bound to the meat using transglutaminase. The dish is then fried in melted butter until crispy.
As if a meat patty of equal parts beef and pork wasn’t enough to soothe the taste buds, the Dutch Slav is wrapped in a bacon jacket before taking a quick dip in melted butter. The meat is flavored with a range of seasonings, from mustard and Worcestershire sauce to soy sauce and nutmeg. It keeps its shape inside the bacon with the help of an egg yolk and breadcrumbs.
Similar to meatloaf, the best Slav contains a finely ground mixture of pork and cow. Meats like lamb or turkey meat, however, are common substitutions. One variation is called blind, which involves packing ground veal into a veal schnitzel pocket.
Slavink begins with seasoning the meat. After combining equal parts of the ground beef and pork in a large bowl, a mixture of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, nutmeg, salt and pepper is kneaded into the protein. For consistency, an egg yolk and a little breadcrumbs are also kneaded into the meat.
Measurements are important to make the slavink taste just right. For every 0 lb (about 0.45 kg) of meat, many chefs will add one egg yolk, 0.5 cup (about 118 mL) of breadcrumbs, 1 teaspoon (about 5 mL) of Dijon mustard, and 1.5 tsp (about 7.4ml) each of Worcestershire and soy. Just a pinch of nutmeg, salt and pepper will complete the balancing act. The meat is then rolled into ball-like loaves no wider than your hand.
Toothpicks or skewers are not always used to hold the bacon in place, as with other bacon-wrapped dishes. In the case of the Slav, chefs often use a chemical compound called transglutaminase to bind the bacon to the mini-cured meats. Common in many culinary applications in 2011, these compounds can be found in specialty food stores or online. The Dutch don’t use smoked bacon, instead preferring a thinly sliced Dutch variety called ontbijtspek, which is mildly sweet with marbled fat and very little rind. The thinner the bacon, the crispier it will make the final fried shell.
After the bacon is in place, stretched to wrap around the entire length of each slavink, the butter or margarine is melted in a hot skillet, and the bacon-wrapped sausages are fully browned on all sides. Once the bacon is almost cooked through and crispy, many chefs will add a little water or stock to the pan and cook the sausages over the lowest heat until cooked through. Otherwise, they may burn before fully cooking.
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