Sujuk or sucuk (/suːˈd͡ʒʊk/) is a dry, spicy and fermented sausage which is consumed in several Turkish cuisine, Balkan cuisine, Middle Eastern and Central Asian cuisines. Sujuk mainly consists of ground meat and animal fat usually obtained from beef or lamb, but beef is mainly used in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Etymology and terminology
Sucuk was first mentioned in the 11th century by Mahmud al-Kashgari in his
Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk as
suɣut. Another mention was made by Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati in his early 14th century work titled
Kitab al-'idrak li-lisan al-'atrak (كتاب الإدراك للسان الأتراك). The word "suɣut" itself means "sujuk, or dried thing" and derived from Turkic root -suɣur meaning to dry or to drain off and the suffix "-çïk/-çuk" is Turkic diminutive suffix (Suɣutçuk => Sucuk).
[^ Clauson, Gerard (1972) “suğut”, in An Etymological Dictionary of pre-thirteenth-century Turkish, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 806][Hindoglu, Artin (1838) “سجوق”, in Hazine-i lûgat ou dictionnaire abrégé turc-français1, Vienna: F. Beck, page 265a][Kélékian, Diran (1911) “صوجوق”, in Dictionnaire turc-français2, Constantinople: Mihran, page 771] But according to some sources, this word evolved from a
Middle Persian word attested in Early
Persian Language as
zīç (زيچ) and
ziwīdj (زویج) (meaning "stretching, strip, cord" and "sausage" respectively) which later took the form of
zīçak (زیچک),
[Steingass, Francis Joseph (1892), “زیجك”, A Comprehensive Persian–English dictionary, London: Routledge & K. Paul] Cognate names are also present in other
Turkic languages, e.g. ,
shujyq; ,
chuchuk.
Franciscus a Mesgnien Meninski in his
Thesaurus recorded the word sucuk (سجوق) for the first time in
Ottoman Turkish in late 17th century.
The Turkish language name sucuk has been adopted largely unmodified by other languages in the region, including: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; cyџyк; .
Production
In Turkey,
beef is the main raw material for sucuk production. At the beginning of the process the meat is preground in plates and tested for its fat content. Afterwards the meat is mixed with
curing salt, which contains 0.5%
sodium nitrite, and stored for 8–16 hours in for further processing. Later the preground meat is mixed with frozen and ground
tail fat, beef
tallow,
suet and additives like spices,
ascorbate,
dextrose and
starter culture. The mixture is ground again in plates, which forms the mosaic structure of sucuk. Thenceforth the product is filled in casings made of collagen or fiber and these casings are twisted or tied to portionize sucuk.
Sucuk is then prepared for ripening process, which consists of fermentation and post-fermentation stages. In the first day of fermentation stage the product is left in a high relative humidity (RH) environment around . After that the RH and the temperature is gradually dropped each day, resulting to and 88% RH in the last and third day of fermentation. At the end of the stage pH of the product must be dropped to 4.9–5.0. In the post-fermentation stage sucuk is matured and dried until the moisture content of the sausage is under 40%.
Nutrition
It was reported that sucuk from Turkey on average contained 24.5% protein, 31.5% fat, 35.65% moisture and 3.80% salt. Fat content of sucuk is highly variable; some sucuk brands tested contained only 23% fat, meanwhile others exceeded 42%.
Dishes prepared with sujuk
/ref> Thin slices of sujuk can be pan-fried in a bit of butter, while larger pieces may be grilled.
Sucuklu yumurta, which literally means "eggs with sujuk", is commonly served as a Turkish breakfast dish.
is a simple dish of fried eggs cooked together with sujuk,
but sujuk may also be added to other egg dishes like
menemen (which is similar to
shakshouka but with scrambled eggs instead of poached).
Sujuk can be added to many dishes including bean stew ( kuru fasulye), filled phyllo dough pastries ( burek) and as a topping for pizza or pita.
File:Sucuk with eggs.jpg|Eggs with sujuk
File:Samuna me suxhuk.JPG|Bread with sujuk
See also
