Sujuk

Sujuk

A variant of Turkish sucuk.
Origin
Alternative name(s)	Шужук, sudzhuk
Place of origin	Turkey, Central Asia, Middle East
Details
Type	Sausage
Main ingredient(s)	Ground meat (usually beef) , cumin, sumac, garlic, salt, red pepper

Sujuk, often spelled sucuk, is a dry, spicy sausage of Turkish origin which is eaten from the Balkans to the Middle East and Central Asia.

Ingredients

Sujuk consists of ground meat (usually beef, but pork is used in non-Muslim countries and horse meat in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), with various spices including cumin, sumac, garlic, salt, and red pepper, fed into a sausage casing and allowed to dry for several weeks. It can be more or less spicy; it is fairly salty and has a high fat content.

Serving

Sujuk is usually eaten cooked (when raw, it is very hard and stiff), cut into slices, without additional oil, its own fat being sufficient to fry it. At breakfast, it is used in a way similar to bacon or spam. It is fried in a pan, often with eggs (e.g. as breakfast in Turkey), accompanied by a hot cup of black tea. Sujuk is sometimes cooked with haricot bean or incorporated into pastries at some regions in Turkey. In Bulgaria, raw, sliced sujuk is often served as an appetizer with rakia or other high alcoholic drinks. In Lebanon, cooked sliced sujuk is made into sandwiches with mayo, pickles, mint and tomato.

Sujuk is also commonly used as a topping on savoury pastries in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon; sujuk shawarma is also occasionally found. Akin to sujuk shawarma, sujuk döner is also common in Turkey.

Name

The Turkish name "sucuk" has been adopted unmodified in the languages of the region including Bulgarian: суджук, sudzhuk; Russian: суджук, sudzhuk; German: sudschuk; Albanian: suxhuk; Romanian: sugiuc; Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian sudžuk /cyџyk; Macedonian: суџук, sudžuk; Armenian: սուջուխ, suǰux; Arabic: سجق, sujuq‎‎; Greek: σουτζούκι, soutzouki. And, of course it is well-known among Turkic peoples: Kyrgyz: чучук, chuchuk; Kazakh: шұжық, shujyq.

Confection

Main article: churchkhela

The confection called sucuk, cevizli sucuk, soutzoukos or churchkhela has a similar shape, but is made of grape must and walnuts.

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  Sujuk

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  Sujuk made in Gorna Oryahovitsa, Bulgaria.

See also

• Kazy
• Salame
• Soutzoukakia, spicy meatballs in sauce whose name means literally 'little sujuk'