Hot Sausage Po' Boy

Source: Adapted from Bruce Aidells' Complete Sausage Book

One of New Orleans' greatest specialties, the Po' Boy Sandwich, can be made with such humble ingredients as fried potatoes, or with elegant fillings like fried oysters or soft-shelled crab. Some of the best are made with chaurice, or "hot sausage" as it's called in New Orleans.

Creole Mustard-Mayonnaise Sauce
6 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3 tablespoons good commercial mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Tabasco sauce or other hot sauce

Po' Boy
4 (6-inch) sections French bread
4 links spicy fresh sausage, such as New York-Style Spicy Hot Italian Sausage
3 cups finely shredded cabbage or lettuce
12 to 15 dill pickle slices
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced (optional)
1 large tomato, sliced (optional)

To make the sauce, combine the mustard, mayonnaise and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl. Add Tabasco to taste. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Warm the French bread for 10 minutes.

Place sausage links in a heavy skillet. Add water to cover sausage and simmer until sausage is gray throughout (about 10 to 15 minutes.) Grill sausages for 15 minutes over medium heat, turning the links so they brown evenly.

Slice the bread in half lengthwise, and spread generously with mustard-mayonnaise sauce on both sides. On one side, heap the shredded cabbage and lay over it the pickle slices, onion, and tomato. Place split hot sausage on top, and close up the sandwich as best you can.

Makes 4 servings.

Per serving: 847 calories; 39 g fat (11.8 g saturated fat; 41 percent calories from fat); 87.4 g carbohydrates; 79 mg cholesterol; 2,191 mg sodium; 30.9 g protein; 6.9 g fiber