Up on Radford Road just across from the Hyson Green Tram stop is a rather good Polish Butcher. It’s quite easy to spot and find as it is called “Polish Butcher”. If you were still need of further proof as to it’s authenticity when you go inside there is a big Polish country sign and oh yes they don’t really speak much English either (which is fine I don’t speak Polish). So why was I up here anyhow, well I had spotted the Polish Butcher on an earlier hunt up the tram way on a visit to Tramwiches, but that was not the reason, it is a somewhat convulated story. I was looking for some ‘Cajun-style Andouille’ sausage to put into a Gumbo I was planning to make but have not been able to find any (if you know where I can get some in Nottingham please leave me a comment). It is basically a “slim, hot smoked sausage made from minced pork and smoked ham, it is well spiced with black and cayenne pepper”. If I was in Lousiana it would be easy to find.

I got hold of this really good sausage book by Nichola Fletcher called unsurprisingly “Sausage”. It is a country by country photographic guide with recipes. Anyhow, I told you it was a convulated story, it lists ‘Kielbasa zwyczajna’ as an alternative sausage to replace the andouille one, and if you are still with me then you can probably guess that is a Polish Sausage, hence my trip back up here, pause, deep breath, and continue. The ‘Kielbasa zwyczajna’ is a “mountain sausage made from cured pork and beef, with pepper and fresh garlic, and heavily smoked”

There was an excellent selection of sausage at the Polish Butcher, almost everything I had seen in the pages of that book. For an occasional foodie and sausage connoisseur, it was like being a kid in a candy shop.

Despite all of that temptation, I was restrained and only was looking for the ‘Kielbasa zwyczajna’. I could not see it anywhere, but spotted one that looked like it, luckily I had written the name of the sausage down on a scrappy bit of paper (I did not think I have could of pronounced it correctly), otherwise the hunt would have ended there. I passed my paper over and the smiling lady delved deep into the counter to pull out a link that was about 6 feet long, luckily with the universal sign language for “I caught a fish about this big” I managed to acquire a piece about a foot long that weighed a pound. Excellent hunting.

I will most definately be coming back up to this butchers, not for that sausage, no next time it will be for the ingredients for the Polish National dish “Bigos” or “Hunter’s Stew” a classic country dish. It needs ‘Boczek’ a polish smoked pork belly, pork shoulder, and ‘Kielbasa Czosnkowa’ a cured, smoked Polish sausage. I think that this could well be the place to get all of that meat.

The Polish Butcher is at 203 Radford Road, next to the Hyson Green Tram stop and across from the large Asda. There is another store at 293 Radford Boulevard as well.

and yes the Gumbo was very good