Osseworst (Amsterdam Spiced Raw Beef Sausage)
Ossenworst
Amsterdam's lightly smoked raw-beef sausage, spiced with clove, mace and pepper in the VOC style — sliced soft onto rye or bread as a butcher's borrel bite.
VBorrel & Fried Snacks- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- No cook
- Serves
- 8
- Level
- Advanced
Most of the Dutch drinks table is fried and modern, but osseworst reaches back three centuries to the spice wealth of Amsterdam. It is a soft, raw beef sausage — lightly cold-smoked, deeply spiced with clove, mace and nutmeg — sliced thin and eaten spread across dark rye. Where a German raw sausage leans on garlic and paprika, the Amsterdam version tastes unmistakably of the Golden Age larder: warm, sweet baking spices laid over rich beef.
A taste of the VOC
The spicing is no accident. In the seventeenth century Amsterdam was the warehouse of the world's nutmeg, mace and clove, unloaded by the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie and stored along the canals. Those spices, ruinously expensive elsewhere, were near at hand for the city's butchers, and they seasoned this beef sausage in a way that became fixed as tradition. To eat osseworst today is to taste, quite literally, the residue of the spice trade in a butcher's everyday product — a rare living link between the still-life painters' loaded tables and the modern borrel.
Raw, cold, and careful
This is the one recipe in the fried-snack chapter that never sees heat, and that demands respect. Osseworst is cured and only faintly smoked; the beef stays raw and soft, which means impeccable freshness, proper curing salt, and cold, clean handling are not optional refinements but the whole safety of the dish. Many home cooks, sensibly, leave the making to a butcher and simply master the buying and serving.
Osseworst is Golden-Age Amsterdam preserved in a sausage — clove, mace and nutmeg over raw beef, soft on dark rye.
Serve it as the city does: thin slices laid on roggebrood or a fresh roll, perhaps with mustard, and a small glass of jenever alongside. It is charcuterie with a three-hundred-year memory.
“Use proper curing salt and impeccably fresh beef — this sausage is eaten raw, so there is no cooking step to fall back on. When in doubt, buy it from a butcher.”
Ingredients
Serves 8
The sausage
- 800 glean beef — very fresh, well-chilled
- 200 gbeef fat — hard, chilled
- 18 gcuring salt — nitrite salt / colorozo
- 1 tspground white pepper
- 0.5 tspground clove
- 0.5 tspground mace
- 0.5 tspground nutmeg
- 0.25 tspground ginger
To case and serve
- 2 mbeef casings — rinsed, or form as a chub
- to servedark rye bread or a soft roll
- to servemustard — optional
Method
- 1
Keep everything cold
This is a raw, cured sausage, so hygiene and temperature are everything. Chill the meat, fat, bowl and grinder until nearly frozen, and work fast so the fat never smears — clean, cold handling is your only safeguard.
- 2
Grind and spice
Grind the beef and fat together through a medium plate. Mix in the curing salt and the warm VOC spices — clove, mace, nutmeg, ginger and pepper — then work the mince briefly until it turns tacky and binds.
- 3
Case the sausage
Stuff the mixture into rinsed beef casings, or roll it firmly in a double layer of muslin into a fat chub. Prick out any air pockets and tie into links or a single loop.
- 4
Cold-smoke lightly
Give the sausage a short, cold smoke — a few hours below 25°C over beechwood. Osseworst is only faintly smoky; the point is aroma and a little preservation, not cooking the meat, which stays raw and soft.
- 5
Cure, then slice
Rest the sausage in the fridge for a day for the cure and spices to settle, then slice thin. Eat it raw and soft, spread across dark rye or a fresh roll, with mustard if you like.
Setting the borrel
Drinks-hour needs mustard, cheese, and something cold in a small glass.
- Mosterd — coarse mustard for dipping bitterballen
- Oude kaas & worst — aged cheese cubes and sausage
- Jenever — a tulip glass of gin, filled to the brim
Questions from the kitchen
Is osseworst really eaten raw?+
Yes. It is a cured, cold-smoked raw-beef sausage, soft and spreadable, eaten sliced like a fresh charcuterie — never cooked.
Why the clove and mace?+
The spicing dates to Amsterdam's spice-trade wealth in the Golden Age, when VOC nutmeg, mace and clove were close at hand. That warm, sweet-spiced profile is the signature of a true Amsterdamse ossenworst.
Can I make this safely at home?+
Only with curing salt, scrupulously fresh beef and cold, clean handling. If you are unsure, this is one to buy from a trusted butcher rather than improvise.
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