New Delhi, July 26 - How about some sausage omelette for breakfast, sausage rice and vegetables for lunch and sausage rumali roll or sausage chaat for a quick snack when guests drop by? Yes, India is gradually putting sausage - predominantly chicken - on its plate, but with a desi touch.

Sixty-year-old Chitra Singh, a grandmother from Panchsheel Park in south Delhi, is a sausage addict.

'It is a common breakfast and snack at home,' says the petite old lady.

Chitra usually 'shallow fries' chicken sausages and adds a bit of minced green chilli and garlic to it for taste. 'Sometimes, when there is nothing at home, I even add tomato ketchup or chilli sauce while frying,' Chitra told IANS.

She was at the MGF Mega City Mall Saturday evening in Gurgaon to take part in a unique 'My Sausage Recipe Contest', as part of a sausage carnival, 'Keells & Krest Sausage Festival', organised by John Keells Foods India Pvt Ltd, a market leader in processed and frozen meat products.

Ritu, a housewife from Gurgaon Phase II, makes sure there is always a pack of chicken sausages in her freezer.

'Since my husband loves salad, I toss lightly-fried sausage salads in combination with eggs and vegetables. It's value for money and much better than seafood,' Ritu said.

Sausage - mostly made of processed chicken - is becoming popular on the Indian plate in indigenous avatars. And people are going out of their way to improvise the meat product - one can also make curd sausage or sausage salad to go with the main course.

Tanu Goswami, a housewife from south Delhi, also keeps her freezer stocked with chicken sausages of all varieties. 'Usually I fry the sausages and serve them with bread, but sometimes, I improvise. I make sausage omelettes,' Goswami told IANS.

Sausage omelette is simple snack - two rows of plain egg omelettes flavoured with black pepper and table salt with a filling of diced sausage between them.

The omelette at the top, which is uncooked at the bottom, binds the sausage filling and the omelette at the base, once put in a frying pan. 'The raw egg white and yolk acts as the binder. It is a desi sausage recipe,' the housewife explained.

Sometimes Tanu rustles up sausage rice for lunch - stir-fried diced sausages mixed with rice and diced vegetables, cooked in light fish and flavoured with garlic and cloves.