Rescuing some Crappy Sausage -
I cooked some "Roger Wood" smoked sausage yesterday evening in a cast iron skillet. (Baked at 300* for 30-40 min.) Had never seen it before, gave it a try. Had a diced onion in with it and a couple diced garden (high acidic) tomatoes. I knew I had a problem when I poured off about a good cup of grease when 2/3rds cooked. [:0]
Had it with some steak fry cut baked Russett potatoes drizzled in EVOO. The potatoes were better than the sausage, with some stone ground mustard. Okay, but nothing to write home about. (I'd not recommend the brand.)
Anyway, have diced smoked sausage, cooking with some Louisiana style red beans and rice, with some added Brown rice, going now. Added some diced high acidic garden tomatoes, and some slivered/diced Celery.
Better than throwing it away. Should be okay. Dinner this evening, and a couple work lunches.
Had it with some steak fry cut baked Russett potatoes drizzled in EVOO. The potatoes were better than the sausage, with some stone ground mustard. Okay, but nothing to write home about. (I'd not recommend the brand.)
Anyway, have diced smoked sausage, cooking with some Louisiana style red beans and rice, with some added Brown rice, going now. Added some diced high acidic garden tomatoes, and some slivered/diced Celery.
Better than throwing it away. Should be okay. Dinner this evening, and a couple work lunches.
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Over the years some very good sausage makers have gone down hill IMO.
I used to enjoy a sausage made by Kowalski out of Hamtramck Michigan.
It used to be the very best money could buy and it was not cheap.
Last Christmas, I bought some of their special Christmas Kielbasa and found it to be made up of huge hunks of cubed fat and gristle! [xx(] I just about choked on the crap! The brand sells in a few of our local supermarkets and it costs about 3 times what you pay for most other national brands.0 -
https://www.dartagnan.com/buy/charcuterie/
There you go. Delivered to your door.0 -
We had some good sausage once. "Whole hog" by local butcher.
Grew up on a farm and raised hogs when market was good. (That's how I earned money to buy my Mountie at age 10![:D] )
One day dad decided to take a truck-load of hogs to market. He backed the truck up to the loading chute and herded the hogs up the chute and into the truck.
Except one hog.
As usual with stubborn hogs you start by twisting their tail and poking with a stick. Then you get a bigger stick.
The you get a serious stick and hog decided to get in truck.
So dad gets in truck, heads for butcher shop (7 miles away) and unloads a hog for family freezer, then heads on to the slaughter house (another 21 miles away), sells hogs and heads back to butcher.
Butcher starts by telling him he sure has a good eye for good hogs -- hog slaughter out real well, lots of meat.
But he said, he had to make the hams into sausage.
He'd never seen hams so bruised before
(I'd have thought dad would recognize the stubborn hog when he picked one for the family!)0 -
More often than not, I was disappointed in most commercial sausages plus I had often heard that if you watched how commercial sausage was made you would never eat sausage again.
As a result I have been making my own sausage for many years.
I have a LEM 3/4hp grinder and make my own Italian, Brats and breakfast sausages...and all of my own ground meats, beef, pork , lamb.
Pork Shoulders and Pork Butts have the near perfect lean to fat ratio for making sausage and you add as much beef to the mix as long as least 20% of the mix is pork.
LEM carries very good line of premeasured sausage packets and supplies that are quite reasonable and there are many other premeasured spice packet producers on the web...you can also tinker with the spices to suit your own taste.
Making your own sausage is very easy and self satisfying and you always know what is in it ? a little effort on a w/e can load your deep freeze with a good supply of great tasting sausage.0 -
Something else I should aspire to Arby. 0 -
boston butts go on sale for 79-89 cent a pound, if you buy 10 pounds or so even with spices you can have sausage for a dollar or less a pound. if you have a good grinder 0 -
Local butcher shop makes their own sausage. I buy all meat from them. 0 -
One of our members turned me on to Coneuch sausage about 2 years ago. A little hard to find at stores around Indy but this stuff is good. 0 -
coneuch makes a good store bought sausage. 0 -
My own fault for trying an off brand I'd never seen before. Good price. Now I know why. 0 -
I seem to find that the majority of store brand sausage contains chicken or turkey in their mix. This also includes most hot dogs and bologna products (lunch meat). I tried some years ago when they were changing the old pork\beef mixes with the added poultry.
My taste buds just couldn't hack it! I swear I was eating ground feathers![xx(]
I have since looked very hard to find the brands that keep the birds out of their recipe's. It is a very short list and a bit of work to find, and even some of them I do not find to be edible.
I like the idea of grinding my own and think I'll be giving it a try very soon!0
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