Homemade Andouille Sausage

One of the things I like to make with left over turkey is turkey gumbo so this year I decided to make the sausage for it too. I used a recipe from the cook book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing (Revised and Updated). It is a great book all about curing and smoking meat. Defiantly worth the investment. This time I also decided to use real hog-casings, which I hadn't done before.

Making the sausage is fairly simple but takes time. and when it's done it tastes so good.

Review - 521 BBQ

Name: 521 BBQ
Location: Fort Mill, SC 
Price: $$
Link: http://www.521bbq.com/


In my town it can be difficult to find good BBQ. It shouldn't be hard in SC, but if you want to go out for it, it can be. One of my favorite BBQ places opened up a second location closer to me and I was finally able to try it out. I was happy I did.

I took my family out to give it a try and we all enjoyed it. My first experience with 521 BBQ was about six years ago. We were looking for a local BBQ joint and found 521 BBQ off of highway 521. We headed out to get some food around 6pm and when we got there we were disappointed because they had sold out. This was a good sign. It meant they were doing something right. We went back a couple weeks later, earlier this time, and enjoyed generous helpings of chopped pork, ribs, hushpuppies and fries. We've been back a few times and have recommended it to others.

Homemade Chorizo Sausage

This Christmas I received the grinder attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. This has opened up a world of possibilities for me and my smoker when paired with Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. I'm going to have a lot of fun and good eats.

I made my first batch of sausage to try it and made a chorizo using a recipe from Charcuterie. It turned out pretty good.

Meyer's Elgin Sausage - Part III (Smoked, Spicy and Oh, So Yummy)

Creator:Meyers’ Elgin Sausage
Location: Cuetopia, TX - Home of the Fighting Sausage Heads
Cost: @$21.50 +shipping
Link: Sausage

All good things must come to an end. Last weekend my supply of Meyer's sausage did. It was a happy but sad day. Happy because I got to savor the wonderful flavors of their Hot Smoked Sausage and Smoked Mexacan-Style Sausage with Jalapeños (Tejano). Sad because I now have no more Meyer's sausage and I'm not sure I will like what we get here. Ok, that last bit is crazy talk because we love sausage, but it defiantly won't be the same.

Last weekend we had some friends over and I smoked some meat including the sausage. Meyer's sausage smokes nicely. It plumps up and the juices are released in the casing making for a nice juicy sausage that is full of flavor. As I said in my first review of Meyer's sausage the casings are firm but not tough, this makes for a nice eating experience. You don't feel like a dog trying to tear through a piece of leather.


Hot Smoked Sausage
This sausage is great. The flavor is like the smoked sausage but they add a bit more red pepper to give it a nice kick. Some "hot" sausages are so spicy you don't taste the meat because your mouth is on fire. Not with this sausage. It gives a nice burn but you still can taste it. It just enhances the flavor and eating experience. For some this sausage would be too spicy but I think it has just the right amount of heat.

Tejano
I really liked the flavor of this sausage. This was also my wife's favorite along with the Smoked Jalapeño sausage I reviewed in Part I. It has a great chorizo flavor and the jalapeño brings the sweet pepper flavor to it. It is no surprise why this sausage won a second place people's choice award.

The hot sausage would great in scallop potatoes, chowder or any number of dishes. The Tejano sausage would be great in enchiladas, Mexican stews or other dishes with a south-of-the-border twist. I had left overs of both so I chopped them up and made a gumbo with some pulled pork I had. The sausage brought the right amount of extra spice to the party and made my families mouths happy.


Both of these sausages receive a full rack of ribs with a side of sauce on the Gibbs' Ribs* scale. I definitely recommend ordering some from Meyer's Elgin Sausage and try some of their other goodies.

*When I do reviews, books or otherwise, I rate the items with ribs (they are my favorite BBQ dish). A full rack is great and a single rib is poor. I will tend to stick to a full rack, half rack or one rib.

Review: Meyers Elgin Sausage Sausage - Part II (Beef and Potatoes)

Creator: Meyers’ Elgin Sausage
Location: Cuetopia, TX - Home of the Fighting Sausage Heads
Cost: @$21.50 +shipping
Link: Sausage

After the first set of sausages we had from Meyer's my wife kept asking when we would be eating the others. I decided Sunday night would be a good night for a pack. I was home and the ladies were out shopping so I decided to make supper for us.

In the variety of sausage I got from Meyer's Elgin Sausage was a pack of beef sausage. I really enjoyed the other sausages they made and thought they would work well with scallop potatoes. So, I decided to make scallop potatoes and sausage. Normally I cook the sausage with the scallop potatoes but since I knew the ladies wouldn't be home soon, and the potatoes would take an hour, I decided to smoke the sausage.

I put the charcoal in the chimney starter and lit it so the charcoal would be ready when I put the potatoes in the oven. I thought about smoking the potatoes too but didn't have a disposable pan. I got the potatoes in the oven and got the cooker fired up with the ready-to-go coals.


The cooker was at 250° so I put the sausages on and let them cook. I checked them once after about 30 minutes and turned them over. About 10 minutes after my wife and girls arrived home supper was ready.


The beef sausage is really good. The spices in it bring out the beefy flavor of the meat and they have a little bit of heat, like good sausage does. They seemed to be a bit juicier then the previous sausages and the casings a little tougher. I think I could have cooked them a little longer as they didn't quite split. My wife said these were her favorites along with the jalapeño and cheese ones. After making sausage for so many years Meyer's really knows what they're doing.


These sausages go great with scallop potatoes and would go great with sautéed peppers and onions or just by themselves so you can enjoy the full flavor of them.

On the Gibbs Ribs* scale these also get a full rack. I'm looking forward to trying the next two packs I have.

*When I do reviews, books or otherwise, I rate the items with ribs (they are my favorite BBQ dish). A full rack is great and a single rib is poor. I will tend to stick to a full rack, half rack or one rib.

Review: Meyers Elgin Sausage Sausage - Part I

Creator: Meyers’ Elgin Sausage
Location: Cuetopia, TX - Home of the Fighting Sausage Heads
Cost: @$21.50 +shipping
Link: Sausage

One of the BBQ people I follow on Twitter is @cuetopia. He is the official Twitter spokesperson of Meyers Elgin Sausage and the Fighting Sausage Heads. Since I have been following him he has tantalized and taunted me with pictures of their smokehouse making sausage. I finally procured some to test and do a review on.

Some friends invited us over to watch a football game, eat chili and socialize. I figured this would be a great time to cook up three packs of the sausage and get some other opinions about them.

I looked at what we had and decided two "regular" and a spicy one would be good to try. I pulled out the Smoked Sausage, Smoked Sausage with Garlic and the Jalapeño & Cheese.


I didn't want to do a long smoke, so I decided to grill the sausage. I used some Kingsford Hickory charcoal. Once the fire was going I put the sausages on.


About every ten minutes I rotated them so they could cook evenly and move them around so no sausage was on a hot spot too long. The temp on the grill was low so it took about 30 minutes to cook them. The sausages cooked up nicely. Swelling up, splitting and releasing their juiciness into the coals making for a mouthwatering aroma.


Once they were cooked I put them in a dish with cheap labels and tinfoil separators. After all we didn't want them to get mixed up.


All three of them were juicy, not greasy like some sausages. Their casings gave a nice crisp snap when I bit into them or cut them. They weren't tough like some, where the whole casing tears off as you try to gnaw through the outer casing to get to the tender meat on the inside. Just the right toughness to hold it all together to grill or smoke.

Smoked Sausage
The Smoked Sausage is great. I took a bite and thought, "WOW! That's good sausage." It has just the right amount of smokiness so you can tell that it has been smoked over hickory wood but not too much where it's overpowering.

These sausages are great by themselves but would make a dish of scallop potatoes really good. My wife makes a great corn chowder and these would make it even better (that is hard to do as it is very good.)

Smoked Sausage with Garlic
I love garlic. Most dishes I cook have garlic in them, even my BBQ pork. I was looking forward to these sausages and was not disappointed. These sausages are just like the Smoked Sausages but with garlic. It is not overpowering, in your face, breath-of-death giving garlic. It is a subtle garlic flavor that enhances the overall taste sensation of the sausage and bumps it up a notch.

These sausages stand well on their own but would be good in an Italian sandwich with onions and peppers.

Jalapeño & Cheese
I like spicy. Every time I eat jalapeños or jalapeño flavored anything I feel ill. These sausages scared me. I thought, "Great, I'll eat these and my stomach will feel like it's turning inside out and my mouth will be on fire." Boy was I surprised!

These are my favorite sausages I have tried so far. The spice is there but not the, "grab-a-gallon-of-milk-my-mouth-is-on-fire" type. It is a nice slow burn. You really don't notice the heat at first but after a couple of seconds your mouth is pleasantly warm. My wife, who is not a fan of spicy, really liked them too. The smokey flavor and the heat make for a happy mouth and I had no ill side effects from the jalapeños.

These sausages would make great enchiladas or other Mexican style dishes.

All three of these sausages are great. I wish there were a local store I could by them at. If I had a BBQ restaurant I would serve these. To quote one of my friends when I asked him what he thought of the sausages, "Mmmm...mmm...mmmm...good. On the Gibbs Ribs* scale these easily get a full rack of ribs with extra sauce on the side.


*When I do reviews, books or otherwise, I rate the items with ribs (they are my favorite BBQ dish). A full rack is great and a single rib is poor. I will tend to stick to a full rack, half rack or one rib.

Review: Mmm... Beefy

Creator: Meyers’ Elgin Sausage
Location: Cuetopia, TX - Home of the Fighting Sausage Heads
Cost: @$14.95 +shipping
Link: Beef Jerky

The folks at Cuetopia were kind enough to send me some of their product to sample. I am glad they did. I received a box of some of their sausage, beef jerky and a rub. Over the next few weeks I will be posting reviews of the products.

I like beef jerky. My girls like beef jerky. When we go on trips we buy beef jerky at gas stations we stop at. If it is a local brand of jerky, we will try it. Otherwise it is one of the big name brands.

Myers’ jerky is great. It is beefy with the right amount of salt to bring out the flavor. It is not greasy or oily like some of the major jerky brands. It is not soft, which I like. They smoke it and dry it out so you have to suck on it and chew it for a while making it last longer, causing you to savor the flavor more.

I let my family try some and they all said the same thing, “Mmm… beefy,” and promptly asked for more.

If this jerky was in a store next to the other brands I would pay the extra for it. It is that good. On the Gibbs Ribs scale* I gladly give this jerky a full rack. As the folks at Cuetopia say “We make our jerky for us to eat; we just sell what’s left over.”

*When I do reviews, books or otherwise, I rate the items with ribs (they are my favorite BBQ dish). A full rack is great and a single rib is poor. I will tend to stick to a full rack, half rack or one rib.