Look For Smoked Andouille Sausage 3 1 Lb Pkgs at Amazon
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Without a doubt the word Kielbasa has global recognition, yet it is also often times misunderstood. Kielbasa is the general Polish name for sausage. You cannot walk into a Polish store and say: please give me a pound of kielbasa. The sales lady, surrounded by 50 dissimilar kinds of kielbasa, will inevitably reply: yes, but which one? There are well over 100 types of kielbasa, and the word itself is meaningless unless followed up with the proper name: Kielbasa Rzeszowska, Kielbasa Krakowska, Kielbasa Tuchowska, Kielbasa Mysliwska, etc. It is like going into a deli and asking for a heap of cheese. Sure, but which one: American, Provolone, Swiss, Gorgonzola, Gouda, Muenster – you have to provide galore details. There is no specific sausage called kielbasa but there are a lot of sausages that carry the word kielbasa as portion of the name. We recognise of only one sausage that carries the word “Polish” in it is name and that is the Polish Smoked Sausage (Polska Kielbasa Wedzona). This is in all probability what the introductory immigrants brought with them to America. The problem we face here is that you may find Polish Smoked Sausage in almost each supermarket in the US, and no two are made the same way. Yet Polish Smoked Sausage has been well specified for centuries and every one in Poland knows what goes inside. We do not intend to become judges in this matter, but rather rely on Polish Government Standards for Polish Smoked Sausage. These rules have remained unchanged for the last 60 years. Before we anger a lot of people who have been making Polish Smoked Sausage in their own way for years, let’s clarify something further. It’s perfectly fine to add an ingredient that you or your children like into your sausage. You still have the full right to say that you made a better sausage than the widely known and esteemed Polish Smoked Sausage. You may say that your grandfather who came from Poland made the best Polish sausage in the world and we honor that. Maybe he applied chicken stock rather of water or perhaps he added something else. What we are attempting to say is that he was making his own version of the known classic or a great deal of other Polish sausage and it could have tasted better for you and your family. We do not dispute that fact. You may of course add anything you like to your sausage, but it will no longer be the basi Polish Smoked Sausage (Polska Kielbasa Wedzona) or any other brand named sausage. Once you start out altering ingredients, you invent your own recipe and you may as well come up with your own name. 1. For centuries Polish Smoked Sausage was made of pork, salt, pepper, garlic and marjoram (optional). Then in 1964 the Polish Government introduced a second version of the sausage that was made of 80% pork and 20% beef. All other ingredients: salt, pepper, sugar, garlic, and marjoram stay the same in both recipes. The marjoram is optional but the garlic is a must. 2. The meat is cured before it is mixed with spices. In the US Cure #1 (sodium nitrite plus salt) is used, in Europe Peklosol (sodium nitrite plus salt) is common. 3. The sausage is stuffed into a big hog casing: 36 – 38 mm and formed into 12″ (35 cm) links. 4. The traditionalisti way was to cold smoke it for 1 to 1.5 days (it had to last for long time). 5. In most cases it is hot smoked today A little test was performed to see how big American makers make Polish Sausage. Four sausages called Polish Kielbasa or Polish Sausage were purchased at the local supermarket in Florida and each of them was formulated by a big and well known meat plant. The number of ingredients and chemicals employed varied from 10 to 20 and dissimilar combinings of meats were used: pork-beef-turkey, beef only, pork-beef. Except the name, none of the sausages had anything to do with the original. It seems that for the manufacturers any sausage that is smoked (or have liquid smoke added) and stuffed into a 36 mm one foot long casing may be called Polish Smoked Sausage or Polish Kielbasa. It becomes rather clear that manufacturers put any ingredients they like inside of the casing and the name Polish Kielbasa is employed just for believability and to gain the trust of the consumer. The problem is futher magnified by respective web sites on the Internet that provide innumerable recipes for making Polish sausages. Yet the mysterious Polish Smoked Sausage is embarrassingly simple to make and all it needs is pork, salt, pepper and garlic.
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Great flavor and smokiness