Sweeten the Wurst/Sausage

Posted on by May 2, 2012

I just finished watching the annoying advertisement which states that in the end sweet is sweet, if you use corn syrup or sugar there is no difference!

From what I can see on a wholesale level there seems to be somewhat of a price difference with sugar costing almost twice as much. I will not go into this debate as I am a diabetic and could care less about what is sweeter. What I am concerned about is all the added extra sweetness in places where it does not belong.

As I stated in previous posts, if I want dessert I will eat a pudding, so why do they have to sweeten our lunch meats and sausages and get us to the point that we crave sweets at every turn of our lives.

Granted in some circumstances the use of a sweetener is necessary in the production process and therewith can be excused but otherwise

the reason is bottom line profits!

Take the price of Boston pork butts and figure them boneless at a low $1.35 per pound. Next we look at Dextrose and High Fructose Corn-syrup at a price of under 35 cents per pound. So if we make sausage and replace 2% meat with dextrose and another 2% with high fructose corn syrup we have a net gain of at least $4.00 per hundred pounds or a measly 4 cents per pound. Consider that the big national processors produce millions of pounds per week, these 4 cents add up to real money.

Take only the Hot Dogs we consume within a year.

According to the http://www.hot-dog.org more than 720 million packages of hot dogs were sold at retail stores, this figure does not include the sales at biggest retailer Wal-Mart”, as they do not report their Hot Dog sales, add another 2.7 million pounds of sales at ballparks and you will come up with at least 722.7 million pounds of “Dogs” sold in 2010. These are the “reported” retail sales figures only, it seems like it does not include all those sold at the local Coney Island and other restaurants or also the smaller sausage makers. By the way, the smaller sausage makers might be the ones not using these fillers.

Now let us take the poundage and multiply it by the measly 4 cents.

722,700,000 x $0.04 = $28,908,000.00

in the pockets of the Hot Dog makers, all by adding extra carbohydrates to our diets to really help us loose our battle of the bulge. These figures do not include all the other kinds of Lunch Meats and Sausages sold throughout the year which, if I take a guess, would easily double this figure. So the question remains

Why do we need all that added “Sweetness” in our Wurst?

 

 So for right now I would suggest just start reading the ingredients labels!

The subject of ingredients will be delved into in future posts.

Geier’s Sausage Kitchen

Posted on by March 23, 2012
This is an unsolicited and not paid for review!

Geier’s Sausage Kitchen – still old fashioned Goodness

or as per my opinion and byline :

The Quality all “Wurst” should be!

 

In these times were profits are the only accepted corporate strategy there is still a sausage maker in Sarasota, Florida holding on to the ways and quality of years gone by.

Geier’s Sausage Kitchen
7447 S. Tamiami Trail,
Sarasota, Florida 34231
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Living in Michigan the weather is starting to change and the BBQ is getting pulled out, cleaned and readied for the summer. Yes, we have excellent steaks here in our local meat stores, but then the desire for a mouth watering Weisswurst or Knockwurst takes over. The selection of the local fare is acceptable but the taste and quality of the products offered at Geier’s in Sarasota, Florida is far above this grade.

The thought of a couple of fresh Bratwursts, grilled and served on a hard roll combined with a cool Blonde (here I mean a good Bavarian Lager beer) which we enjoyed during our last stay in Florida brings back memories of the good times we had there.

We started to offer a nice selection of Geier’s Lunch Meats and Sausages while we had our store here in Michigan as we were not able to get the variety and quality locally anymore.

This brings back mouth watering memories of their Kassler Liver Sausage, Yagdwurst, Beerschinken, Hessischer Ham, heavy smoked Nuss Schinken, their Salamis and even their exceptional Blood Sausages, not to forget the Bauernwurst, Wieners and Debreziner.

Picture courtesy of Geier's Sausage Kitchen

We are lucky as there is still a store locally carrying a limited selection of their products and we are not totally dependent on UPS shipments.

Their exceptionally large variety of “Wurst” and Hams includes something for everybody’s taste.

You just have to bite into any of their sausages and you will notice a huge difference from the mushy texture of most of the commercial sausages. When reading the ingredients label you will also realize that those fillers like anything high fructose, dextrose, soy proteins or even ground mustard found on most other labels are usually missing and dextrose is only included if necessary for the curing process.

The “original tastes” of Bavaria are right there at Geier’s Sausage Kitchen in Sarasota and if you are lucky enough to live close enough, stop by and give it a try!

With all my years of experience in the meat business, Geier’s quality in Sausages and Luncheon Meats is the top standard I use to compare other sausage company’s “Wurst” to. Not many come close!

Meat – my Take, my Taste

Posted on by March 17, 2012

 

Here we could argue at length with all the vegetarians about the raising and killing of animals, but as meat eaters we at least make sure our food is dead, on the other hand vegetarians will eat living things while they are still alive.

So the question is do they hear their food scream out in pain every time they bite into it?

Here is an old bumper sticker which used to hang in my store:

Bumper sticker, Author unkown

Besides all the essential amino acids meat also is a source for zinc, B12, selenium, phosphorus, niacin, B6, choline, riboflavin and iron. It is also very high in Protein. This is enough of the science behind it, so let’s go on.

Rouladen with Spaetzle and Red Cabbage

Meat keeps my hunger pains at bay for a longer period of time. For me eating only vegetables and fruits would mean that I have to eat all day long and would not have enough time for all the other great stuff I plan to do and enjoy in my life. Picture cows, all they do is graze and then in the evening they actually lay down and have to rework their food to get the nutrition they need out of it.

I probably could survive without meat but I am not sure that I would want to. To me it would be like

  • go on a vacation and not relax
  • visit the Grand Canyon and not look at it
  • or have the best glass of beer in front of me and pour it out.

But on the other hand I am a stickler about purity. There are foods you can combine and others should not touch, no, it is not a religious thing but only has to do with the taste. A good Pot Roast needs potatoes and gravy, a good Polish Kielbasa needs horseradish and a Hot Dog needs a bun, but a good steak should not be spoiled with steak sauce.

Why put sugar or any other sweet stuff on a good piece of meat, if I want dessert I will eat and enjoy a piece of Prince Regent Torte or Cheese Cream Torte. By the way, the addition of sweet fillers is one of my pet peeves and I will handle this in another post.

Going back to the steak and steak sauce. When I go and buy a steak I will first look at the Rib Steaks or Delmonicos (rib eye) as these are my absolute preference. Next I will look at the quality, they have to be well marbled and with this a grain fed USDA Choice or higher rated piece of meat. Now a piece in this quality section should have enough natural taste to savour without adding BBQ sauces and the like, let us leave those for a piece of pork on the BBQ.

Yes, I expect a sweet Teriyaki seasoning when I hit a Chinese restaurant but if all their food would be sweet you would not see me there again. Why put all the glaze on a nice smoked ham? Why even add orange juice to a duck?

There is a little room for some sweetness in some dishes, but just to add to the flavor, not to take it over.

To summarize my thoughts, a piece of meat, in my humble opinion, should taste like a piece of meat and not like your favorite dessert!

Picture courtesy of Geier's Sausage Kitchen

 

 

 

Cuts of Beef – the remaining Sections

Posted on by March 16, 2012
 Click for the Beef Cutting Chart from the beefretail.org to see the cuts!

Here I will cover the Brisket, Shanks, Blade, Flank and Neck.

The Brisket can be found in the counter fresh or cured. The fresh brisket, when braised, is a great tasting pot roast and the cured is the all time favorite at St. Patrick’s Day when we all become Irish for one day and “must” eat Corned Beef and Cabbage.

The neck is just used for Hamburger meat and Beef Stew.

Next, the Shanks are still the favorite cut for soup and are one the few cuts which still have a bone in them, which in my opinion will add to the flavor of the broth.

Now we have the Blade. Bone in and boneless Short Ribs and Skirt Steaks are about the only cuts to mention here. But if you prepare the bone in Short Ribs the right way and BBQ them, they are an absolute delight and the marinated Skirt Steaks are still our favorites in Fajitas.

The last piece is the Flank and the only cut here is one Flank Steak which we had as London Broil or at a friend’s house roasted stuffed with a delicious crab meat stuffing in it. For added tenderness have your meat cutter run it through the cuber once or twice to cut the grain.

Most of these cuts have one thing in common, they only give you a relatively small amount of useful meat with the remainder in fat and bones.

Looking at the picture above I see that we covered all the different sections in a side of beef. Please refer to the Beef Cutting Chart for future reference or the “Interactive Meat Case”  at the ‘beefiswhatsfordinner.com‘ website.

Cuts of Beef – the Round

Posted on by March 16, 2012
Click for the Beef Cutting Chart from the beefretail.org to see the cuts!

The Beef Round

The final section of “Primal Cuts” come from the Beef Round. As you can see the Sirloin Tip or Beef Knuckle, which we did in a previous post, is included in this section.

Here we have to go back to another time and explain how this section used to be cut up.

The Rump and the Round Steak section.

The Rump as pictured on the right was trimmed out and rolled into a roast and the Round Steaks used to be cut as round steaks with a small round marrow bone in it.

Back to the present where these cuts don’t make it onto the Beef Board cutting chart anymore and most younger meat cutter could not tell you what an old fashioned rump roast looked like.

This part, boned out, has three sections, the Top, the Bottom and the Eye of Round.

The Top Round is the piece to use if your recipe calls for a “Round Steak” and is our piece of choice in Bavarian cooking for Beef Rouladen (click on the story board for a closer look on how they are prepared). We had a few customers using this piece cut thicker for London Broil ***(link goes to Wikipedia).

The Bottom is usually cut as roast(s), but if you find a nice marbelized piece you might be able to use it as a steak. The Jaccarder is again a very useful gadget here and using the marinade of your choice will also help.

The same rules as for the Bottom also apply to the Eye of Round.

Like with any of the other sections of a side of beef, there are again some cube steak, stew meat and also the parts for your Ground Round cut out of it.

 *** London Broil: In Michigan we used to run a Flank Steak through the cuber, roll it with a piece of beef fat in the middle, fasten it with skewers and cut it about 1 to 1½ inch between the skewers. In Florida was the first time that I saw a thick cut piece of round steak used for this dish.

Cuts of Beef – the Sirloin Tip

Posted on by March 11, 2012

This piece of meat is one of those in between cuts and is usually considered part of the round. Besides the standard name of Sirloin Tip it is also called the Beef Knuckle.

I would like to work on this one separately as this is, by the whole piece, a lower cost cut with quite a potential. You can make a nice roast out of it, cut steaks for braising or even frying, slice it thin for Rouladen or chip steaks, it is excellent as beef stew and can yield pieces for stir fry, Shish-kebobs and Stroganoff.

picture courtesy of beefretail.org

This piece is sold whole in many butcher shops and warehouse clubs. It weights on average around 10 pounds and is reasonably priced.

One of the recommendations to make this a more tender piece of meat is the use of a Jaccarder as described in a previous post and we also recommend to look for and buy meat of USDA Choice grade or better.

Take the meat pictured above and slice it very thin, quick fry it and use it as a lower cost alternative to strip steak on a Philly Sandwich. Lay them out and follow our recipe for Rouladen. Cut them into strips for Stir Fry or prepare them as Beef Stroganoff.

Cut the steaks thicker and use them for Swiss Steak or even on the BBQ, they can also be marinated for extra flavor.

Whole or cut in half together with some salt, pepper and garlic will give you a mouth watering Roast Beef. Just put it on the rotisserie and pull it while still a little pink in the middle.

Seam it out and cut into cubes will serve you well in Stews or makes a nice Hungarian Goulash. These cubes stuck on skewers with onions, mushrooms and green peppers, especially when punched with the above mentioned Jaccarder make an excellent Shish-Kebob, by the way in our store we always put a piece of bacon on each side of the beef for added taste.

Back in the time when I had my store I had a customer who participated in various Chili Cook-offs. He had me cut up the meat into very small bits for his award winning Chili and I am pleased to say that the meat from my store in Michigan was used by him all the way at the National Chili Cook-Off in Las Vegas, Nevada and I am still wondering if it was his recipe or the meat from my store what got him there (lol).

 

Cuts of Beef – the Loin

Posted on by March 15, 2012
Click for the Beef Cutting Chart from the beefretail.org to see the cuts!

The Beef Loin

Done writing about the chuck and rib and following the steer from the front to the back, the next piece in line is the Beef Loin. With the bone left in you will get three different types of steaks out of it. Starting at the large end and cutting them about ¾ inch thick on the saw, the loin will yield, in this order on average, 8 Sirloin Steaks, 8 Porterhouse and 8 T-Bone Steaks.

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The standard cut of Bone-in Sirloin Steak is not a cut that you can find in the counter anymore . It went from a round bone sirloin, like the steak in the picture on the left, to a long bone sirloin and after that into the Porterhouse Steak.

 

As the Tenderloin, the round part in the picture, became smaller and smaller the cut went from being called a Porterhouse to be called a T-Bone Steak, see below.

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These two cuts make up what is called a short loin and as they are still popular they are part of the modern meat counter in many stores.

If we take out the bones from the whole loin the three pieces you end up with are the Top Sirloin, Tenderloin and Strip Loin.

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.The Top Sirloin will yield a superb roast but is usually cut into the Top Sirloin Steaks as seen in the picture below.

Your New York Strip Steaks, sometimes also called top loin steaks, are cut out of the boneless Strip Loin. These are, according to the BeefRetail.org, the most sold summertime BBQ steaks.

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The third piece of the Beef Loin is the Tenderloin, as this is the muscle which is used the least by the animal it is also the most tender piece of meat from it. Cut as a roast it is often served as Chateaubriand in the restaurants and in steak form it is commonly called a Filet Mignon.

All these cuts are fantastic on the grill and writing about it I get a yearning for warm weather here in Michigan.

Some of the pictures used here are published with permission from BeefRetail.org or BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com these sites are courtesy of the Beef Checkoff

Cuts of Beef – the Rib

Posted on by March 15, 2012
Click for the Beef Cutting Chart from the beefretail.org to see the cuts!

The Beef Rib

Today I write about my favorite part of the cattle which contains the “Prime Rib” in all it’s different forms.

The word “Prime” is just a title here and does not reflect on the government grading standards which would have to be “USDA Prime” to have the top-level quality. Even a “USDA Select” grade rib usually has the desired tenderness but any higher grade adds to the taste.

A Standing Rib spans across seven rib bones, with the cuts towards the chuck containing bigger chunks of fat (not marbelization, which goes back to the grade again) and the cuts at the other end, also called small end, will take the shape and texture as seen in the picture. By the way the picture is a “USDA Prime” standard.

From the whole rib, we first take off the cap which includes two flat pieces of meat. These we can run through the cuber a few times for cube steaks or here in Michigan we used to cube and roll them, fasten the roll with skewers and cut them across, a little over an inch thick, for London Broil.

Now, we loosen the bones and trim off some outside fat on the remaining big piece laying there, tie the bones back on and cut the roast to size in-between the ribs for a two, three or up to a seven rib Standing Rib Roast or “Prime Rib”. Loosening the bone makes it easier to cut after roasting as the bone separates and you can cut thinner slices. A rule of serving size used to be two persons per rib.

We can also cut this on the saw into mouthwatering Rib Steaks, for all of us who like to gnaw on the bone in the end.

Take the bones completely out from the whole piece, braise and/or BBQ them.This, when done right, is rated by wife and I as extra delicious and beats pork spare ribs anytime (in my humble opinion).

What remains is the “Beef Roll”, this sells as “the Rib Eye” and can be cut into a boneless roast. This cut is usually cooked and served as “Rib Roast” in restaurants. Cut the same piece up into steak you will have the “Ribeye Steak” or we used to call them “Delmonicos”.

Now it is time to throw a couple of them on the “Bar-bee” get the corn on the cob and baked potatoes ready and savor the meal. If you have more of these steaks, I know for sure that if you call a few friends over to share they would not refuse. An additional choice to make here is which nice bottle of red wine to serve with it.

 

Cuts of Beef – the Chuck

Posted on by March 15, 2012
Click for the Beef Cutting Chart from the beefretail.org to see the cuts!

The Beef Chuck

The chuck is the shoulder and considered the “tougher” part of the steer. Most charts and beef cut posters used to show that the cuts from here are for braising and stewing. Back then we cut basically three cuts out of it, the long bone pot roast, the round bone roast and the English cut and also some stew meat, hamburger meat and we sold the neck bones to the customers who wanted to make a good pot of beef soup.

Then we started to take all the bones out and ended up with a three piece boneless chuck. The chuck eye we cut into roasts and some chuck eye steaks. The beef clod, formerly the English cut, was cut into roasts and steaks and we also ended up with what we used to call the Scotch Tender, I do recall that the spelling for this was “Scotch” and this was cut up for cube steaks.

Many of our customers bought round steaks for different braising dishes, like Swiss steak, but we always preferred the cuts from the chuck what they now sell as “shoulder steak ” or also the “Ranch steak” for this dish or a Bavarian dish, which we actually enjoyed yesterday, called “Senffleisch” or mustard meat. (the recipe for this will be at Inge’s Kitchen in the near future)

Going back to one of my previous posts, any of these cuts, especially if you go with leaner grades like USDA Select can be made more tender with the “Jaccarder“.

Our personal opinion, I include my whole family here, is that the cuts from the front of the animal have more flavor. As a nice pink roast beef sliced thin is mouth watering good, but throw a chuck roast in the pot, add some onions and carrots, cover it with water and cook it for quite awhile, add a few potatoes and you have an exceptional meal. (You should actually season and brown the meat first to improve the taste and the gravy)

In the same token a ribeye steak is tastier than a New York Strip and braising a boneless shoulder steak beats a sirloin tip steak any time in tastiness, but this is only my opinion.

To see the different cuts open the poster from the Beef Checkoff or to open it in a different window copy the location below into a new browser window.

Click to access BeefMadeEasyCutChart.pdf

 

 

The Beef Cutting Chart

In my previous blog I mentioned the beef cutting chart which you used to see in many of the old-fashioned butcher shops. An updated chart reflecting the cuts which are common in the meat counters today can be downloaded in PDF format from beefretail.org by clicking on the link.

For your convenience we included a picture of this chart right here, as this will make it a lot easier when referring to the different Beef cuts. As this is copyrighted by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association please click on the above link if you want to download this chart for your own use. I also want to direct you to the  BeefItsWhatsForDinner.com, both sites are courtesy of the Beef Checkoff.