Cheeseburger Deluxe Sausage - you'd have to think there was alcohol involved when we came up with this idea. When Mike K. announced this idea he may have been drinking methanol; I've told him a thousand times, when distilling throw the first two cups away... (did I say that out loud?.....)

He pitched the idea with a little more explaining: ground beef, cheese, onion, garlic some sun dried tomato and of course bacon. I'm hip to all of this.... ok I'm interested....  I would put any of this on my cheeseburger and why not a sausage? Alright, the Black Pig is making Cheeseburger Deluxe Sausages! (I might have been smoking some banana leafs myself at that point).

As Mike has pointed out in a previous post, eye of the round was on sale for $2.00 a pound, great timing. Pat (Island Bear) was able to help out today as well, which left me to organize and do some of the camera work.  While we previously spoke in broad strokes about what we wanted to do, we had to detail where we were going with this project.

What ever we would put on our own burgers was mentioned and considered. I wanted to figure out how to get pickles and lettuce on my burger but had to settle for a pinch of dill, I think either would have been way over the top. Sesame seeds and bread crumbs to help with the binder; yep I'm buying all of this. Strangely this is all starting to make sense to me. But what to use as a spice? If any of you know Mike K., you know the history he has with creating new spice blends and while he has moved on from the Dizzy Pig BBQ Company, those are his roots. We are using the Dizzy Pig's "Cowlick" spice.  The product is superb and we are pleased to add it into one of our projects. Unfortunately, this is a third party product so the recipe for the blend can not be posted on the net.

While Mike and I went out to replenish some of my spices, (I can't believe I didn't have everything already), Pat made some use of his knife skills and got all of our ingredients preped.

6.25 kgs eye of round
1 kg fresh ground pork
1 lb bacon (packaged)
1 lb hi- temp pepper jack cheese
120 grams dried mushrooms
350 grams fresh sweet onions
75 grams sun dried tomatoes
120 grams fresh dill weed
40 grams sesame seeds
600 grams bread crumbs
200 grams Dizzy Pig "Cowlick"

700 ml beer (2 cans)
800 ml cold water

A few quick notes: we used packaged bacon (ugh), I'm not using my good home cured stuff, that would be too big of a sacrifice. We decided to use a light refreshing beer as not to overpower the taste. I looked at Mike in puzzlement, "Beer"? "Doesn't everybody put beer into their burger meat"? I admitted to throwing a tablespoon in only as an excuse to open one...  "Alright, let's put some beer in, I'm sure all of our readers will accept this addition. Can we still drink one"?

With all of the ingredients settled on, it is time to put this all together. 

Now here is where we had a difficult decision to make. If we pass ingredients through the grinder they will infuse with the meat. Not a bad idea... but what to keep separate and what to blend? The other problem is if you put too much chunks 'O' stuff into the sausage it will not bind and will fall apart when you cut or bite into it. It's all balance. 

The cheese is kept separate as is the dill weed, sesame seeds, bread crumbs and spices. We blend into the meat the mushrooms, tomato, onions and bacon. Into the grinder and in mere minutes, less than 3 minutes, in fact, Presto! our sausage is ground. I am never never never going back to grinding by hand, or even in my Kitchen Aid, this grinder is so fracken nice it is #2 on my 'must-have' list. 

You can also see my new addition to our arsenal of equipment-- a 44 pound meat mixer. It is a dream to drop ice cold meat into it and flip the switch for 10 minutes to get a perfect blend, the right tool for the right job, ARHHH ARHHH... Now into the 20 pound vertical stuffer (#1 on my must have list), ARHHHH ARHHHH and now we have cheeseburger deluxe sausage; who would have thought.

 

We sampled some of the final version, and concluded it's ok but room for serious improvement. We lost the distinct flavor of some of the ingredients, too much infusion in this case. This recipe may be a keeper, but only the meat will go through the grinder next time and I think some hot peppers might be in order.

I'm going to send some of these to the guys in Montreal, to get their opinion. We certainly have our thoughts already but I want to get other impartial comments.  

I also thought it might be nice to recap our top "fresh" sausages to date (not in any order) 

Breakfast
Cheese
Herb and Garlic
Sweet Italian
Hot Italian 
XXX Italian
YUL stupid (inspired for Gerry and his crew)
Weisswurst
Frankfurter
Seafood Thai
Chorizo

While these had some interesting tastes and great on their own, once compared to the others these following ones do not score as well:

Bangers
White pudding (I'm protesting this on the not so good list) 
Lincolnshire
Schezwan Peanut 
Low fat (what was I thinking)
Super Sage 
Chicken 



Cheers from the Big Dog