Jalapeño Cheddar Sausage

[nlife]

View attachment 699162

Here is a test "smokie", with melted Velveeta on it to test if I want to make cheese smokies.

I bought the processed cheese yesterday after reading this thread.

Ehh... everytime I add cheese, I always feel it would be easier and more flexible to just let folks add cheese on it when eating.

Half the family say they don't like cheese inside and don't eat it, it just seems limiting to add it. This was so easy to melt some on top. And yet, I have Velveeta freezing right now to cut up lol. The dang cheese-inside always lures me back with it's insidious illusion of goodness...

I've never tried Velveeta. Is that like Cheese whiz?

Melting it on top sounds like your safest bet and frankly, something I've considered doing since I HATE cubing it up, separating it on the tray, putting it in the freezer to harden up, then working to get an even mixture.

That said, I also tell myself that I'm never buying more than 15lbs of pork butt for a single sausage run again. Whaddya know. Present day Neil always screws future Neil by buying too much. What a jerk that guy is.

 

[geostriata]

I've never tried Velveeta. Is that like Cheese whiz?

Cheese whiz is pretty bad, in my opinion. I don't think there's a good application for it anywhere in cooking.

Velveeta, on the other hand, is awesome for certain things. For years, I played with various recipes for nacho cheese. There was this old Taqueria that just made amazing nachos, and the cheese was the main reason why -- not too artificial, but also not shredded real cheese that turns your nachos hard once it cools a little. I had tried everything I could think of from making nacho cheese from scratch, including using crazy things like xanthan gum to try to keep it creamy, etc... In any case, I got close (sodium citrate, cheddar, milk) but the simple combination of Velveeta and rotel was always superior to anything I could put together. Eventually I gave up and just went with the dead-simple and easy velveeta-based recipe and I haven't looked back since:

• 1 can of rotel, given a quick blend in the blender
• 16oz cubed velveeta
• 4-8 TBSP of milk, based on your thickness preference.

That being said, as much love as I have for Velveeta, I'm not too sure about putting it in my sausages... but I suppose you never know until you try...

 

[geostriata]

The dang cheese-inside always lures me back with it's insidious illusion of goodness...

I think that's it exactly! The illusion is a visual thing. I love how the intermittent flecks of color indicate that the sausage is special and artisanal. It just looks really good, but when I bite into it, its a bit of textural disappointment.

So I think the key is to add that visual indicator, but to try to minimize the textural disappointment. This is why I think SmokinEdge 's recommendation for shredded farmstyle thick cut is spot on here. Cheese flavor with the visual cues, but not chunky enough for the textural disappointment.

 

[Fueling Around]

Great job on the sausage.

Good discussion thread.

I don't like the taste of most of the "processed" cheese. Velveeta and Cheese Wiz top the list. I will use other American as a blend in making Mac-N-Cheese.

I made my last batch of sausage with Tillamook shreds and that is still a work in progress. I love Tillamook cheese, but will probably stay with either cubed or courser shreds.

 

[nlife]

From a textural standpoint, the processed cheese seems to hit it.

I've had Tillamook cheese when I went to Alaska with a University friend of mine. We went to pick up his school stuff after attending field school. Decent stuff. I remember chuckling that I was drinking the hoytie toytie imported Kokanee beer that's made in BC where I was born and raised. WAY cheaper to buy in Alaska compared to Canada despite travelling all that way.

 

[nlife]

Cheese whiz is pretty bad, in my opinion. I don't think there's a good application for it anywhere in cooking.

I tell my wife that a little piece of me dies inside every time I see her eating it... I prefer my cheese whizless.

 

[Fueling Around]

...
I remember chuckling that I was drinking the hoytie toytie imported Kokanee beer that's made in BC where I was born and raised. WAY cheaper to buy in Alaska compared to Canada despite travelling all that way.

Funny how that works. All Canadian taxes exempt on export.
I miss Duffy's from many years ago.

 

[Dave in AZ]

For every lb of meat (50% brisket point, 50% pork shoulder):

• 8.1g salt
• 2g Black Pepper
• 1.1g Cure #1
• 3.1g Granulated Garlic
• 0.8 g Granulated Onion
• 1.9g paprika
• 2.5g mustard powder
• 2.5g mustard seed
• 0.4g cayenne
• 5.5g Milk Powder
• 4g dehydrated jalapeños w seeds
• 45g Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar (Measure _after_ cutting into 1/4 cubes and drying in fridge for 2-3 days)
• 34.2g water

Most sausage recipes are given in grams spices per 1kg, 1000g, meat. This lets you easily see the % of a spice, and it also lets you easily compare recipe spice amounts while reading.

Geostriata likes to give his recipe in grams per pound of meat. Easy to mix up, in pound increments, but not good at all to compare recipes.

Since I had to calculate and convert all this to g/kg, so I could compare it to several other recipes, I figured I would post the numbers for others, as I already did the work. So this is his recipe in grams spices per kg meat:
For every 1000g (kg) of meat (50% brisket point, 50% pork shoulder):

• 17.8 g salt, 1.78%
• 4.4 g Black Pepper
• 2.4 g Cure #1
• 6.8 g Granulated Garlic
• 1.8 g Granulated Onion
• 4.2 g paprika
• 5.5 g mustard powder
• 5.5 g mustard seed
• 0.9 g cayenne
• 12.1 g Milk Powder, 1.2%
• 8.8 g dehydrated jalapeños w seeds
• 100 g Tillamook Extra Sharp, 10% Cheddar (Measure _after_ cutting into 1/4 cubes and drying in fridge for 2-3 days)
• 75 g water, 7.5%

Now I can see how the pepper, garlic, and mustard compares to a cheese sausage I made today, based on my Red Dogs recipe. But it lets me imagine the flavor a lot better.
Hope it's helpful to folks, this looks like a nice sausage!

 

[geostriata]

Geostriata likes to give his recipe in grams per pound of meat. Easy to mix up, in pound increments, but not good at all to compare recipes.

The comparison argument is a good one. I see the utility in that.

I will appropriately show my ingredients relative to meat quantities of 2.205 pounds (1kg) from now on. ;)