chop chop: a sausage story

While shopping at the grocery store after lunch with Boo, I was gathering ingredients for a meal I have not had in years: chop chop.
The store clerk in the meats area had asked to help and he showed me the two brands of polska kielbasa.
I told him about the root beer testing and mentioned that I'd be taste testing the sausage, too.
He thought it a grand idea!

Both sausages are made from turkey meat.
The upper sausage is half the link in the Hillshire
Farms package; the lower is one of two whole links
from Butterball.
Each contain roughly eight ounces of sausage.
For the experiment, I sliced the Butterball into diagonals and the other into half-inch sections.
That would allow me to distinguish, at a glance, the two from each other in the finished dish.

After pan-sauteing all of the sausage together, I selected a piece from each batch to test.
The Hillshire disk had more zestiness and 'juice', or meat fat, slightly coating my tongue.
The Butterball diagonal was sweeter and milder and did not seem as greasy.
The texture of the meat and casing was the same for both of the polska kielbasas.

For the dish itself, I next cooked four broccoli stalks and two onions, adding red pepper flakes, the the sausage and a drained 16-oz can of black beans.
All was served atop wild rice.
At first, I tried to alternate between the two sausages, but I eventually found myself eating the diagonals first, to clear them off the plate, then enjoying the spicier Hillshire Farms sections at a more leisurely pace.
That was last night.
This morning my first niece texted.
"Do you have plans today?"
I replied, "Whatever you are doing!"
We had missed our Odd Lot outing on Friday, as the troupe took the night off.
So, what were we doing today?
Meeting up in Hinesville, up close and personal, for another cookout!
Hooray!

Fortunately, my brain was well-fueled with coffee from birthday62 mug #4!
I had brought the remaining links of both sausages with me and invited all there to participate in the taste test.
Christian, who will be 11 years old next month, was quite enthusiastic about having a science experiment!
He was also quite enthusiastic about voting for the half-inch sections, praising their juiciness.

Chris, his dad, who recently had his 45th birthday, had graciously agreed to cook the whole links on the grill for this part of the experiment.
Although not a fan of turkey sausage, he had also agreed to blind taste each after I had sliced them.
He voted in favor of the sections rather than the diagonal slices, again based on juiciness.
Like son, like father, it seems, though both tasted separately from the other!

The second person in the taste test was my first niece.
Sure, Miyah and Chloe each had pieces of each sausage, with the younger girl spitting out the sectional piece, but nothing conclusive was gained from them.
Christina, though, favored the slight sweetness of the diagonal pieces, even though they seemed drier than the sectional pieces.

I would have to agree with her.
The extra spice level I had noticed previously in the Hillshire Farms -when pan-cooked and already cut up - was missing in the grilled version.
It boiled down to which had the better mouth feel...
and I preferred the less-greasy Butterball diagonals.
Had the process of cooking the links whole altered the fat content retained in each?
The grilled diagonal slices were certainly drier, even though the link had not been sliced until after the cooking was completed.
I guess more testing is certainly in order!
Next time, I'll be sure to have crackers to cleanse the palate between tastes.
(smile)