Sausage company does it with smoke and mixtures
Monday is pork sausage day. On Tuesday, the crew at the Boston Sausage Company (better known as the Smokehouse) makes all varieties of chicken and turkey sausages. Wednesday is mostly for packing, because on Thursday, the sausages and smoked meats are shipped to restaurants and hotels in time for the weekend. Fridays the cycle starts again with cutting, curing, and smoking.
This is how the weeks turn for the 24-year-old business that crafts some of the finest sausages and smoked meats in the region. Summer's end is always a busy time for the Smokehouse, as local chefs and backyard grillers make the most of the waning season.
Union Bar and Grille chef de cuisine Stephen Sherman designs dishes around some of the most intense sausages from the Smokehouse. Smoked chorizo, redolent of cumin and scallion, goes into the restaurant's brunch omelet, and the spicy Spanish sausage is also combined with a cornbread stuffing for roast chicken. Grilled linguica pairs with a fried egg and cheese sandwich, also for brunch, and the subtly spicy andouille sausage is added to a ground beef mixture for the restaurant's popular burgers. One of Sherman's favorite sausages, sweet Italian pork with fennel, is crumbled, cooked until crispy brown, and added to a dish of gnocchi with grilled tomatoes and Swiss chard. "It's a nice rustic dish," he says.
Founded by Dave Nosiglia and his father, Victor, the Smokehouse sits hidden behind storefronts on Blue Hill Avenue in Mattapan. In this modest space, with nine employees, roughly 15,000 pounds of sausages and smoked meats are produced each week, including sausages made with chicken and rosemary, garlicky prosciutto, provolone and roasted pepper, and a vaguely sweet apple-maple breakfast link. The company also produces its own German bratwurst.
The bratwurst may be the shining glory of Dave Nosiglia, who apprenticed for three years in Germany in the late 1970s. "It was like boot camp," he says. "They're very strict over there. But you learn everything -- from butchering and cutting to processing." Manager Trey Goodwin came on board at the Smokehouse in 1988, as a driver, he says, "just for the summer," and never left.
Nosiglia and Goodwin come up with the recipes for the 70 sausage varieties. There is no real assembly line, but products make their way through the small plant in a clockwise circle, starting in the room where meats are ground and blended with herbs, spices, vegetables, and other flavorings. The sausage mixture is fed into a machine, which forces it through a natural casing threaded onto a spigot ("called a stuffing horn," says Nosiglia). The casing twists to yield 4-ounce links.
The smoking operation is simpler. Whole cuts of meat, in addition to some German- and Spanish-style sausages, are hung on racks and wheeled into a large stainless steel smoker, where they sit for four to eight hours. "Everything we smoke is fully cooked," says Nosiglia. Slightly higher smoking temperatures and extra time in the smoker ensures that all bacteria are killed. In what's called the chill room, where smoked meats such as turkey breast, ham, pork loin, brisket, and slab bacon are cooled at bone-shivering temperatures, there is the lingering scent of apple and hickory woods.
At Kettle Cuisine of Chelsea, Smokehouse products are in many soups and stews. Executive chef Volker Frick uses smoked ham in pea soup, andouille to bring a gentle spice to jambalaya, and smoky chorizo to perk up black bean soup. "It's not always easy finding suppliers that can provide us with all-natural products," says Frick. "I've known [the Smokehouse] a long time and they've been very flexible."
Many of the Smokehouse's sausages and smoked meats are sold at the company's small retail store in Norwell, but most of their business is wholesale. Chefs like Union's Sherman say they're happier buying locally. "[The Smokehouse] products are as true as they can be to the authentic items," says Sherman. "Dave takes tremendous pride in what he's doing."
Three years at sausage boot camp did that.
Smokehouse products are available at 340 Washington St., Norwell, 781-659-4824, and Savenor's, 92 Kirkland St., Cambridge, 617-576-6328, or go to sausageheaven.com. 