I was recently in Tucson, Arizona and found myself doing some grocery shopping at Basha’s, a local chain of supermarkets. I’m a careful eater and mainly eat vegetables and pasta, but I do love a good cut of meat once in a while. While shopping, I was drawn by both my hunger and a great smell wafting from a mini griddle cooking sausages and found a woman offering samples of Aidells sausages. They had cut up pieces of the various flavors and I went with the Cajun. It was delicious. The little quarter sized disc was packed with flavor and even on that small of a piece the casing had a nice snap to it. It was meaty as well. I helped myself to few more and continued my shopping.
The sausages come packaged 4 in a pack and are precooked. They can be simply heated up and then served. I paid $5.99 here in Los Angeles at Ralphs. The sausages are available in a variety of flavors, over 20, and most are available in either pork or chicken. They also have numerous organic selections as well as mini links, breakfast links and even meatballs.
My favorite is the Cajun style andouille pork sauages. They have a great snap and just enough spice to keep you interested. I like to cook them in a frying pan and that gives them a nice crispness. They are quite juicy and quite meaty, but you know its quality meat, not gristle or bad cuts. Theres also some other bits in there, spices and onions, etc. These are quite spicy, they work great in a jumbalaya or gumbo or with shrimp or chicken. I like them in spaghetti sauce or alone with a hot dog bun. They plump up to a nice size and fit well in a large hot dog bun. It really allows you to simply taste the wonderful flavor of the sausage without any added sauces or spices.
The sausages have basic natural ingredients you can understand: pork, water, salt, spices, garlic, sugar, paprika, sodium nitrite and dehydrated onion. Each link has 170 calories and 12 grams of fat, 4.5 grams of which is saturated fat. They each have 15 grams of protein and 620 mg of sodium. These figures are for the Cajun style pork sausages only.
I checked out the Aidells website and there’s a lot of information about the company and the founder, Bruce Aidell. The company, like most in the San Francisco area, is very environmentally conscious so you know the ingredients that they use are fresh and quality. Interestingly they make a comment about sodium nitrite, that a small amount is not harmful and is necessary to combat a certain type of bacteria. They make the argument that its better to have a small amount to protect their customers, than use none simply to use the term “natural” on their packaging.
Aidells products are available in all major supermarkets across the USA, as well as gourmet markets and large retailers like Costco and Walmart. They can also be purchased directly via the Aidells website. The company also makes various flavors of meatballs, which I look forward to trying and some of the flavors also come in mini sausage size. They make several breakfast flavors as well. When I say flavors, they are more spice blends or combinations, like Burmese Curry or Mango.
The bottom line to this is that sometimes in store live samples actually work. I never would have heard of this company, nor bought there products had they not had a actual human being in that store cooking and handing out samples. They may have gained a new long term customer, which in this economy is what companies need to do to survive. All I know is a I have a big list of flavors and products from Aidells to check out.
