A Sausage Fest

3 weeks ago, after my gym training in the evening, I went to Tampines NTUC to buy ingredients for my lunches and stopped in front of the meat section. There was a new brand that I noticed.

Amongst the other Halal meat products, I paused in front of a pack of sausages with diamond patterns upon its label.

Handwerker

I thought to myself, “This is such a hipster looking pack of sausages”. It had great design, good ingredients since it was being spiced and well, it was priced more than your typical hotdogs. This wasn’t just those normal franks or hotdogs though. This was sausages.

And after passing by the section going, “Hmmm”, I bought a pack of chicken hot links and went home with my groceries.

That very night I cooked two pieces, ate it and cooked two more because it tasted SO GOOD and I went, “Crap… there’s only… no. I must save them for TOMORROW and make it last”.

I did manage to finish it the next day and went off to find more about it. Like HALAL SAUSAGES that are actually REALLY good?

I found their facebook and told them that it tasted good, in reply they told me that they were having a roadshow on the 14th and 15th at Nex’s NTUC.

And so I did make my appearance at Nex on Sunday. Of all things. For sausages because they did say they were having a roadshow and you could win some stuff.

Why is it called Handwerker though? Is it some fake German for hand work?

Cause if so it means crafts work like embroidery and junk like that.

However NO, I found out it’s the name of one of the first few people who made popular hot dog stands! Nathan Handwerker sold hot dogs with a special blend of spices in his sausages!

I was so there and oh my goodness they were having discounts for the sausages. FYI, they have different flavours and spices in them. The really ‘fancy’ ones are the ones in the boxes because they have cheese in it like GOUDA.

So good ah.

(I hope you noted the pun.)

It’s not often you get delicious sausages that are specially blended with spices and balanced to give such a bursting flavour in your mouth when you grill/fry them. It’s even rarer that it is even HALAL.

One does not need to go to Tekka market that often to the butchery there for such sausages when these are now available at NTUC!

Ok, since they DID have a special sampling station I got to try them even though I was buying the packs anyway, heh heh heh oh it was good and tempting to eat more than one piece of their samples.

Buy 3 for a sure win lucky draw. Ok.

I bought 6.

MY LOOOT. I took a nap,woke up and realized I bought a lot of sausages.

That is a lot of meat.

Of course I didn’t sleep with my purchases and woke up with all the sausages surrounding me, prompting me to say, “Wow, this is a lot of meat”. They were in the fridge by then. It was just the revelation of having bought a freaking load of sausages and like, why did I even do that?

But it’s ok, they were different flavours like veal, lamb, beef and chicken with spices and herbs or tinges of lemon in the various different packs. And I KNOW that I could finish one freaking pack in one night if I was really hungry ok, I lie I don’t have to be super hungry to finish one pack because it is THAT good.

Plus, it’s not as if I’m going to stuff myself with all those sausages at the same time.

Ok, you can see what flavours I got and the normal price for some was $5.25. The one in the box is $6.95. HOWEVER since it was roadshow day and discounts galore, I got them much cheaper.

Just ignore the buns and the paper that I bought in that receipt too.

The paper is not for eating.

And here’s the goods I got from Handwerker from the spin and win!

2 cooler bags (they gave me the grey one first cause I bought 6 packs) and 2 chilli crab sauces.

It’s from there that I learned that this brand is part of Singapore Food Industries? Oh yeah, the cooler bag is pretty cool. I passed the grey one to my parents so they could use it when they’re shopping at the market.

Alright the part of the post you are waiting for. I cooked veal sausages (the white ones) and chicken hot links (the tanned ones)  in a frying pan. Lightly oiling the surface just enough to grill each individual piece of meat.

Using a slight flipping action on the pan, I rolled them around on the metal surface, cooking and charring their exterior.

Sure, if I had a grill pan there would be beautiful lines marking each long, thick piece of sausage as they cooked and heated up.

But no, it’s ok. As the smell wafted over the frying pan and I went, “Yess… you are nearly done”, I removed each one carefully, placing them onto the plate almost cautiously so that I will not drop any accidentally.

No, it was too precious for me to be clumsy and lose the chance to eat them.

There was no style to my plating, I just wanted it there and then. One piece of the chicken sausage, I carefully inserted it into a bun.

Mustard.

Chilli sauce.

And then I bit into it and ohh, yes. This was a good hot dog. You didn’t actually need the condiments but I wanted it. After having the ‘default’ hot dog, I started on the rest on its own. Plainly at first so that I could taste the recipe blend for it. The chicken hot links was a good basic sausage if you didn’t want something too fancy, it had a small sprinkling of red chilli flakes in them, nothing too spicy just enough to season it.

And then I tried the veal.

I wanted to sound dramatic here but I guess, there’s nothing more dramatic than saying that wow. Yes. It is veal. Please, when comparing to normal cheapo hotdogs to this, you will taste the pride that goes in these sausages. Like, THIS is a sausage.

That when you bite into it, the skin, the collagen casing. It breaks apart, the meat bursting out unrestrained.

None of that fake tasting meat. What was labelled on the packaging was what it was.

And it was good that I remembered that no, no I shouldn’t have it all at the same time else I wouldn’t be able to have them another day.

PS. The funky pictures are because I’m using a Nokia 520 instead of my regular camera with instagram filters for it.

Pps. I’m not endorsed by Handwerker.

Ppps. Sausages of all things, I went all out for it to get the discounted price and freebies.