DOG HAUS TESTS THE LIMITS OF SAUSAGE
Pasadena-based restaurant chain Dog Haus is on a mission to take sausage to places it's never been before.
It's called the Absolute Würst Sausage Series, and its goal is to introduce a monthly sausage based on a popular food.
According to chef Adam Gertler, the series began with a challenge from the chain's cofounding partner Hagop Giragossian: “What if we just put everything into the sausage?”
That task falls to Gertler, the chain's “Würstmacher” and a TV personality who hosted “FX Movie Download” and was a contestant on “Food Network Star.”
Gertler said in a phone interview that it is his goal to get all the flavors of popular dishes into a meat grinder.
The series launched Feb. 1 with Nashville hot chicken sausage, which will be available through the end of the month or as long as supplies last in Dog Haus' 52 restaurants.
Turning the popular chicken sandwich into a sausage posed a challenge to Gertler.
“We wanted to coat it like we would fried chicken. Getting breading for fried chicken onto sausage was a little tricky, because the sausage surface is so smooth,” he said.
“We came up with the idea of doing a sausage skinless, so we do a chicken sausage with no casing on it. And then we're able to roll it in our breader, and then into a wet batter, and then back into the dry breader. And that allows the coating to really stick well. Then we could just treat it like we would treat Nashville hot chicken.”
Gertler has the rest of the year mapped out, but he's still working out how to do most of them. For instance, he's planning an al pastor sausage for May, but said getting in pineapple could be interesting. And he's hoping to do a mac and cheese sausage for June. He was able to create a mac and cheese sausage in his home kitchen, but making it in 300-pound batches could be challenging.
“We had to figure out how to make mac and cheese at the sausage factory, because they're not set up to do that necessarily. And then how do we get it to disburse through the sausage?”
Then he has a wish list of creations he's “still not sure about.” It includes a sushi sausage, with raw fish posing the challenge.
“I imagine that one you'd have to not cook all the way.”
Gertler has one creation ready for production beyond the Nashville hot chicken sausage. That is his corned beef and cabbage sausage, which will go on the menu in March to mark St. Patrick's Day.
He wanted to put the cabbage into the sausage rather than serving it as a condiment. He solved that challenge by salting the cabbage and letting it sit overnight rather than cooking it before putting it in the grinder. He is happy with the results.
“So far that's my favorite. The flavor isn't that far off from a hot dog, but it's very pickle-andspice-forward, just like corned beef,” he said.
“If you get it with just mustard on it or just get it plain, you'll get the whole experience of corned beef and cabbage.”
April's sausage will be pepperoni pizza, made with Italian fennel sausage mixed with chopped pepperoni, mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, tomatoes and oregano. It will be served on grilled King's Hawaiian rolls.
Dog Haus will be tracking Gertler's progress with a series of videos on social media called “How the Sausage Is Made.” It begins with a 22-minute video on YouTube devoted to the Nashville hot chicken sausage. It has racked up more than 1,200 views on YouTube since Jan. 31.
“People think, `We don't want to know how the sausage is made,' ” Gertler said. “We think, `Yeah you do.' ”