This guy was asking about andouille (ahn-do'-ee) and tasso in comments. I had to think about that one a little bit, especially as he was asking how andouille compares to kielbasa.
They're both sausage, but andouille is a coarse ground sausage. Some folks don't grind the meat in andouille, they chop it very fine. Andouille is a cajun sausage and the spices are familiar to the cajun palate. Not overpowering, but complex and flavorful. You can buy andouille online here.
Tasso is a smoked pork product. Made from a pork roast or tenderloin, it is spiced heavily with pepper and smoked, almost to the point of becoming jerky. Tasso is chopped and used to season beans, or fried lightly and served with eggs. Milady uses tasso quite a bit in her cooking, when she wants a little more spice than ham or sausage will give you. Chop a chunk of tasso and put it in a pot of beans and you can smell the smoke flavor coming out of the pot. The link above will let you order tasso as well.
Explaining andouille and tasso is difficult if you have no frame of reference. Expaining the difference is easy when you stand over a pot of beans or gumbo. Damn, that's good!
2 comments:
Thanks for that. Almost every recipe I've seen said that kielbasa or smoked sausage is an acceptable substitute. Even the recipe given to me by my ex-SO's half Cajun mom. I can only guess that when she moved to Pennsylvania, she had to use something so she could still make the recipes she loved.
I've got access to a number of Central and South American style sausages, because there is a large immigrant population in the area, one or more would probably work as a better stand in. However, I'll probably have to try the real stuff first to be sure.
Andouille is made out of ham, too, and that makes a difference in flavor.
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