Sausage Artists

SausageFest.com featured "Sausage Artists"

Ream's Elburn Market

Sausagefest.com has to point to Ream's Elburn Market in rural Elburn, Ill as one of those Artisanal sources of fine sausages. For several years, the Sausagefest judges have given "exceptional art" marks to their:

Italian Sausage
Hot Italian Sausage
Cudghi Italian Sausage

The Cudghi is an example of a small regional variation of Italian sausage taken to a different taste realm. You know its Italian Sausage but you know it’s not the same thing as you expect. You expect lean and full taste from Ream's and their Cudghi sausage is "exceptional art". (As always, our sampling was done on our dime. We pay for what we eat and review.)

At the 2005 Fest we sampled the chorizo and it was top notch – a bit leaner than what you might be use to but that’s not a bad thing. Chorizo in Elburn, Ill – who knew??

Ream's Elburn Market

128 North Main Street
Elburn, IL 60119
(630) 365-6461
www.elburnmarket.com

Lalich Deli (Serbian Deli)

While Ream's take on a panoramic view of sausages of every type, the Lalich deli's (one in Niles, Ill another in Chicago) stays true to its own ethnic origins of Serbia.

I was lucky enough to grow up near a Serbian church and was even luckier to be accepted into many of their summer Sunday night picnics. There I became familiar with barbecued lamb and the Serbian sausage known as Ćevapčići. (See the wikipedia link for more on this great sausage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cevapcici )

Ćevapčići. From the Lalich Deli is one of the great protein bombs you can ever experience. (Thanks to Zoran and Vera Lalich for the great stuff.)

If you love the taste of gyros you will like Cevapcici even more. These sausages are so lean (fat free) that if you fry them in a pan you have to add oil. The best flavoring, however, comes from grilling these skinless little meat sausages. Sure they look like your typical breakfast sausage in length but there the comparison ends. Whip up some home made Tszaki sauce (the yogurt/sour cream sauce for gyro's) to go with these guys. The traditional side dish with these (at least when I was growing up) is a mound of finely chopped onions and a thick cut piece of crusty fresh bread. Wow.

The other thing that makes Cevapcici at the Lalich Deli's unique is that they only make these sausages on Friday and Saturday. You buy them fresh, never frozen and you cook them that day. These are not smoked sausages so what you are getting is a freshly formed no casing meat sausage ready for a hot grill.

Being too American, I've frozen these guys then tried them later. They were still good but, there is a big difference between the fresh vs. frozen kind.

The two flavors are garlic and non-garlic, and I say why try the non-garlic. It’s like Light beer and white bread – why cheapen your life at this point. One last point, they are a great value!!

Lalich Deli's

8133 N. Milwaukee
Niles, IL
(847) 581-1120

4208 W. Lawrence
Chicago, IL (773) 545-3642

No website at this point.