Rosemary Brats = So good

Spotlight Product: Rosemary Brats

We visited an organic farm in Oregon and stayed there via AirBnb while visiting Jack's sister (Anker Farm for those also interested in visiting)

Anyhow, we obviously hit it off with the farmers and enjoyed trying all of their recipes. The bacon was his recipe from his home country, The Netherlands. We loved the savory and NOT sweet aspect of the bacon so we incorporated some of the recipe into our Euro-Style herb bacon.

However, we also wanted to make a new style brat, so we tinkered with the recipe and came up with our Rosemary brats.

We LOVE this brat by itself, but enjoy having it around more for how versatile it is in any dish - a quick sear in some butter on a hot pan and in a flash you've gone from frozen to fantastic protein for any pasta, salad, egg bake or any dish where savory is appreciated.

TC Farm Rosemary Brats.

• No sugar
• No nitrates (celery or otherwise)
• Pasture raised (like everything we do)
• Organic seasoning
• 100% delicious

What do they taste like?

This is a brat, so it is pork with a casing. It has a great flavor to it, with a little bit of herbs, black pepper and garlic added.

Ingredients

Pork, Water, and less than 2% of: Sea Salt, Organic Black Pepper, Organic Rosemary, Organic Ginger, Organic Nutmeg

How to store

Rosemary brats should be kept frozen and can be thawed and kept in the fridge for up to two weeks in a sealed package before cooking.

Most other brat we sell can be safely kept in the fridge for up to 45 days. Why the difference? Most of our smoked brats have a cure in them using celery powder instead of synthetic nitrates. This requires a short fermentation to set the cure properly and that requires a small amount of sugar for the beneficial bacteria. You'll see that in the ingredient list like this:

organic evaporated cane syrup, celery juice and sea salt

In the case of the Rosemary Brats (or others like our cooked traditional, Jamaican or bockwurst), there is no celery juice and no nitrates of any kind. Which is great but it also means that you a little less time where they stay good stored in the fridge.

The flavor and versatility of this brat is so fantastic, it's totally worth the trade off.

How to cook

We went into a little detail about the different ways you could cook your brats in an article couple years ago but we're including the highlights below:

Pan fry method

Having a quick meal that can be prepped in one pan is super nice. Because the sausages are pre-cooked, you don't have to worry about the exact temperature.

They are quick and easy to sear up in a pan - even from frozen, just add some of your favorite fat and cook over fairly high heat to crisp up the outside. (Pro Tip: cut in half so they brown up more evenly -- cut in the middle, not split the long way)

From there, add any favorite side dish and you have a simple meal.

Roasted

Roasting with veggies is a great way to add some texture and flavor without much effort.

Oven Tips:
I like to have the oven fairly hot, around 400 degrees and convect if possible. If you have enough fat on the pan, you can stir in the beginning to make sure everything is well coated and then just wait until the bottoms of the veggies are browned before stirring again. You don't need to worry about sticking if you used enough fat. Usually veggies getting stuck to a pan is caused by too frequent stirring and/or not enough fat.

Grill method

Light grill.
Wait (or don't if the brats are frozen).
Put on brats.
Remove brats.
Eat brats.

The key here is to NOT overcook the brats - keep the heat low enough that it doesn't burst the skin, but hot enough that the skin crisps up. You don't want to cook over 150 degrees since then you'll really start to lose the good fats inside.

Boil in water method

Don't boil your pre-cooked brats in water (or beer).

Look, I know that's traditional, but these have been cooked long and slow at a LOWER temperature so that the good fats are kept inside of the brats.

Grocery brats might use binders and phosphates to keep loads of extra water and fat inside of the brat... or maybe they start off SO fatty that the brat can tolerate the higher temperature of boiling water -- but you don't want to eat brats like that.

Leave the beer cold and in your glass, your brats will thank you!

How can I get some???

If you'd like to try some for yourself (or get some more!) you can find them in our:

• Sugarless Favorites sampler pack which also includes the Euro Bacon
• Sampler pack below with American style bacon
• The every popular 'Just Rosemary Brats' package