The butchers Erika Nakamura and Jocelyn Guest were thinking of creating a line of sausages, even before they left White Gold Butchers, the now-defunct Upper West Side market and restaurant owned by April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman. “We saw it as a way to widen our audience without the expense of overhead and labor,” Ms. Nakamura said. Now the butchers have introduced J&E SmallGoods, a line of uncured hot dogs, bratwurst and smoked kielbasa, all made from heritage pork and grass-fed beef, without preservatives. The list of ingredients is brief. Take the bratwurst, for instance, which is made from pork, sea salt, spices, celery powder and dehydrated garlic. The hot dogs have nice snap and spicing, the kielbasa is properly smoky, and the bratwurst has more character and texture than most. I’d use all three in my next choucroute garnie.
J&E SmallGoods, $13.99 for six hot dogs, $12.99 for four bratwurst or two kielbasa, jesmallgoods.com, and starting Saturday at Mekelburg’s in Clinton Hill and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
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