Discovery of a Butcher Shop
In Hutchinson, Kansas at 13 W. 6th there lies a place where few people go. Well, I assume that few people go there because I’d never been there, and aside from a co-worker and a friend who recently started working there, I’ve never heard anyone say “Hey, you should go to Jackson’s.”
What exactly is Jackson’s? I’m not exactly sure. The sign out front says “Jackson Frozen Food Center,” as does a Google search for “Jackson Meats” or “13 W. 6th, Hutchinson, KS.” This is part of the reason I never went in. I’m not a huge fan of frozen meat. I keep some in the freezer for times when I’m “in a pinch,” but, like many people, my preference is definitely for fresh meat. I know that a co-worker swears by their hotdogs and has procured them a couple times for cook-outs and retirement lunches. Other than that, I knew nothing else about them until I ran into my friend Ben last Thursday.
Over the course of conversation, I found out that Ben had started working for Jackson’s. When I asked if all the stuff at Jackson’s was frozen, Ben was quick to let me know that all the stuff they get is fresh, they butcher their own meat and they offer fresh items for sale. They do supply frozen meats, and when fresh stuff nears its expiration date, it is frozen. Ben also informed me that they make their own sausage. Conversation then veered into a discussion about the potential awesomeness of local restaurants having their own sausage “recipe” made by Jackson’s and my new-found fascination with charcuterie.
Last Friday I called to see when they were open. They are open 8-6 Monday through Friday and 8-1 on Saturday. I stopped by after work to check the place out. The building was fairly non-descript. When walking through the door I was momentarily confused. It looked like I was at an office with a front counter. I then noticed that the meat display was off to the left.
“Can I help you find something?” one of the workers asked.
“I’ve never been here before, I’d just like to look for a minute,” I said.
Off in the corner on the north wall there was a freezer. I didn’t bother to look in it. I was there for two things: fresh meat and fresh sausage. I turned toward the fresh meat display. It was pretty warm in the building and the meat cases had steamed up. One of the employees came around and began wiping off the display windows.
“Sorry things are fogged up. They’re cleaning in the back and it gets a little steamy,” she said.
Lots of hot water used to sanitize a butchering area – always a good sign.
“Over here we have beef: KC strip, T-bone, 90% ground – cheaper than Dillon’s – we try to keep everything very affordable…This case here is pork. We just finished making the brats. These are thick cut pork chops...”
“I think I need a minute,” I said.
As I walked back and forth in front of the cases, she dutifully followed me, wiping the steam off the display window. Everything was in vacuum-sealed bags rather than on Styrofoam trays. In addition to pork and beef, there was some deli meat and cheese on the top shelf. Bacon-wrapped beef tenderloins were $8.99/lb. I don’t remember the per-pound price on bone-in, thick cut pork chops, but packs of 4 were around $7. Sausage was cheap – less than $1.50/lb I think.
I settled on a single pork chop - $1.88 and a long coil of rope sausage (sausage that hadn’t been twisted into individual portions) for about $2.69. My total was $5.14.
Sadly the pork chop eventually wound up in the freezer. Between going out to dinner with friends, a lack of side dish options in the fridge, and general laziness, my pork chop dinner hasn’t happened yet. However, the sausage was brunchified around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.
I wasn’t sure what the flavor of the sausage would be like. I hadn’t asked the folks at Jackson’s. The main reason I bought the rope sausage is because I had this image of me grilling this big round coil of sausage a la Argentian-style churrasco. Seeing as I don’t have a grill (YET – trust me, there will be grilling this summer), I pulled out my mammoth skillet.
Frying 2+ pounds of coiled sausage is an interesting experience. As someone who doesn’t cook raw sausage very often, I forgot how long it takes a thick link of sausage to cook all the way through. This sausage was about 1” in diameter – about the size of a jumbo hot dog or polish sausage. Because it was all in one big coil, I had to use tongs to turn it. Getting a nice grip on a slippery, fatty tube of meat with a pair of tongs requires some skill and patience. Also, because of the coil factor, the sausage was only getting browned on two sides, not all the way around. About ¾ of the way through, I wound up cutting the sausage into four 6”-8” pieces and trying to get a little bit of a sear on the other sides. This allowed some of the fat to escape, which turned out to be great for the next step in the brunch process.
Feeling bad for not celebrating St. Patrick’s day, having a strange inclination to associate cabbage with all things Irish, and having found a head of cabbage that was past its prime in the fridge, I decided to sauté some cabbage to go with my sausage. The sausage fat provided just the right amount of liquid to sauté the cabbage. I added salt, pepper and sweet Hungarian paprika. I finished things off with a couple of eggs over-easy and some toast.
The sausage was really good. It would have been better if I had been able to get a nice sear on all sides. I love crispy casings on my sausage. Next time, if I buy rope sausage, I’ll cut it into portions before starting the cooking process. It turned out to be a fairly standard breakfast sausage recipe – pepper, sage, maybe some other flavoring agents.
It was good quality sausage. It was coarsely ground and densely packed, giving it a nice solidity. In the portion I ate (my roommates got the rest), I found no gristle. I’m not sure if it was an illusion caused by the fine grind and the dense pack of the meat, but it seemed leaner than the skinny sausage links I normally get from Village Inn, IHOP or Skeats. I would definitely eat it again, and it left me with the desire to try Jackson’s bratwursts and other meats.
Jackson’s Frozen Food Center is not just about frozen food. It’s about fresh meat and good sausage. I’m still curious about the business though. Who are their customers? Do they sell more frozen meat or fresh? Is most of their business direct to consumer, or are they selling to restaurants and other retailers? I plan to look into this more and get some answers. For now, consider stopping by Jackson’s next time you want beef or pork, especially sausage!
What exactly is Jackson’s? I’m not exactly sure. The sign out front says “Jackson Frozen Food Center,” as does a Google search for “Jackson Meats” or “13 W. 6th, Hutchinson, KS.” This is part of the reason I never went in. I’m not a huge fan of frozen meat. I keep some in the freezer for times when I’m “in a pinch,” but, like many people, my preference is definitely for fresh meat. I know that a co-worker swears by their hotdogs and has procured them a couple times for cook-outs and retirement lunches. Other than that, I knew nothing else about them until I ran into my friend Ben last Thursday.
Over the course of conversation, I found out that Ben had started working for Jackson’s. When I asked if all the stuff at Jackson’s was frozen, Ben was quick to let me know that all the stuff they get is fresh, they butcher their own meat and they offer fresh items for sale. They do supply frozen meats, and when fresh stuff nears its expiration date, it is frozen. Ben also informed me that they make their own sausage. Conversation then veered into a discussion about the potential awesomeness of local restaurants having their own sausage “recipe” made by Jackson’s and my new-found fascination with charcuterie.
Last Friday I called to see when they were open. They are open 8-6 Monday through Friday and 8-1 on Saturday. I stopped by after work to check the place out. The building was fairly non-descript. When walking through the door I was momentarily confused. It looked like I was at an office with a front counter. I then noticed that the meat display was off to the left.
“Can I help you find something?” one of the workers asked.
“I’ve never been here before, I’d just like to look for a minute,” I said.
Off in the corner on the north wall there was a freezer. I didn’t bother to look in it. I was there for two things: fresh meat and fresh sausage. I turned toward the fresh meat display. It was pretty warm in the building and the meat cases had steamed up. One of the employees came around and began wiping off the display windows.
“Sorry things are fogged up. They’re cleaning in the back and it gets a little steamy,” she said.
Lots of hot water used to sanitize a butchering area – always a good sign.
“Over here we have beef: KC strip, T-bone, 90% ground – cheaper than Dillon’s – we try to keep everything very affordable…This case here is pork. We just finished making the brats. These are thick cut pork chops...”
“I think I need a minute,” I said.
As I walked back and forth in front of the cases, she dutifully followed me, wiping the steam off the display window. Everything was in vacuum-sealed bags rather than on Styrofoam trays. In addition to pork and beef, there was some deli meat and cheese on the top shelf. Bacon-wrapped beef tenderloins were $8.99/lb. I don’t remember the per-pound price on bone-in, thick cut pork chops, but packs of 4 were around $7. Sausage was cheap – less than $1.50/lb I think.
I settled on a single pork chop - $1.88 and a long coil of rope sausage (sausage that hadn’t been twisted into individual portions) for about $2.69. My total was $5.14.
Sadly the pork chop eventually wound up in the freezer. Between going out to dinner with friends, a lack of side dish options in the fridge, and general laziness, my pork chop dinner hasn’t happened yet. However, the sausage was brunchified around 11:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.
I wasn’t sure what the flavor of the sausage would be like. I hadn’t asked the folks at Jackson’s. The main reason I bought the rope sausage is because I had this image of me grilling this big round coil of sausage a la Argentian-style churrasco. Seeing as I don’t have a grill (YET – trust me, there will be grilling this summer), I pulled out my mammoth skillet.
Frying 2+ pounds of coiled sausage is an interesting experience. As someone who doesn’t cook raw sausage very often, I forgot how long it takes a thick link of sausage to cook all the way through. This sausage was about 1” in diameter – about the size of a jumbo hot dog or polish sausage. Because it was all in one big coil, I had to use tongs to turn it. Getting a nice grip on a slippery, fatty tube of meat with a pair of tongs requires some skill and patience. Also, because of the coil factor, the sausage was only getting browned on two sides, not all the way around. About ¾ of the way through, I wound up cutting the sausage into four 6”-8” pieces and trying to get a little bit of a sear on the other sides. This allowed some of the fat to escape, which turned out to be great for the next step in the brunch process.
Feeling bad for not celebrating St. Patrick’s day, having a strange inclination to associate cabbage with all things Irish, and having found a head of cabbage that was past its prime in the fridge, I decided to sauté some cabbage to go with my sausage. The sausage fat provided just the right amount of liquid to sauté the cabbage. I added salt, pepper and sweet Hungarian paprika. I finished things off with a couple of eggs over-easy and some toast.
The sausage was really good. It would have been better if I had been able to get a nice sear on all sides. I love crispy casings on my sausage. Next time, if I buy rope sausage, I’ll cut it into portions before starting the cooking process. It turned out to be a fairly standard breakfast sausage recipe – pepper, sage, maybe some other flavoring agents.
It was good quality sausage. It was coarsely ground and densely packed, giving it a nice solidity. In the portion I ate (my roommates got the rest), I found no gristle. I’m not sure if it was an illusion caused by the fine grind and the dense pack of the meat, but it seemed leaner than the skinny sausage links I normally get from Village Inn, IHOP or Skeats. I would definitely eat it again, and it left me with the desire to try Jackson’s bratwursts and other meats.
Jackson’s Frozen Food Center is not just about frozen food. It’s about fresh meat and good sausage. I’m still curious about the business though. Who are their customers? Do they sell more frozen meat or fresh? Is most of their business direct to consumer, or are they selling to restaurants and other retailers? I plan to look into this more and get some answers. For now, consider stopping by Jackson’s next time you want beef or pork, especially sausage!
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