The Smokey Denmark barbecue trailer on East Fifth Street in Austin has a new head pitmaster: Keenan Goldis. Goldis recently took over for Bill Dumas (who is now working with Lance Kirkpatrick at Stiles Switch), and he may be a familiar name to anyone who enjoyed his wild creations at the Goldis Sausage Company trailer before it closed earlier this year. I never made it there, so I was happy to see he’d been brought on by Smokey Denmark back in August—and even more ecstatic when he announced last week that his famous mac-and-cheese sausage was back.
Yes, macaroni and cheese in a casing. I asked Goldis where the inspiration came from, and he said simply, “I like mac & cheese, so why not stuff it into a pig’s intestines?” Simple enough. But it wasn’t as simple to make it work. The mac and cheese was easy enough. It’s a classic, creamy recipe that’s mixed with crisp bacon and Mexican chorizo. The casing, however, proved more difficult to cook properly. Goldis struggled to get the snap just right, eventually moving to a two-step process. First the stuffed sausages are smoked briefly, for maybe fifteen minutes on the hot side of the pit. Then they’re heated again in a sauté pan before serving.
The result is a ridiculous yet perfect side item for barbecue. Along with two beef sausages, smoked boudin, and an apple pie sausage, you can get an entire meal of tube-shaped meats at Smokey Denmark’s. When I spoke to Goldis he was just working out some ideas for a Christmas-themed sausage, but the sausage whiz-kid hasn’t cracked the code on all his inventions. Hawaiian pizza sausage remains elusive, but Goldis is going to keep trying.
