Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage from Uncle Louie’s Sausage Co.

Good ‘ole Maui connections hooks us up with yet another unique food product here called ‘Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage’. It’s made and sold exclusively on the Valley Isle by Uncle Louie’s Sausage Company, where according to founder Ken Enriques‘ daughter, currently this particular flavor is only available at their factory retail store outlet in Kahului. Other flavors Uncle Louie’s Sausage Co. produces are Pineapple, Italian, Maui Hot Dog, and their flagship product, the one and only Portuguese Sausage; the latter of which is available on most islands at select stores.

Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage and a Maui® Kula® Sweet Onion

Maui is famous for a lot of things, and one of those are their sweet Kula Onions, grown high on the slopes of Haleakala. The reason for that sweetness is the cool temperatures at those high altitudes, along with soil that’s rich in nutrients and low in sulfur. This low sulfur content is what allows the natural sugars in the onion to stand out more on the palate compared to other onions that have higher levels of sulfur compounds containing Pyruvic Acid. This acid is what causes the flesh of onions to induce tears and clear out nostrils when cut open, while making it taste harsh and pungent at first bite, and masking their otherwise naturally-occuring sweet flavor.

Will Maui’s famous sweet onions compliment the pork in this sausage like fruits often do so well with this type of meat? Let’s find out!

First let’s take this sausage out of its package and check it out in the buff…

Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage and a Maui® Kula® Sweet Onion

If you look closely, there’s speckles of paprika visible just beneath the casing.

Let’s have a look under the casing…

Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage (fully cooked, but not cooked)

Like most commercial sausages, the label indicates it’s “fully cooked”, yet we all know this still requires a meeting with Mrs. Frying Pan or Mr. Grill to brown the outside, melt the fat and ultimately bring out the best it has to offer.

As for the ingredients, according the label they are: Pork, Maui Onions, Water, Non-Fat Dry Milk, Salt, Sugar, Paprika, Monosodium Glutemate, Sodium Phosphate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite.

Yeah, I know, I know, it’s full of  names that end with (Phosph)-ate” and  -ite.  All we need are a few more ingredients that end with -ose and -ide, and surely the chemical preservatives police will be knocking on our door. But hey, we’re talking about sausages with MEAT in it here, gosh darned it, and we’ll leave making healthy diet choices for another topic for another day.

As for the Maui Onions, in the sausage’s uncooked (yet fully cooked) form, I don’t see much visible pieces of it mixed in the ground pork filling, except for a few tiny pieces here and there.

After pan-frying them in a cast iron skillet with some canola oil, they come out looking like this…

Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage (fully cooked, and now cooked, pan-fried in canola oil)

Notice I cut half of the Sweet Maui Onion Sausage on the bias in pieces about 3/8″ thick, with the other half split along its entire length. Plated on there is half a Kula Sweet Maui Onion and some green onion strictly to enhance the theme and presentation.

Let’s have a bite…

How is it? Very mild, non-descript flavor. It’s a little sweet, yet otherwise tastes almost like a plain pork sausage with little to no spices or onion it. Being an onion lover myself, I was really hoping this was going to SCREAM onion, but it didn’t. For all I know, this could have simply been ground pork mixed simply with sugar and a little salt stuffed in a casing and that’s it. No more, no less.

Probably its best attribute is its snappy casing, so I would perhaps suggest they turn this into a Maui Onion Hot Dog, not sausage cured in a U-shape the way it is. I’d also suggest they try smoking it. I think that would really kick it up. Most of all, it really needs more onion flavor than it currently has. When the label reads “Sweet Onion Sausage”, that’s what I want to taste, not just pork.

Now you know me, where I won’t leave be as be when it comes to food, and always look for new ways to incorporate an ingredient. Being I’ve been on a Banh Mi Vietnamese Sandwich kick lately, I decided to incorporate this Sweet Maui Onion Sausage into one to see if it might be a revelation…

Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage Banh Mi Sandwich with slices of Hawaii Kai Pirie Mango served on the side

OK, now imagine you’re vacationing on Maui overlooking the beautiful blue shoreline and white sandy beach at some trendy, upscale pacific rim fusion restaurant right on the oceanfront. There on the menu you see this:  Maui Onion Sausage Banh Mi – A classic Vietnamese-French fusion sandwich, served “Valley Isle Style”, with a thick cut of Maui Sweet Onion Sausage grilled to juicy perfection, laid upon a generous helping of butter-sauteed Sweet Maui Onions from Kula and topped with sliced fresh Japanese cucumber, Sweet Thai Basil, mint, cilantro and Do Chua (Vietnamese pickled Daikon and carrot). Served between a supple ‘n crusty, toasted French Baguette slathered with Island Aioli, and accompanied with fresh, cold and sweet Hawaii Kai Pirie Mango slices. $$$

Ha? How you figgah? Sounds goooood eh? I sure as heck would consider that as a lunch entree dining oceanfront on Maui!

Well, for the most part I made it as described above. So how did it taste? By itself, to be honest the sausage’s lack of Maui Onion flavor didn’t do much for it. Surprisingly, neither did the butter-sauteed Kula Maui Onions it was bedded on.

Perhaps if I had grilled the sausage on charcoal or Kiawe, that smokiness would have added plenty more life to the party, but as is pan-fried, it wasn’t much better than what I normally put in my Banh Mi, which are turkey cold cuts.

You know what really kicked it up? The Mango! Yup, the sweet Pirie Mango totally grooved with the porky-pork sausage. It then became that fruity-porky marriage-made-in-heaven that I was looking for. So I ended up taking a few of those mango slices on the side and crammed them into the sandwich as best as I could without the whole thing falling apart. A little smashing and it worked out fine.  THEN it became that “Maui’s Gold Coast” sandwich I was looking for, and would have definitely been worth the premium price I hypothetically may have paid for it.

Summing it up, Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage from Uncle Louie’s is a great idea that just needs a little recipe tweaking to make it not just decent or good, but GREAT!  Namely more onion flavor, along with what I’d suggest is to smoke it at least a little, or if not that, play more with the spice blends.  Until that happens, I wouldn’t quite yet put this on my “must do list” of things to bring home from Maui.

Yet the name and concept alone — ‘Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage’ — is VERY marketable and enticing, while its exclusivity to the Valley Isle is all the more reason, at least for novelty sake, where I’d suggest to at least pick-up a couple packages to give away as Omiyage (gifts) and to try yourself.

What? Maui’s Sweet Onion Sausage
Where did you buy it and how much did it cost? (Omiyage), purchased directly from Uncle Louie’s Sausage Company factory retail outlet. $2.08 per 6 oz. package (single sausage). Uncle Louie’s Sausage Co. 190 E. Alamaha St. Kahului, Hawaii  96732 Tel. (808) 871-7544
Big Shaka to: Mildly sweet pork has potential. “Tight” filling texture. Decent fat marbling. Snappy casing. EXCELLENT when paired with fresh, ripe, sweet Pirie Mango!
No shaka to: Where’s the Maui Onion? Where’s the spices? Where’s the FLAVOR?
SPAM Musubi rating: 2

Related links:
• So Sweet, They’ll Make You Cry: Maui Onions are mild and friendly – Island Scene
• Ah Fook’s No Ka Oi Brand Portuguese Sausage – The Tasty Island
• Hilo Eats: Kulana Blood Sausage – The Tasty Island
• Goteborg Musubi Project – The Tasty Island
• Beyond Lup Cheong and Rice – The Tasty Island
• Kim Chee, Pastele and Chorizo Sausages – The Tasty Island
• The Great Portuguese Sausage Shootout – The Tasty Island

P.S. Here’s that package of Maui® Kula® Sweet Onions, which I purchased from Don Quijote…

They’re packed by MAUI FARMERS’ COOPERATIVE EXCHANGE, located in Wailuku, Maui.

Here we have a peeled Maui Kula Sweet Onion on the left, and a standard peeled yellow onion on the right…

The Maui Onion has a more oblong shape (like a football) compared to the spherical-shaped round yellow onion.

Here they are cut in half…

Comparing their flavor, this particular crop of Maui Onion is definitely sweeter, but it didn’t “wow” me as far as that’s concerned. While I didn’t have any on this occasion to compare with, I remember trying a Vidalia a few years ago and was very impressed with how sweet that one was.  More noticeable with this Kula Maui variety was its higher water content than the round onion, along with significantly less “tear factor” due to that low sulfur and Pyruvic acid content.

There’s certainly a time and place in the kitchen for Maui or yellow onions, depending what you’re preparing. Yet at least in my book, no question about it, anything with the name “Maui” tagged to it just sounds like it tastes better!