Redwood Butchery spices old-style sausages with horopito

Redwood Butchery owner Kevin Reardon (front) and Te Puia executive chef Shane Beattie cook up pork and horopito sausages for Te Puia's visitors. Photo/Supplied

A traditional, old-fashioned butchery has joined one of Rotorua's biggest tourist attractions to deliver a sausage with a uniquely Kiwi twist ahead of National Sausage Day on Friday.

Lynmore's Redwood Butchery is set to make about 7000 of the pork and horopito (New Zealand pepper tree) sausages over the summer after Te Puia selected the butchery to make the sausage to be sold over its peak season.

Redwood Butchery owner Kevin Reardon said it was the simplicity of their sausages, which are made of just meat, spices and water, that makes them so popular.

Horopito has a long history of use in Maori food and its hot spicy flavour is increasingly being used in modern cuisine as an alternative to pepper or chilli.

Te Puia executive chef Shane Beattie said the sausages would be served on flat bread with cabbage and puha (watercress) sauerkraut and a selection of chutneys, including tomato and karengo (seaweed) and smoked horopito aioli.

"The indigenous, spicy flavour of the horopito combined with the fattiness of the pork and the bitterness of the sauerkraut results in the perfect balance of flavours."

The sausages are cooked on the barbecue at Te Puia's new designated "hot section" where anyone visiting Te Puia can try one, including Rotorua residents entering on a whanau card.

The sausages will be available from November through to April 2018.

Mr Beattie said the team tried many of the sausages around town but decided that the Redwood Butchery had it nailed.

"Not only are their sausages great, but the service they provide and the genuine type of people they are all made it an easy choice for us."

Mr Reardon, who has been a butcher for more than 35 years, opened Redwood Butchery with his son Quinny three years ago and they make everything on site.

"Redwood's meat all comes from New Zealand and we use traditional methods to make our sausages, which includes a mincer, a water-powered sausage filler and our hands - no fancy stuff.

"Our sausage filler is over 50 years old - it's our good luck charm. Everyone wants to do things, quicker and cheaper but I've been doing the same thing as I did 35 years ago and it works for us."