I'm quite particular about my sausage. Anything with too high a meat content seems dry and too dense, anything with too low a meat content is flacid & uninteresting. I'm also not a fan of herby sausages, preferring a plain pork variety. I used to buy Sainsburys Butchers Choice (generally picked up for £1.50 per 8), but they're changed the recipe recently. They seem to have far less fat now which whilst healthier, means that they don'[t cook as well on my George Foreman grill, or if frying I now need oil added to cook properly when I didn't before. They just don't seem as juicy and tasty as they used to be. I've tried Richmond - Bleugh. Something about their overall pinkness and plastic skin I just didn't like. Aldi & Lidl best quality ones seems a little under on meat content. just a bit lacking in substance. I had some Sainsburys taste the difference ones yesterday which were no doubt high quality with high meat content 88%, but they were so dense it felt like they weren't cooked enough even though they were. So I'm asking for your help. What bog standard supermarket sausages do you buy and like that you recommend I try next? Probably 60-70% meat content.
In this day and age people are moving away from the cheap crap and fat laden sausages of old. The best sausages I think are the packs of 18 you can get from Costco, reasonably priced and they have a few varieties as well; once you've have sausages from Costco you'd never want to get supermarket ones again.
Good recommendations so far I forgot, they've got to be a good fat banger. None of your cocktail or skinny sausages here. 8 to a pound would be about the size.
If you want a meat-free alternative (you probably don't) that tastes like a proper sausage, Cauldron is the way to go.
I've made my own (mainly lorne though because I'm really lazy and I've had problems storing the unused skins/casings) using rusk and flavourings from these guys for "years". PS. Their burger mixes produce something that's out of this world.
Just opened the spreadsheet for the calculator I use when mixing. Using the gold pork seasoning (the nicest one of their seasonings I've tried and my local supermarket frequently has lots of pork mince in the reduced section) the mixture is: 75% pork mince, 7.5% rusk, 15% water and 2.5% flavouring.
Yes. Caul. Neither of the local butchers I've asked sell it or seem interested in getting it in. Maybe I need to wait for Burns night and stock up.
http://www.maximumfun.org/shows/beef-and-dairy-network?page=1 Would also recommend the beef and diary network podcast: The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds
I agree with you about not too herby. I don't want my sausage to taste like herbs. The best sausage i've had, not really an every day sausage however, is M&S's Posh Dog. They're incredible.
I would strongly recommend the marmite sausages by giggly pig, they are often found at food fairs or markets. Managed to grab a couple more packs at the market in Aylesbury during the week in a rare trip back there.
Cumberland ring for me, a taste sensation. With mash potato, part of a fry-up or get the non-ringed version and put in a crusty roll with a bit of mustard..........hmmmmmmm This thread has unleashed a vivid childhood memory from way back. Last century in fact. Some friends used to bring back a Dutch sausage called a Frikandel. I've never seen them over here so a trip to Holland might be in order before the border shuts. I haven't had one since I was about 10, I'll probably think that they're discsuting now!
Lidl do a very respectable bratwurst, worth a go and I'll second the posh dog from M&S. anybody know where I can get some decent Scottish quality Lorne? Iceland and Morrisons do frozen packs of 12 but they are like cardboard.
Im pretty sure they are based in Essex yes! Got some hop flavoured ones to try as well which I am looking forward to.
Chez moi (apols. for the pi$$poor quality of the images). On Tuesday night I saw they had some cheap pork mince in Tesco: To the 500g of pork add 50g of rusk, 100g of iced water and 16g of flavouring: Mix and "shape" into lorne "slices" (I know I should shape into a blck and cut it, but at home this requires partial freezing of the sausage meat and I'm a bit dubious about freezing, thawing and refreezing pork) - the timer's there to show that entire process took under 20 mins: And vac-packed (possibly the most useful kitchen gadget I've got) for the freezer:
No need to be dubious if it was reasonably fresh in the first place. Honestly the fuss over refreezing meat is a bit of a fallacy because if it's not been long in a thawed state then bugs won't suddenly appear to send it bad, the biggest risk is a change of texture. Seafood is a bit more risky as it goes off quicker and no doubt much of it will have been partially thawed and refrozen at least once before i.e. after unloading at the dock.
Possibly if it was from a reputable seller but this is a bargain brand label from Tesco and as I feed it to my kids I'm going to err on the side of caution. [ANECDOTE] As I've mentioned on here a few times some of my hobbies, shooting and fishing, involve being out and about, sitting in all elements before dawn. Something I smelt and saw someone, next to me eat from a food flask one morning on a pier, was called "International Breakfast" a mixture of fried potatoes, onion, parsley, "bacon" and "sausage" and I was told to buy it from Iceland. I did, but they also did it in cheaper in Costco. Then Costco stopped doing it (it was a weekly treat when I was "out"), so I got it from Iceland. Then, oddly enough around the time of the horse-meat in food scandal, Iceland stopped doing it. Fast forward a year (or so) I decide to clear out my freezer and what's that stuck in the corner - a small amount of "international breakfast". So I call in a favour from one of my colleagues who's a dab-hand at PCR-ELISA, bribe her to be told that Spoiler: LOOK AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE RESULT.... the "sausage" I presented her with was 78% canine DNA - I didn't want to know what the bacon was. Trouble was, it was really delicious. [/ANECDOTE]
I've also tried making some fancy ones from game (pigeon, pheasant, rabbit) with added fat (rusk and spices) - but they just ended up tasting like very cheap imitations of basic shop-bought bangers. The lorne (recipe above) tastes like something else - really, really good. My lorne version of toad-the-hole (more like lasagne) would grace the table of a Michelin starred restaurant.