Sausage Review - we review sausages

AG Smith (Boreham) - Cumberland

Runners up in the recent 2012 Maldon Best of British Sausage Awards, AG Smith of Boreham (nr Chelmsford) with their cumberland pork were next for a review...they look good so let's see...

The butcher had informed me that these porkers are over 75% meat and I must say they look very good.  Good colour, good skins without any bagginess and a proper firmness of contents.  At 110 x 30mm on average in the eight we bought, a good value for money size.

Cooked up they're a tasty, medium/coarse texture, very meaty and succulent. Heavy on sage, which unfortunately slightly overpowered any other spice, but still a very good result. If you like a sage heavy sausage you'll like these. The skins however did cause concern. 

Even with moderate heat under the pan the skins of the two samples split badly, almost rupturing to the point where they were hardly a sausage anymore. We quickly put another in the pan and reduced the heat even more and although we experienced a minor split, the result wasn't spoilt as in the previous attempt.  Not withstanding the previous bursting event, the taste of all the samples were very good.

So to conclude a very satisfying cumberland sausage with plenty of flavour...shame about the bursting skins...and of coarse excellent value!

AG Smith (Boreham) - Cumberland    (Aug 2012)

Here's the sample details:
110x30mm before cooking, 100x30mm after.
61g before cooking, 58g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 9% & weight loss of approx 5%.
8 sausages £3.00 (approx £6.20/kg)

AG Smith - Butchers
Plantation Road,
Chelmsford,
Essex
CM3 3DZ