Blackwells (Coggleshall) -
Red DragonA recent NFU Countryside magazine we received had a "Farm Shop of the Month" article and featured Blackwells Farm Shop. It would be poor form wouldn't it when passing not to call in for some sausages...
The well stocked farm shop is a short drive up Colne Road (A120 / B1024 junction) near Coggleshall, north towards Earls Colne...easy to find but a scary junction when turning right to cross the dual carriageway, so do take care.
Picked up some Red Dragon sausages along with some very good looking Old English sausages which we've previously reviewed. We were served by James who brought to our attention the blue boards on the farm shop wall indicating quite a list of some very good restaurants and butchers both locally and in London that Blackwells supply.
The Old
English were 87%
quality local pork in natural skins
so we'll assume that these are about
same. The skins were not bad
but they did appear quite dry, which
would lead us to believe they've
been on display a while. This
isn't something that is detrimental
to taste of coarse but just loses
points presentation-wise in our
view. Seemed to be a well made
product though.
Cooked up the skins browned well and you
could tell from the silence of the
troops on tasting, that these hit
the mark with a good tingle of
chilli.
The texture was on the smooth side
of medium, and they also retained reasonable
succulence. Bit of noticeable
weight loss unfortunately.
The bite and chew in my opinion was
pretty good but again one of the team
claimed the skins were a tad chewy.
You can't please some people!
Would we buy again? Yes I would for
sure...
Blackwells (Coggleshall) - Red
Dragon
(Mar 2015)
Here's the
sample details:
110x28mm before cooking, 100x28mm
after.
61g before cooking, 51g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 9% & weight loss of approx
16%.
Apologies, forgot to note the price.
Next visit.
Blackwells
Farm Shop
Herons Farm,
Colne Road,
Coggeshall,
Colchester,
Essex, CO6 ITQ
01376 5625006
www.blackwellsfarmproduce.co.uk
