Burton's
(Saffron Walden)
- Homemade PorkHaven't been to Burtons in a long time so when in Saffron Walden recently for an early New Year family afternoon tea I left the ladies briefly at the very nice TipTree Tea Room and nipped across the square to the butchers...
Yes I got a good telling off on my return for disappearing to buy sausages, but come on, someone has to do it!
Burton's is a well respected family run retail and catering butchery business, located in the heart of the historic market town of Saffron Walden, Essex, at the corner of King Street and Market Passage. A popular butchers shop by all accounts and very busy that Saturday.
Burtons had a good selection of sausages but I thought we'd go with a plain and simple pork one this time. Our last review was their King Street sausage but that was quite some time ago, in fact much too long ago really. I should have made more of an effort to pop in the shop before now.
80% top quality pork is used that comes from Blythburgh Pork, who are a very well respected supplier based in Suffolk. I read that the "Blythburgh pig is born in a straw filled farrowing hut located on the sandy earth of the Suffolk heritage coast. Its mother has a free range life style with the choice of being outside if it sunbathing weather or staying inside if it’s raining. Really being free range is as simple as that really, it’s giving the pig the freedom to choose to go outside or not." (extract from the Blythburgh web site) Also intensively farmed pigs it would appear go to processing around 19 weeks, however the Blythburgh stay on until around 26 weeks. Animal welfare is excellent we are told.
The casings are all natural and look high quality too BTW.
Cooked up (we pan fry our samples as you are probably aware) the skins tightened down and browned really well with no splits. Again and as expected there was minimal residual oil in the pan remaining, and definitely none of that horrible white stuff leaking out that we see from so many run of the mill sausages these days!
The King Street sausages had more seasoning and spice added than the Traditional sausage we're told. So hopefully here we were looking for a mild lingering spice taste as these are more like a traditional...and we were not wrong. Lovely.
The texture was reasonably medium to firm, but with a real juicy succulence. They cut easily without that tearing you get with some inferior alternatives from elsewhere. You know the sort. These sausages are big. 120mm x 32mm is practically a log! No disrespect, just a big snorker.
These sausages are really worth a try…and take it from us, you'll like these!
Burton's (Saffron Walden) - Homemade Pork
(Jan
2023)
Here's the
sample details:
120x32mm before cooking, 115x30mm
after.
116g before cooking, 109g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 10% & weight
loss of approx 6%.
Burton's
Butchers
9 King Street
Saffron Walden
Essex CB10 1HE
01799 5222709
