Sausage Review - we review sausages

Diddly Squat Farm (Chipping Norton) - Jeremy's Sandy & Black Forest Sausages

Ok let's cut to the chase. We like others (we did happen to be taking a weekend away in Stow-on-the-Wold at the time) we made a sort of pilgrimage to the farm shop. Come on it's had so much press, TV and exposure via Amazon Prime, we wanted to see it in the flesh so to speak...

Yes it was busy, but having granny and her blue badge with us we did cop a "less able parking space" right outside the shop door. Granny (93 years) even pushed her walker round the shop and encouraged us to buy sausages, bacon and have a go at getting a bottle of milk filled from the dispenser outside. She was so pleased she had actually been to visit the farm shop and to see what all the fuss has been about. She's been quite open about her views regarding Mr Clarkson, but that aside does agree with his whole hearted support of British farming.

So what about the sausages?

Well those that have watched the goings on, through Amazon Prime regarding the pigs on the farm, we can be assured where the pork originates from. Oxford Sandy & Black pigs are a well known breed producing flavoursome pork product. Outdoor reared in their "igloo" pens and free to rummage in their forest area. All lovely but...

When we got back to our AirBnB in Stow, I noticed we had bought sausages with UN-NATURAL skins! The farm shop gets their sausages made up by Hook Norton Butchers of Banbury, and it appears that the option chosen for the skins has been what appears to be collagen or cellulose. Now we've had so much experience with these we knew what would happen when we fried these sausages up. Yep, the skins go really rubbery and split lengthwise and roll away from the sausage meat. Yes you say, why do you fry them? We do this for consistency of sampling as we've said before, and yes if you air fry, or oven bake you may not experience this of course.

The texture of the cooked sausage was very good, as was the taste, but the rubbery casings spoilt what could have been a "stonkingly good" sausage unfortunately. The rubbery cases spoilt the "mouth feel" as you chewed. Seasoning was spot on for us, so a very good sausage, with a not so good skin.

Price-wise not bad for a simple pack of sausages, and yes we hear that the farm shop does have slightly higher pricing on some items (eg. remember the nettle soup).

We couldn't find the meat percentage figure from the labelling but we'd say high 70's at least. Not gluten free though as they contain rusk and wheat flour.

Would we buy some again?  Possibly, in support of British farming of course.


Diddly Squat Farm (Chipping Norton) - Jeremy's Sandy & Black Forest (May 2024)

Here's the sample details:
150x28mm before cooking, 145x28mm after.
82g before cooking, 74g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 4% & weight loss of approx 9%.
4 sausages in a 340g pack £4.50  (£13.20/kg)

    

 

The Diddly Squat Farm Shop
5-12 Chipping Norton Road,
Chipping Norton, OX7 3PE

Open: Wednesday to Sunday - 9.30am to 4:30pm & Bank Holidays

diddlysquatfarmshop.com