Sausage Review - we review sausages

Chipolatas - perhaps the solution to the smaller portion size?

July 2013

Chipolatas anyone? Have you noticed that producers are regularly making and selling good quality smaller versions of their main stream sausages as chipolatas? Now there was a time that chipolatas were seen as "kids food", but I have been surprised at the number of adults who we have spoken to recently about our sausage reviews who actually enjoy and would recommend chipolatas as an everyday sausage to eat.  OK not "everyday" we all know the health warnings and implications about consumption of fatty foods.


Photo of the excellent Churchgate Sausage Co - Pork Chipolata (Review)


However good quality chipolatas do come in at roughly about half the calories, fat and carbs of their bigger brothers from what we can see on the labelling, so 2 on a plate with your choice of mash, onions and gravy for example, in your mind, this may still be a completely satisfying meal.  Perhaps?

It seems to be the practice though to produce the chipolatas with their mix minced (ground) a bit finer so it will go easier in to the smaller diameter cases/skins, but essentially it's the virtually the same recipe that's being used.  OK some producers will do a slightly different mix for their chipolatas but please stay with me on this on the principle.  Yes we know sadly that you can get budget and value chipolatas out their from cheap shops and supermarkets that are horrible "fat sticks" which contain the absolute minimum percentages of meat plus heaven knows what else as fillers.  I'm really referring to choosing "quality produced" chipolatas here.

We are essentially talking of the psychological impact of the way you present food.  I am convinced that we have been conditioned that anything less than 2 sausages on a plate (with whatever you fancy...OK fellas I don't mean 2 more sausages!) is the minimum to make a good meal. 

I tried this recently with the family evening meal.  Sausage, mash and onion gravy all round using 2 very good quality chipolatas instead of 2 full porkers each. No complaints. In fact one of the ladies said she preferred the choice of chipolatas and would happily have those again.  OK a salad might have been dramatically less calories rather than mash and onions, and certainly the balsamic vinegar laced gravy, but it's the principle of effectively reducing portion size and still enjoying your food I'm banging on about.

OK yes I know, you could just dish up some of those "low fat" full size sausages I wrote about previously, but really this isn't what I see as the way forward. 

Adjusting to a smaller portion size though is probably going to be hard going I agree, but let's not kid ourselves too much that just dishing up less and serving such on smaller plates is going to fix everything.

Try the chipolatas in place of the full size porkers next family meal time and see the reaction...if it works...way forward.