JTB Butchers (St
Albans, Herts) - Sandridgebury Farm Another from JTB to follow their rather nice Welsh Dragon sausage we reviewed last time. This is no ordinary little butchers shop run by Claire and brother John...
It may be tucked away on a farm, down a quiet country lane but we found it quiet easily. JTB is a small butchers shop in anyones opinion but it is one that also sells a wide selections of fruit and veg, eggs, savoury pastries, an emense variety of condiments and oils, and serves teas & coffees, and has customers in and out constantly. It is well suported by the local community and has some most wonderful looking produce on sale. We took the time to have a cuppa while we waited on some chipolatas to be made as it happens, and the customers there we spoke to constantly praised the efforts of Claire and brother John.
Established in 2002 by John Pender (Claire and John's father) and simply called "John the butchers" hence the JTB, located in the converted bothy of Sandridgebury Farm is in an out of the way location agreed but there's parking opposite the stables and riding school next door, and a seating area outside the shop to "take tea", have an ice cream, a bacon bap or a hot chocolate...
A busy butchers shop, yes, but John, Claire and their sausage man Stuart had time to have a chat about their sausage produce which is all hand made and tied on site using all natural skins. Their venison and red wine sausages looked very appealing too...perhaps next time?
However on the recomendation of a regular customer we bought some rather good looking and very popular by all accounts, Sandridgebury Farm porks. We were told they were mildly seasoned and were a regularly purchased favourite by that customer.
So 85%+ pork meat, this being supplied by Ludgates sourced from free range Oxfordshire farms. From what we read, TW Ludgates source from Woods Farm in Oxfordshire. All Pigs are born and reared outside and finished in straw yards. All are from RSPCA Freedom Foods Accredited Herds.
These rather large well filled sausages have seasoning as advised by John, with pepper and nutmeg to give a mildly spiced flavour.
As they cooked up they did look pretty good. Unfortunately we did get quite a few eruptions from the sausage ends as the skins browned, tightened and squeezed down of the filling. Yes OK that's not the end of the world but is somewhat untidy. The twists between the sausages did seem a bit tight. No split skins though which given the well filled skins and the medium texture of the filling was very good in our book. However we did notice that the skins seemed to be "sweating". This wasn't so much as it just looked like little beads of moisture or oil which did unfortunately start to burn and leave a sticky residue in the pan which was making the sausages stick to the bottom of the non-stick pan. Now we've seen this before and what we do is to start another frying pan and transfer the sausages across to it to continue cooking. Using this method did stop the over browning and sticking thankfully.
The cooked sausage texture was as we've said a good medium and retained very good sucullence. The flavour was mildly peppery and very nice as it happens, but the skins did have a slight rubberiness which did surprise us. We must ask about this when we call in again.
Shrinkage from cooking wasn't bad, but the weight loss at 16% was difficut to ignore. Mind you these are large sausages and there was plenty there.
Like with our other review, I kept a half sausage back to try once cold. The texture had firmed up, the skins were not at all rubbery and the taste was very good.
All in all not too dusty. A pretty good sausage and fair value in anyones book.
Yes we would buy again, but perhaps oven bake or caserole to cook next time.
JTB Butchers (St Albans, Herts) -
Sandridgebury Farm
(Aug
2025)
Here's the
sample details:
120x30mm before cooking, 110x30mm
after.
95g before cooking, 79g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 8% & weight loss of approx
15%.
6 loose sausages (600g) £8.39 approx
(£13.99/kg)
www.jtb-butchers.co.uk
JTB (John the Butchers)
Sandridgebury Farm,
Sandridgebury Lane,
St Albans
AL3 6JB
Opening times:
Tuesday -
Friday 8.30am-5pm
Saturday
8am-4pm
Sunday - Closed
Monday
- Closed
01727 852152
