Lidl Deluxe -
Pork & Caramelised Onion
OK, why these
we hear you remark...to be honest we saw a
review in the Sunday Express S-magazine
recently and
thought they gave them a 9/10, surely not?
These things have to be done...we are going
in!...
We picked up a pack from Lidl
in our travels and at £1.89 for a
400g pack of 6 sausages we were not entirely
sure we would be getting shall we say a
quality product even though the packaging
did say "deluxe" and "quality outdoor bred
British pork", and had the "Red Tractor" and
RSPCA Assured stamps.
80% pork blended with 9% caramelised onion
chutney, 3% roasted onion plus rice flour
(these are Gluten Free), onion powder, etc
etc all loaded in to natural pork skins.
On the face of it, the ingredients looked
OK. The raw sausage also looked OK
with nicely filled cases and the sausages
all still in a string. However the sausages
themselves did feel a little "soft" prior to
cooking, but hey the troops said, get on
with it!
So our method for testing/sampling for
consistency is to pan fry, yes we know you
may prefer using another method, but pan
frying is what we do. A dot of cooking
oil in the pan and temperature on a low heat
to just sizzle the sausages, avoiding
"case-hardening" them. Boy Scout
campfire sausages, black on the outside and raw pink
in the middle is definitely not what we do.
As soon as the sausages started to heat
through though, we noticed that pale ooze
appearing that does nothing for appearance
and frankly for us is a "de-merit"
straightaway. Yes the pale ooze goes
but it flows in to the pan and burns leaving
a very sticky residue that can coat the
sausages and make them stick in even a
non-stick pan.
The sample sausages also increased in size
width-wise to a point where the skins
contorted, leaked and a considerable amount
of liquid/juices were squirted in to the
pan. We tipped the pan out later and
found there was over 10g more of it than we
started with! Whilst 10g doesn't sound
a lot, that amount is considerable in terms
of liquid. Perhaps
we are being too critical about this but
there you go.
The skins themselves once cooked up also
proved very rubbery and tore rather than cut
cleanly with a knife. The chewing of
them was OK but not nice. However, the
actual taste/flavour was VERY GOOD.
The sweetness from the onion chutney etc.,
was well under control and texture of the
meat was soft(ish) but still certainly
acceptable at near medium.
The shrinkage and weight-loss though were
staggering unfortunately.
I cannot say personally that I enjoyed
these, but there a was a "thumbs up" as an
OK sausage from a couple of the team, but
how these sausages were given a 9/10 in the other
review is somewhat surprising.
Let's face it, you only get what you pay
for, and at £1.89 a pack, what can you
honestly expect when compared to premium
sausages?
Eaten cold, they were still sweet, a
tad slimy, and sorry, but they wouldn't be
something we would purchase again.
Lidl Deluxe - Pork & Caramelised
Onion
(Jun 2019)
Here's the
sample details:
110x30mm before cooking, 80x30mm
after.
68g before cooking, 51g after.
That's a shrinkage of 17% & weight
loss of approx 25%.
6 sausages in a 400g tray £1.89
(£4.72 / Kg approx)
Lidl
/ Cranswick Country Foods
76 Helsinki Road,
Sutton Fields Industrial Estate,
Hull, HU7 0YW