Sausage Review - we review sausages

The kind people at Porky Whites sent us a range of their sausages so we could update our reviews. So here goes with their Premium Succulent Hog Roast & Apple sausages...

The Porky Whites packaging has the recently been updated to a new style which we understand to be referred to as "dinner inspiration" and like their other packs it also carries a novel QR code on the back which links to some interesting recipes etc., on Porky Whites own web site. This packaging says that these are made from 82% of the finest cuts of pork with the sweetness of diced fresh apples and some warm spices for the taste of a succulent hog roast...they do like their statements!

Now the pork is described once again as from UK and non-UK sources, which isn't as specific as we would like to be honest given the amount of interest of such Sausage Review readers have said they would like. As we've said previously we'll continue to investigate this but we have read from the Porky Whites web site that "Almost all of the meat sourced for our products comes from within the UK with some additional supplies coming from trusted EU farms to make up any shortfall of UK supplies. We always ensure that animal welfare is a priority and over 90% of our suppliers are either RSPCA or Red Tractor accredited." (A figure of 100% should be the case really)

Once again we would have preferred natural skins on these but it appears that quite a few manufacturers nowadays have switched to using casings that are the collagen type. I'm sure you've probably read previously our views on these and the difficulty we've had trying to cook such by pan frying and trying to avoid the skins splitting and in some cases going all "rubbery" and peeling off. OK yes it might not bother some, but it does bother us, and frankly others we have spoken to.

In the raw they looked OK weighing in around 67g a go and in a fairly standard size it seems at 105mm x 28mm uncooked. We note also "rusk" containing wheat flour in the ingredients, so these are unlikely to be gluten free.

We used the recommended guidelines on the packet regarding shallow frying (as we do all our sampling), and once again this time we cooked at a much lower temperature and for longer than the 15mins the packaging recommends. We utilised a catering thermometer to check the internal temperature and made sure that we exceeded a temperature of 71°C for 20 seconds to make sure they were cooked sufficiently.

They cooked up OK but even being very careful with the temperature the skins split yet again as predicted and peeled.  This fact isn't a show stopper OK but rubbery bits of skin showing does nothing for the overall look when dishing up. Perhaps we are being altogether too fussy, but come on things like this do matter. The cases need to retain the contents and keep the sausage succullent, having large gashes in the skins does let the juices/oils out. Yes we had splits this time but fortunately like the Farmhouse Herbs, no burnt residues to contend with.

No shrinkage but a cooked weight loss of approx 15% was found which unfortunately couldn't be ignored.

The sausages did cut easily and the texture was just about medium.  The bite and chew was good and the "warm spices" were good too but the apple pieces were some what tough which was odd as the succulence was pretty good. Not sure why the toughness of the apple though. Did we over cook? The fact remains the apple pieces weren't as expected and spoiled the sausages to be honest. 

Not sure we would buy these as part of our weekly shop, but they were pretty fair sausages that you may enjoy cooked differently if you were to oven bake or casserole them rather than pan frying. Just saying.

Look, this is our honest opinion and of course it may differ completely from your own. If you don't agree or have yourselves a comment or two about these, we'd be pleased to hear about it.


Porky White's (Surrey) - Premium Hog Roast & Apple (May 2025)

Here's the sample details:
105x28mm before cooking, 105x28mm after.
67g before cooking, 57g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 0% & weight loss of approx 15%.
6 sausages in a 400g pack retails online at Tesco, Sainsburys etc £3.50 (£8.75/kg approx).


   






  

www.porkywhites.com