Sausage Review - we review sausages

Porky White's (Surrey) - Award Winning Signature Surrey

The kind people at Porky Whites sent us a range of their sausages so we could update our reviews. Award winning in the 2024 UK Sausage Week competition saw this flavour become the Supreme Champion sausage no less...

Now we may have been a tad confused and may have inadvertantly, but not deliberately, misinformed in a previous review where we believed the sausages we sampled from Porky Whites (The Surrey Porks) way back in 2012 were infact the forerunner to Porky Whites Premium Traditional Pork. We may have been incorrect, as the seasoning to these Signature Surrey sausages are on review very similar. I'm sure someone will contact us and put us straight on this.

Made from 82% of the finest cuts of pork and a unique blend of seasoning with a hint of real honey and lemon juice it refers to on the sleeve. So there you go...

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.

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)

We would have preferred natural skins on these but it appears in late 2024 manufacture across majority of the Porky Whites range switched to that collagen type. (We are told though that they do produce some sausages in NATURAL skins for Morrisons on their in store Market Street...mind you I've visited 2 large stores and they've not had them available at all. Just saying.)

I'm sure you've probably read previously our views on these collagen casings 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 66g a go and this time in a slightly smaller size to other Porky Whites sausages (105mm x 25mm). We note also "rusk" containing wheat in the ingredients, so these are unlikely to be gluten free.

Now look, we have used the recommended guidelines on the packet regarding shallow frying (as we do all our sampling), however once again even cooking at a much lower temperature and for longer than the 15mins the packaging recommends the skins did split and peeled a bit unfortunately once again. We know we didn't overcook as 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.

OK we agree that this skin failure matter isn't a show stopper but rubbery bits of skin burning in the pan and sticking to the other sausages do 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 lets the juices/oils out. Yes we had splits this time but fortunately no burnt residues to contend with.

No shrinkage was found and a cooked weight loss of approx 15% was noted which couldn't be ignored. Also just a touch more oil in the pan after cooking was observed but thankfully the succulence was very good.

The sausages did cut easily and the texture was a good medium.  The bite and chew good too, and seasoning very good we are pleased to say, however a bit of hard matter was found in one sausage. We know this happens, but it wasn't something we were anticipating to be honest with award winning signature sausages that are even called "supreme sausages" on the reverse of the sleeve.

We ate these pan fried as part of a sausage and mash supper, which was very good. You may however get better results with the skins if you were to oven bake or casserole these rather than pan frying or airfrying. Just saying.

The bottom line and we'll be honest, we would buy these on our weekly supermarket shop (even in collagen skins), as they were very tasty.

Come on Porky Whites, how about doing these sausages in proper NATURAL skins for everyone, not just Morrisons customers? They are UK award winning, afterall.


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) - Award Winning Signature Surrey (May 2025)

Here's the sample details:
105x25mm before cooking, 105x25mm after.
66g before cooking, 56g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 0% & weight loss of approx 15%.
6 sausages in a 400g pack retails online at Morrisons £3.25 (£8.13/kg approx).

      

  

www.porkywhites.com