Sausage Review - we review sausages

Visiting family in Scotland recently for a week or so, did give us the opportunity to sample some sausage delights that our Scottish side of family have been banging on about for quite awhile? Even granny got in on the act asking whether we would be sampling any Puddledub's? OK ok, we're on the case...

We booked up a lodge in the Loch Leven area near Kinross, which is a lovely place to stay by the way, and found a rather nice "farm shop" locally at Lochend to stock up on our food stuffs. Well bless me, I was heard to utter...Puddledub sausages! Well, you really can't miss an opportunity like that when it's right in front of you in the cold display.

Now, these sausages are smallish in size you'll note, but they are not labelled as chipolatas. So this left us in a bit of a quandary. Do we call them chipolatas when the packaging doesn't. Hmm? We decided to go with the labelling. These are not chipolatas then...mind you good looking sausages all the same and with 10 in a 458g pack for £4.17 that's not too bad at all we thought.

The "Just A Plain Pork Sausage" appears to be Puddledub’s bestselling sausage.  Their sausages are made using natural skins and seasonings, and are traditionally hand-linked on the Auchtertool farm using their own homegrown pork. Simply seasoned with salt and pepper, so these sausages are delicious and versatile they say. Hmm?

So weighing in at approx 46g per sausage, with a dimension of approx 90mm x 18mm, uncooked, these are not what we would normally called full sized bangers! However they did look a good sausage in the pack.

We decided to pan fry these as we do all our sampling to keep it consistent. Thankfully they cooked up really well (Unfortunately not having our normal sampling pan with us this time we made do) and although the natural skins didn't crisp up to make them snappy, we didn't have any bursts or major splits. A little residual oil remained in the pan from cooking, but I hasten to add a miniscule amount, so as not to worry about.

The texture was smooth-ish and on the soft side, and the bite on these was notably very easy.  I found this Ok but not what I was expecting for a 75% pork sausage containing wheat rusk as a binder. The team generally liked them but they were not overly impressed unfortunately.

We agreed that as an everyday sausage, yes these will do nicely! 

We note from the Puddledub web site (please see link below) there are other varieties available, which next time we are in the locale, we will aim to try perhaps the "Auchtertool Originals" as these may have been the ones that the family had been on about. Perhaps?


Puddledub (Auchtertool, Fife) - Plain Pork    (May 2022)

Here's the sample details:
90x18mm before cooking, 90x17mm after.
46g before cooking, 44g after.
That's a shrinkage of 5% & weight loss of approx 4%.
10 sausages in a 458g pack £4.17 (£9.10/kg approx)

   

 

Puddledub
Clentrie Farm,
Auchtertool,
Kirkcaldy,
Fife KY2 5XG

01592 7831572

www.puddledub.co.uk