Sausage Review - we review sausages

On a sausage quest recently we called in to the Coton Orchard Garden Centre just south of Cambridge off the M11 (Junc 13) and picked up some pork & herbs from the in-house butchery within the food hall.  The sausages came from Stephens in St Ives.  No, not that St Ives, the one near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire...

Stephens is a traditional family butchers and delicatessen with shops in both St Ives and St Neots.  The in-house butchery at the garden centre is imminently changing hands we're told and the current butcher is taking over under a different name.  Hmm? Another trip to see what he produces then?

These pork and herb sausages looked very good in the display, but we did notice that they were very soft and "squidgy" in the bag.  The skins were a bit baggy to the touch.  Now we've come across this before and normally what happens is the skins tighten down when cooking and firm up.  Both good colour and quality of skins were noted.

These rather chunky sausages did cook up well with lovely colouring in the pan, and yes the skins did tighten up!  In fact the sausages plumped slightly and whilst they did lose a bit of weight the shrinkage figure overall was absolute minimum.

Quite an open texture you'll note from the slice photo below which made for a somewhat soft-ish bite and chew.  Not a bad thing though at all.  Good skins with no splits.

The flavouring was herby as it should be with the seasoning and salt very much under control. 

We used the sausages with creamy mash, onions and thick gravy and they ate very well.   Even got a thumbs up from one of our more difficult to please team members!

A very nice sausage, not sure though with the softness how they would work with being baked in a toad though.  We'll get some more, give it a go and report back...


Stephens (St Ives) - Pork & Herb    (Mar 2017)

Here's the sample details:
108x30mm before cooking, 100x32mm after.
77g before cooking, 67g after.
That's a shrinkage of 1% & weight loss of approx 12%.
6 loose sausages £3.90   (£8.25/kg)

  

Stephens Family Butchers

5 Station Rd (opposite Waitrose) St Ives , Cambs - 01480 494153
Market Square (next to Greggs) St Neots - 01480 2188018 

www.stephensfamilybutchers.co.uk