The Artisan Farmher
(Halwill, Nth Devon) -
Black Pepper & Fennel JumbosWe were contacted by the owner/operator of the Natures Rest Collective, in Halwill, North Devon recently. They wanted us to try their sausage product and say what we thought about it before they began promoting any commercial activity in selling such. The Artisan Farmher (a lady farmer) stressed that they don't use any artificial ingredients or chemical preservatives in the products at all. Sounds interesting...
Now we would like to avoid repeating
what can be read on their web site
about the ethics for Natures Rest
Collective, so please use the link
provided below.
Tracey
Slocombe (The Artisan Farmher) has
told us that all their sausages are
made from their own free range,
pastured, rare breed Welsh White
pigs, using their own unique blend
of ingredients and are hand tied in
natural casings. They also benefit
from being both totally UPF and Gluten
free!
Tracey added
that all the pork was outdoor reared
on a nature reserve, fed fruit
daily, antibiotic free, nothing
artificial, no preservatives, no
allergens, homegrown ingredients
used beyond organic garlic and
bought in organic Duchy Oranges as
she hadn’t managed to grow any of
those…yet it was great that the
public were waking up to the tricks
of the commercial convenience food
industry at last but were they
prepared for the real price and
inconvenience of doing real food
properly? This is a very
good point worth making.
We'd
received a cold box of frozen product
and we
had popped a couple of the samples in
the freezer to review at a later
stage. The pack of Black Pepper &
Fennel Jumbos thawed out quite
nicely too when it was their turn.
80% plus free range pork with
course black pepper, fennel seeds,
homegrown garlic, sea salt flakes
and organic buckwheat flour. Totally
UPF and gluten free. I
personally like fennel in sausage. I
like Italian rustic sausages so you
get fennel in those, however just as
I don't prefer some flavours, the
troops have their preferences too,
which unfortunately isn't fennel!
We'll give them a go...
Now
straightaway we noticed that the 4
jumbo sausages were somewhat
irregular in size. OK they are
handmade and hand tied, but the
varience in size was really
noticeable. eg.
a: 160x30mm
// 142g
b: 118x30mm // 112g
c: 125x30mm // 123g
d: 115x20mm
(a little squashed) // 59g
The natural skins were fairly well
filled but the smallest sausage was
quite baggy, and it was this one
that shrank considerably when cooked
unfortunately. See photos.
Yes you get the fennel aroma as they
come up to temperature in the pan
for sure and the garlic, let's not
overlook that. No splits or bursts of
skins and no excess oil in the pan
after cooking though, and also none
of that white emulsion thankfully.
The cooked texture a good
medium. Certainly well minced in the
making. A good bite and chew though.
Tastewise I liked them but we had a
desenter or two unfortunately. Look
the fennel wasn't overpowering at
all and the slight buzz from pepper
was really nice. The just a touch of
garlic was very good too.
We picked a
mid sized one (example b:) for our
review which had fairly reasonable
results in the weight loss and
shrinkage figures. We'll ignore the
"small one"...
Personally, I
liked them, however the troops not so
unfortunately. £16.00/kg isn't too
expensive these days for decent
sausages but as Tracey has
said, you do need to be prepared for
the real price and inconvenience of
doing real food properly!
These
Black Pepper & Fennel Jumbos are very good
too.
The Artisan Farmher (Halwill, Nth
Devon) - Black Pepper & Fennel
Jumbos
(Mar
2025)
Here's the
sample details:
118x30mm before cooking, 110x30mm
after.
112g before cooking, 104g after
approx.
That's a shrinkage of approx 7% & weight loss of approx
7%. 4 jumbos loose 436g @ £7
(approx £16.00/kg)
natures-rest.yolasite.com
For more information, or to
order you can contact Natures Rest
via phone/text (07737775205)
or
through their Facebook page
