The Artisan Farmher
(Halwill, Nth Devon) - Orange & Chipotle
PinwheelWe were contacted by the owner/operator of the Natures Rest Collective, in Halwill, North Devon recently who said they would like us to receive some samples of their sausage product and would really appreciate our honest reviews of such. The Artisan Farmher (a lady farmer) stressed that they avoid any artificial ingredients or chemical preservatives in the products completely. After sampling the Garlic & Black Pepper sausages previously, these pinwheels sound interesting too...
Now we would like to avoid repeating
what can be read on their web site
about the ethics for Natures Rest
Collective, so there's a link to
their web site below that's got a
whole host of information about what
they are, and what they're about,
and what they offer.
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! 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 real
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? Which
remains a very good point.
In
the cold box of frozen product we
recieved (once we had recovered from
the heady garlic "fumes"
of the Garlic & Black Pepper
sausages that is...only joking) we
picked the pack of pinwheels to look
at next. These pinwheels came
wound but not held (2 to a pack) and I did wonder how to
keep them from unwinding whilst
cooking. We utilised a couple of
skewers, that not only held
the shape but also you could handle
them to assist in
turning them in the pan. Could have
been old school and used butchers
metal skewers, but we used wooden
ones. See photos.
It would be fair to say that our
normal reviews are on what's sort of
recognised as "sausage links". These
pinwheels being what is perhaps a
long wound sausage of what would be
3 regular butchers sausages end to
end, does cause a slight problem
with comparing things in our reviews
as we normally would do. We could
have unwound a bit, fiddled about
and twisted that off to make a
regular sausage agreed, yes, yes, however
that's not what we did. We decided
to
review these as they were and give our honest opinions
as we always do...
80% plus
free range pork with real organic
Duchy oranges, chipotle chilli
flakes, chilli powder, sea salt
flakes, buckwheat flour, gluten free
and non-UPF in natural skins really does sound good,
especially when you find that the
oranges used are not dried ones but
"fresh"...
Now these
particular sausages do have a bit more
buckwheat flour added than the
others from Natures Rest to help hold
in the orange juice and flavour we
are informed.
Cooking up
there was a delightful aroma of
orange and chilli. The sausage
browned really well, and although we
noticed quite a bit of weight loss,
there wasn't any extra oil in the
pan? Ah! the fresh juice and
moisture cooking off.
We did
notice however a bit of that white
emulsion on the skins as the sausage
came up to temperature. This
disappeared to be honest in the
cooking but is likely to have been
where these sausages have no
chemical emulsifiers like factory
made sausages would contain. The
emulsifiers act as a binder to help
hold in the fat we are told.
The
texture was very good, firm but with
a good chew. The flavour, wow, if
you like chilli you'll like these.
Not so powerful it knocks your socks
off, but a deep and full of flavour
you'd expect from that smoky
chipotle chilli.
The real
pieces of orange in the meaty
insides did give it another
dimension too, really very very
good.
Now, at nearly £21.00 a kilo these are
totally in to premium sausage
territory, and yes expensive, however as Tracey has
said, you need to be prepared for
the real price and inconvenience of
doing real food properly!
These
Orange & Chipotle Pinwheels are really
very good.
The Artisan Farmher (Halwill, Nth
Devon) - Orange & Chipotle Pinwheel
(Mar
2025)
Here's the
sample details:
165g before cooking, 135g after.
That's a weight loss of approx
18%.
2 pinwheel sausages / 330g @ £7
(approx £21.00/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
