Low Fat Sausages - are you sure?

Low fat sausages? It's not the sort I would immediately think of buying, however it looks like there's members of the Weight Watchers community out there counting their calories that do and probably will be quick to quote their "pro points" of the ones they say they prefer.

Now call me cynical but how can a low fat sausage be anything like a "proper sausage"?

A properly made, shall we call it a traditional sausage, will have around say 20% fat in the mix.  If you go less than this, the result when cooked we're told can be a rather dry and the taste and feel just isn't right. So if you take out some of the fat, what can you put in to the sausage to still keep it moist and not affect the taste?

Producers it seems have access to alternatives (or fillers) to make lower fat content sausages where a proportion of the added fat in the mix is replaced with the likes of SOYA PROTEIN, "FAT REPLACER", GELATIN (or AGAR AGAR), NON FAT DRY MILK POWDER, POTATO STARCH and TAPIOCA FLOUR to name just a few.  These fillers absorb and bind with water to bulk and keep moisture within. OK I get that but it's the "fat replacer" that I have been told of as it sounds rather "industrial", that I wanted to know more about...

From some research I find that there's a dietary fibre (Inulin) developed originally in Belgium that's extracted from certain plants, that when mixed with water, results in a creamy emulsion/ paste that can be added to the sausage mix to replace some of the fat. This fat replacer holds moisture and because of it's neutral flavour gives the sausage when cooked little or no perceivable reduction in taste and the "mouth feel" is more consistent with a full fat sausage.

In speaking to a local producer I asked whether he would consider low fat production and his view was that it wouldn't make business sense for him to produce as the demand was very low.  He also added that if people really watching their weight wanted to reduce calorie intake then perhaps they shouldn't eat sausages at all?  Or at least, instead of a portion of 2, make it 1 thus seeing a reduction of 50% but still enjoy their meal perhaps?  

I can see where he's coming from but what are Low Fat Sausages like?

Recently we sampled some Powters (Newmarket) - Low Fat sausages and surprisingly they taste very good. They had a nice "herby" and spiced flavour, and certainly a very good medium texture with a slight crumble as you bite in to them. The skins browned well.  So certainly a sausage that seem to work as a sausage should. From the ingredients on the packet, there's no mention of a specific fat replacer so I expect that the mix is bulked with extra rusk which is probably why the texture is crumblier no doubt.

I wasn't convinced entirely though that these would replace "proper sausages"...

    


So, armed with some low fats and some standard Powters, I cooked up a sausage and mash for the troops to see what the results of a full comparison would bring.

The low fats were spotted immediately.  The texture gave them away. 

Quite crumbly compared with standard ones the troops reported.  I agree but at the end of the day, low fat Powters from what we've found are at least as close you are probably able to get to a proper sausage whilst still giving some reduction in fat content.

Weight Watchers: 2pp for 1, 5pp for 2 and 7pp for 3 - well, what ever that means?.......




See our full review and others at www.sausagereview.co.uk

What's a British standard size for a sausage then?

Well, what is the size of a standard British sausage? It's a good question and given from what we've sampled and reviewed over the last near 12 months there doesn't seem to be much of a consistent sizing across any producers. Now good casings (hog and the smaller sheep) are available in some standardisation for example, 22-24mm diameter for chipolatas, 29-31mm for medium sausages, and 32-35mm for thick sausages. Alternative cases in other material do go as small as 19mm diameter. Whereas some cases can go to 60mm or larger for salami production for example.

We're told that sausages used to be produced in "4, 8, 16 & 32 to the pound" giving some consistency in sizes, however in production now just how much mixture gets in to the case and how long it is between twists appears to be ultimately down to the individual sausage maker as you may expect.

A search on the internet won't find too much on this either, so let's look at our own sampling data and what we've found. For the larger pork sausages, lengths do vary between 95mm to a whopping 130mm, mind you, Cumberland lengths can go to 580mm! 

The point here too is that you can under fill a large case and produce a cooked sausage of much smaller diameter. It's a bit "baggy" but the casing will tighten and shrink down some on cooking. Alternatively over stuffing will produce a much larger cooked sausage, but the risk of splits and bursting are more likely. 






Chipolatas that we've seen and tried vary widely too. You would think that these would be shorter than the porkers but they do vary from 85mm to a long 140mm. Cocktail sausages would be much shorter again you would expect, but yes, it's down to the producer. Additionally with hand production we've noticed that there is sometimes a real variance between linked sausages in the same string, whereas with machine twisted production they do maintain more of a consistency. 

The producers we've spoken to about this don't seem to see a problem with it as the size of what they produce they say is just as important as the quality of meat and the flavour the customer enjoys. It's almost part of the marketing and creating some identity from what we can see. 


Take Oxhey Lane Farm Shop in Pinner, John Wiggett is proud to produce his sausages BIG, and says he well known for this and even produces much larger jumbo versions of his best sellers for some of his regular customers. 

It's the same with Durrants Farm (Margaretting), Emily Stockwell is also known locally for producing what is practically a "quarter pounder" individual cumberland sausage! 

So being different is what it's all about then. 
Standard sizing is really not necessary. 

Vive la difference! 

See our full review and others at www.sausagereview.co.uk

Top Sausage 2012 - Sweetlands - Flitch

Sweetlands of Dunmow produce small batches of their flitch sausage around the time of the "Dunmow Flitch Trials" in July / August, and also at other times to be honest, which celebrates an ancient ceremony to award a flitch of bacon to married couples from anywhere in the world, if they can satisfy the Judge and Jury of 6 maidens and 6 bachelors that in 'twelvemonth and a day', they have 'not wisht themselves unmarried again'.  
See http://www.dunmowflitchtrials.co.uk/

We've raved about Sweetlands Flitch sausages and quite rightly so we believe.  70% pork meat (also some added fat we were informed) plus bacon, tomato and basil.  A very good looking raw sausage I have to say.  Lovely skins and all tied properly. Presentation matters. 

Well, what a sausage!  An extremely course / crumbly texture with a medium bite and a succulent melt in the mouth experience.  The seasoning is just enough and the taste well, as far as I'm concerned, superb.  

There's a slight salty initial taste from the bacon, then the sweetness from the tomato comes through with the basil.  A good combination that works really well.

The skins cook up nice and make every mouthful a pleasure. We did however have a few split skins, but that may have been as I had the heat up a little too high initially under the pan. These aren't best grilled, so stick to sizzling them in a pan or oven baking.

A "stonkingly" good sausage.....and is our Top Sausage 2012.


See our full review and others at www.sausagereview.co.uk

Cocktail Sausages - what are they all about?

Most supermarkets sell retail packaged uncooked "small sausages", you know the rather pale pink, smooth, industrially produced looking sort, all regimentally aligned in their filmed packaging and all absolutely identical, which do seem to be very popular with children of all ages, and are no doubt a regular staple at your "little ones" birthday parties. However recently I've noticed specifically higher quality "cocktail sausages" appearing on the shelves alongside the more mainstream examples of sausage delight, but they seem to be just a smaller version of a chipolata, but are they?

It seems that a true "cocktail sausage" is something you can serve at a "party" or "soiree" either loose on a serving plate as finger food or with a cocktail stick stuck in each to help you pick them up and dip them.  You would eat these as you would with other delicacies, crudities and canapés, so a small sausage is ideal as it will be easy to eat in one or two bites, with or without a plate.

There appears there are quite a few variations to the theme such as pork, chicken, beef, and no doubt other meats and combinations if you can persuade your local butcher to run you up something different.  I've seen smoked salmon ones too, although I'm not sure about those personally!  There's even Kosher and Halal versions available from the right supplier!
Sauces to accompany these can be quite aromatic and thick such as sticky barbeque, chilli  ketchup, honey mustard or sweet & sour!  The sauces can be intense and strongly flavoured as your guests would perhaps just eat a couple along with the other fare.

We bought a pack of "cocktails" to try and as we are looking for a comparison, a pack of the same producers chipolatas went in to the basket too.  As the cocktail sausages lacked a specific meat percentage content on the label, we decided on a taste and texture comparison.  
Well we'll cut to the chase then.  In a blind tasting of these, I doubt whether you would taste any difference, so there you go!  The casings seem the same dimensionally and quality-wise, so why the extra cost for "cocktail sausages" above regular chipolatas?  Surely the extra twists on a chipolata sausage run for a producer can't amount to nearly an extra £2 / Kg?

I like a challenge, so within less than 5 minutes we've made some "cocktail sausages" out of the chipolatas we bought earlier!  With each chipolata, give each a bit of a squeeze a third of the way along it's length, four twists, move on to the next third and so on.  Cut them carefully apart and in the pan they go!

When cooking I half expected the little darlings to burst as the casings were pretty tight, but all was OK and I'll openly admit given the results from our test and the cost per kilo difference, we'll no doubt be buying chipolatas again to make our own "cocktail sausages" in the future...


See our full review and others at www.sausagereview.co.uk

"Other than pork"

We've been under pressure recently from a journalist friend and colleague to justify why we have been only sampling pork sausage!

He says that there's some really good, well made sausages out there in lamb, chicken and beef varieties...well bowing to his persistence on this we decided to go for it and buy in some "beef & cracked black pepper" just to get us started...

Hmm?  Yes they're OK I suppose but frankly taste and texture-wise I might as well have eaten a reasonable quality "beefburger"!

Now don't get me wrong a very well made sausage, and they cooked up very well and retained a good succulence, however you cannot escape the fact that probably in a blind tasting you wouldn't be able to "taste the difference" between these and a beefburger, even though these were actually Sainsbury's "Taste the Difference" sausages!



We will try some more varieties I'm sure just as our friend and colleague suggests, but I remain sceptical about any sausage "other than pork"....

See our full review and others at www.sausagereview.co.uk

Dragon Tails of the River Bank

Well to cut a long story short, my mate Graham and I decided to go fishing.  It was a trip for my birthday so I took the camping stove and cooking kit with me as we would be there all day and I thought we'd have a nice cooked lunch.  Sausages of course!

I packed half a dozen Meatline's Welsh Dragons just for the heck of it!  However knowing Graham likes fully flavoured and spicy food I didn't mention before hand these sausages come with a kick, just so I could gauge his reaction.  

Three each then pan fried on the river bank.

Eating these "outdoors" proved to be an excellent experience, blowing and munching we devoured four of these fiery monsters in some good quality soft rolls followed by a cup of tea (mind you I couldn't taste the tea having had my taste buds partially seared by the chilli) then we sat back.  Reaction from Graham...silence!  They must have hit the spot then!
After a few minutes, OK yes, let's have the other two!  

The verdict.  Excellent, we must do these again.  They did taste slightly different to when we sampled them in the kitchen though which was strange, perhaps a week in the freezer has increased the time before ignition a little bit, but don't get me wrong, they were particularly good.  It just seemed that it took a few bites more this time before the fire started!

As for the fishing, not a great day, but the dragons certainly made up for it!

See our full review and others at www.sausagereview.co.uk 

Fry, Grill, Poach or Bake

Some time ago I read a piece in the Guardian online titled "How to cook the perfect sausage" which sort of answered a question that I've been asking myself recently, whether actually frying, grilling, poaching or baking sausages is the best approach and gets superior results.

The article's conclusion was somewhat loose, but suggested frying was best.  However we've sampled a few sausages lately and had serious sausage rupturing happen on a few examples when pan frying.  Same pan, same oil type, same temperature, same rupturing, so is there a better way.

The particular Guardian article also covered all about whether to prick sausages before cooking but we'll park that for now and concentrate on the cooking processes.  As I recall the author did a test in cooking a couple of sausages by each method comparing results, which intent is to try myself.

Frying method, straightforward enough.  Grilling (broiling if you're non-UK) same.  Poaching?  In terms of clarifying what is meant here this is perhaps a double-cook technique that Heston Blumenthal would evidently be proud of.  Poaching sausages in 65° C water for 20 minutes, then frying them off in a hot pan.  Not quite "sous vide" as it will be without the vacuum bag!  Baking (roasting) in the oven, for approx 20-25 minutes at pre-heated 180° C / Gas 4.

So with a pack of decent "everyday sausages", AKA Priors Hall Farm - Traditional Porks, let me in the kitchen, I may be some time...

Observations and results then...

Right to left: FRY, GRILL, POACH, BAKE

BAKING: Roasting really and this isn't rocket science so as per the above. Quite a bit of run off of fat in to the dish. The flavour was drier and the bite, well you could feel a slight bagginess.  The skins though noticeably toughened, wrinkled up (no splits) and the weight loss the highest of all the methods was 26% (see table below).

POACHING: OK this is not just poaching as it involved frying off at the end in a hot pan, and the results were interesting as the skins were less tough than the BAKE and the GRILL but the sausage was very moist and succulent.  Noticeable was a small number of oil droplets in the water that will have been released from the sausage and when drained there was a definite "paleness".  When fried off though, the colouring changed dramatically.  No splits. Weight loss 8%.

GRILLING: This is broiling for non-UK peeps.  I see that "heat from above" = Broiling, and "heat from beneath" = Grilling.  So as I'm in the UK, I bunged it under the grill!  The skin toughened, with a minor split, the bite was firmer and the taste became sharper.  Quite a bit of run off of fat in to the grill pan.  Weight loss 18%.

FRYING: Using our normal sampling method results were much the same as when we tested these sausages in May 2012.  Good taste and medium bite/soft(ish) skin.  Minor split.  Weight loss 9%.

Method     Before    After Net

Bake  75g      55g -26%

Poach           72g      66g -8%

Grill                75g      61g  -18%

Fry                75g      68g -9%

So what's the preference?  Well the POACHING method did produce a really succulent result with similar weight loss to frying, no splits or ruptures but the extra "work" and saucepan/thermometer time was a pain.  If you've got the time Sausage Review can confirm that this method works. 

Let's face it though FRYING for us when doing our sampling is still the most effective, splits and all, but each to their own I suppose. 

See our sausage reviews at www.sausagereview.co.uk