Tuesday 9 February 2010

E H Prior's Traditional Pork Sausage



E H Prior is a proper butcher‘s establishment with premises in Dersingham, King’s Lynn, and at Knight’s Hill Farmshop. Highly regarded among my fellow foodies at The Woolpack pub, Prior’s have a local rep of producing great quality meat products from local farms. When I first visited I was afforded a slightly guarded but eventually open and informative chat about sausages. I’ve mentioned the Prior’s butcher HERE. I would love to mention the other seasonal “specials” on offer at Prior’s which look bloody lovely, but with this being a banger blog, p’raps not. Unfair on the retail sector maybe.


Prior’s have a website of sorts, although I personally can’t get it to do anything much: PRIORS


So how would their sausages rate? Will they match their good reputation? They certainly weren‘t dirt cheap, but equally not expensive - in fact only the “lovely” Richmond‘s were cheaper per kilogram so far. Don’t let that put you off - in fact, it should encourage you to try these hand-made, Norfolk-crafted lovelies.




Meat Content:No exact figure given, but they taste a darned sight meatier than Richmonds and Sainsburys. The butcher told me that they use “local pork” and I think I’m starting to recognise the differences between fillings much more readily. These sausages contain “quite a lot” of meat, and you can tell. Excellent.


Flavour:
Chewy, chunky, and the flavour took me straight back to the bangers my Mum used to serve up when I was a nipper - Friday tea-time, Crackerjack with Peter Glaze and Don McLean on the telly, and bangers and mash with thin, runny gravy. That’s a great memory, and these taste like a proper, grainy, perfectly seasoned sausage, worthy of the comparison. My Mum would love these!


Texture:The picture doesn’t do this sausage’s texture justice. It cuts very nicely, aided by casing that crisps up jolly nicely. On the short side at about 8 or 9cm, six slices still held themselves together stoically. The firmness of the filling leads to lovely chewing with the occasional crunch through crispy casing as an added bonus. As a meat-based tribute to Bernard of Norfolk, who retired recently, I’d describe these as Bootiful.


Shrinkage:

Average weight uncooked - 59g
Average weight cooked - 47g

Shrinkage - 18%



Value For Money:Six sausages, weighing 351g - these cost £5.68 per kg, or 33p per snorker. GREAT value for money.


Overall:A really good sausage at a very reasonable price. Get some!


3 comments:

Affer said...

I want the one, fourth from the left! It's just oozed from the skin and....

Hand-made butcher's sausages are rarely the same twice, but then again, rarely dissapoint! These look real beauties, and there is something about a butcher's jobby that is wonderfully porky !

Rate My Sausage said...

Good choice Affer, this specimen split right around. I am all for differences after frying.

Unknown said...

Disgusting! Felt sick for hiurs after eating them,rest went in the bin. Wouldn't even feed them to my dog. They're not even cheap. NEVER again.