Giffen‘s is a small butchery, which can be found only fifty metres from the previously reported Bowers‘, on Gaywood Road in King‘s Lynn. I think they are trying to move to a more traditional set-up and the shop looks great inside with super high-fronted glass cabinets - when I moved to Lynn the shop was called “Meat Supermarket“ and seemed to mainly offer large bargain bundles of meat.
The butcher suggested that I try their made-on -premises Old English sausages, so I made the purchase. He also informed me that “everyone who buys them has no complaints about them”.
Meat Content:A fairly meaty banger! Cheaper than our first test, and with - I’d guess - slightly less meat content. I’m only basing this on the fact that it seemed to have more filler. The casing was slightly better, and fried itself to quite a hard shell, which felt lovely to cut into.
Flavour:Porky, spicy, and another delicious snorker (this word is ™ Affer, and as well as being slang for a sausage, is Australian slang for the penis). I had a co-tester on this one, my six-year-old son, who rated it as “Nice!”, uttered through a mouth crammed with bangers and mash and beans - that probably tells you more about how good these sausages are than his review.
Texture:This was much smoother in texture than Bower’s Traditional Pork, which hints that there’s more oatmeal, or breadcrumbs, or summat like that. But it still cut like a “proper” banger. Being a fairly short specimen, the Six Piece Slice was doomed to failure, and so it proved. Don’t let that put you off though, Giffen’s Old English Sausages are delicious, quite inexpensive for a “proper” banger, and I can understand why people don’t complain about them!
Shrinkage:Average weight uncooked - 54g
Average weight cooked - 46g
Shrinkage - 15%
Hardly any loss at all, good work!
Value For Money:These sausages cost £6.10 per kg., which means a price of 33p each.
Giffen’s opening times:Monday - 0730 to 1230
Tuesday - 0730 to 1700
Wednesday - 0730 to 1700
Thursday - 0730 to 1700
Friday - 0730 to 1700
Saturday - 0700 to 1600
Sunday - Closed
Telephone 01553 766171
They look good! I do like it when the skin has some 'bite'...it reminds me of proper old-fashioned sausage!
ReplyDeleteThe smoothness question: I'm not an expert in any form, but I do wonder if it is less to do with 'filler', more to do with the way the meat is recovered. I think that the more mechanised it is, the more it becomes a very fine paste (cf Walls horrors etc). And, given the fact that it was quite a low shrinkage, it must have been reasonably meaty to start with (?).
(Great pics btw)
I love this site (which I found through your comments on Moral Turniptude - you see the blogging community works!). I also love sausages and every time I put up a sausage recipe I will direct people to you, the New Sausage on the Blog. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteYou might be right there Affer, although I suspect that the texture will be markedly different when I enter the retail end of the market.
ReplyDeleteAnd welcome Housey! If you could leave a link to your blog I'll add it on the side. Glad you like the place!
One should always have a Housewife on the side...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wartimehousewife.wordpress.com
Thanks