British Sausage Week - Sausage Pasta - with Great Big Sausages from the Good Little Company

It's British Sausage Week 2012, and every day we're trying out one of Al Murray's official BSW recipes, using some fabulous sausages specially chosen for the job.  It’s Thursday already and we're cooking Great Big Sausages from the Good Little Company in Al's Sausage Pasta dish.

This is how the Rate My Sausage version looked.

And here’s how it “should” be done....(photo and recipe with kind permission of BPEX)....

Ingredients:

• 375g (13oz) Pork Chipolata Sausages
• 300g (10oz) Macaroni pasta
• 25g (1oz) Butter
• 2 x 15mlsp (2tbsp) Plain flour
• 300ml (½pt) Semi skimmed milk plus a splash
• 100g (4oz) Strong Cheddar style, hard cheese, grated
• 1 Corn on the cob, kernels cut off or 50g (2oz) frozen or tinned corn
• 8 Cherry tomatoes

Method:

• Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4, 180ºC, 350ºF.
• Place sausages in an ovenproof pan and cook in a preheated oven for about 10 minutes. Place macaroni in a large pan of boiling water and cook as per packet instructions.
• Melt butter in a saucepan, when bubbling add the flour and stir well to mix in all the flour. Remove from the heat and gradually add the milk a little at a time, beat well between additions to remove any lumps.
• Allow the sauce to come back to the boil and thicken slightly. Add half the cheese and the drained macaroni, plus a small extra splash of milk just to loosen the mixture.
• Pile macaroni into the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Place the sausages on top, then add the sweetcorn and cherry tomatoes, finishing with the remaining cheese.
• Place in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
• Serve as a complete ‘all-in-one’ !

Cheese and pasta go together like Dastardly and Muttley.  Like Salt and Vinegar (the king of crisp flavours I’m sure you’d agree).  Heck, like Hamilton and Academicals.  And everyone likes cheese and pasta.  Even Junior Sidekick, who professes a dislike of cheese in most other circumstances.  When we were discussing this recipe he objected at first but after we talked about the likes of pizza (which contains cheese) and lasagne (which contains cheese) he creditably acknowledged that his dislike might be a bit silly.  And we decided to road-test the recipe together.

Having chosen the recipe, next I needed the ideal sausage for the job.  Something of good quality that I would enjoy, and which would be worthy of a starring role in Rate My Sausage’s British Sausage Week tribute, and also something that Sam (and other children) would approve of.  It had to be the Great Big Sausages made by the Good_Little_Company.  We’ve reviewed them once before and liked them, writing “To sum up, the Great Bigs are actually Very Good Little sausages, from a company called....the Good Little Company. Good work chaps, keep it up!”  Please feel free to cast your eye over the entire Review if you have a couple of minutes to spare.  The Good Little Company donates gifts of food to developing countries for every pack of sausages that they sell, and in 2010 had already given 3.2 Million meals.  Since then this fabulous figure has soared to 15.4 Million, wonderful work from the company; I am truly amazed at what they have achieved and felt just the tiniest bit emotional when I read that total. Keep up the tremendous work boys and girls....and everyone reading this – buy a couple of packs immediately....

Sam handled quite a lot of this recipe himself, I did some of the critical bits, and between us we had a lot of fun and didn’t mess it up.  When the flour had settled we had prepared a very tasty meal that we both enjoyed and that was acceptable to both our palates.  Cheese-wise we stuck to the recipe To The Letter; this meant that the cheesiness was at the top end of how Sam would like it while I would have preferred more.  A satisfactory compromise.  Sam liked it so much that he bagsied the surplus and took it in a tupperware to his mum’s with him when we walked back through the late rush-hour traffic in the drizzle.  Indeed, he was so keen to take personal custody of the excess sausage pasta that he personally put it into the rucksack and insisted in carrying the bag himself....

The Great Big Sausages are something of a cool enigma in my opinion.  They unwittingly occupy the exact middle ground between proper butchers’ sausages and supermarket bangers, an entry-level “proper sausage” if you wish.  If you’d like to wean your nippers onto the real deal from your local meat monger then these are your weapon of choice....the filling is much grainier than regular supermarket plop such as Richmonds or Walls, and much chewier, juicier and with a super little squeak to them.  They Need to be Cut, as opposed to simply resting the knife blade on top and watching it dredge sadly down through the slurry.  Interesting and enjoyable in texture.

Meat-wise, the claim is 85% pork – I have no reason to question that.  The flavour is generally quite sweet, but the salty burn of cheaper sausages has been neatly sidestepped, and I found myself enjoying them as much this time as I did on my first try.  There’s not much else going on apart from the tasty pork and the understated seasoning, but there doesn’t need to be.  Enjoyable flavour, enjoyable sausage – and you’ll be contributing to a good cause in a real and visible way if you buy them.  What’s not to like?  I’ve inadvertently written waaaay more than I’d intended, which I’ve noticed to be a sign of a good sausage.  Well done to Craig and co at the Good Little Company, and long may their star continue to rise.

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 61g

Average weight cooked - 42g

Shrinkage - 32%

When we last reviewed this product the shrink factor was 19%, so something’s changed.  A bit odd.

Rate My Sausage star verdict (out of five):

Recipe    * * * *

Sausages     * * * *

British Sausage Week - Roasted Pork Sausage & Autumn Veg Bake - with Pork Sausages from J Phillips of Theydon Bois, Essex

It's British Sausage Week 2012, and every day we're trying out one of Al Murray's official BSW recipes, using some fabulous sausages specially chosen for the job.  We’ve reached Wednesday and we're cooking Pork Sausages from J Phillips the butcher in Theydon Bois, Essex in Al's Autumn Veg Bake dish.

This is how the Rate My Sausage version looked.

And here’s how it “should” be done....(photo and recipe with kind permission of BPEX)....

Ingredients:

• 450g (1lb) Traditional pork sausages
• 3 Cloves garlic, squashed
• ½ Pumpkin, peeled and cut into thin wedges or 3 sweet potatoes or ½ butternut squash, cut into small wedges or cubes
• 2 Large sprigs fresh rosemary
• 30ml (2tbsp) Olive oil
• 450g (1lb) New potatoes, halved
• 2 Large parsnips, peeled and cut into quarters
• 5ml (1tsp) Dried chilli flakes (optional)

Method:

• Preheat oven to Gas 5, 190°C, 375°F.
• Toss together in a large roasting pan sausages, garlic, pumpkin, rosemary, olive oil, new potatoes, parsnips and dried chilli flakes.
• Bake in oven for 40-50 minutes until sausages are golden brown and pumpkin is soft.
• Make Berry Jam: Heat oil in a heavy based pan, add onion and cook slowly until softened and browned. Add remaining ingredients and cook for a further 5 minutes stirring.
• Cover the pan and cook on a reduced heat for approx 10 minutes. Serve hot or cold with the sausage and vegetables.

It’s another simple recipe, mainly because I couldn’t afford the extra ingredients needed for the berry jam, which would need a little more skill.  I also added just a few tiny carrots and some peas to add a little extra variety and colour to the finished product.  This would make a really good recipe to make with your children, as long as you supervise them extremely carefully with the chopping involved.

After an iffy start on Monday the BSW recipe team are now firmly in their stride, and have come up with another winning combination.  Who doesn’t enjoy these kind of autumnal vegetables when they have been roast slow and low in olive oil, coming out of the oven dripping and ever so slightly crispy around the edges....delicious!  Add in some good quality sausages and you’ve got a winning tea time meal that looks quite fancy but is simplicity in itself.  I chose butternut squash but next time I’ll definitely use all of the veg listed as options in the ingredients.  

Yes, it helps when the sausages are good quality....and Phillips Pork sausages really fit the bill.  When we reviewed their Old English bangers earlier in 2012 we found them to be very solid, very porky, and very enjoyable, and the theme continues.  We arrived at J Phillips’ shop completely by (happy) accident, as a result of some Olympics-related jiggery-pokery, it was an lovely side note to a fantastic Autumn day:  Phillps_Old_English_Review

These sausages are very meaty, big, boisterous and bolshy bangers which tick the right boxes if you’re not a namby-pamby vege-mentalist.  Brilliant pork meat is the overwhelming component of what mister Phillips deprecatingly calls his “Plain Pork” sausages, but Oh! that so many other butchers’ plain sausages were as well-made as these.  The filling is compact yet distinct enough to be well on the right side of the fence, you can really see what’s in them.  This butcher really knows what he’s doing with the sausage machine!  These bangers are the ideal addition to this particular autumnal, hearty recipe, the salty, savoury pork just sets off the sweet parsnips and carrots to a tee.

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 86g

Average weight cooked - 74g

Shrinkage - 13%

Really good stats for the Essex contender – we’re really being treated to sausages that don’t disappear in the pan this week....

Value For Money:

£2.41 for four sausages, weighing 342g - this works out as a price of £7.05 per kg, or 60p per snorker.  Very good sausages, very good value for money.  Bit far for us to go to get some more, sadly.

Through A Child’s Eyes (combined with) The Imaginatively Titled Next Day Cold Sausage Test:

“Sam!” I yelled, to the Junior Sidekick, who was sitting on the toilet reading Match Of The Day magazine.  “There’s a cold sausage for you to try, in the fridge!  It’s in a mug....”

Flush, running water, running footsteps, fridge door sound effect, and then he appeared into the living room with an already decapitated banger in hand and an expression of tastebud bliss on his clock.  He bloody loved the cold Phillips sausage.  As he ate his way through it the bites became smaller and smaller as he tried to make it last as long as possible, until eventually it was all gone and he asked “Got any more?”

So I think it’s safe to say that the TACE(cw)TITNDCST was a massive success.

Rate My Sausage star verdict (out of five):

Recipe    * * * *

Sausages     * * * *

British Sausage Week - Sausage Brunch Squeak with Mazzafegati Sausages by The Fruitpig Company

Come stai?

It's British Sausage Week 2012, and every day we're trying out one of Al Murray's official BSW recipes, using some fabulous sausages specially chosen for the job.  Day two is of course Tuesday and I’ve paired up some Mazzafegati sausage from The Fruitpig Company with Al’s recipe called Sausage Brunch Squeak.

This is how the Rate My Sausage version looked.

And here’s how it “should” be done....(photo and recipe with kind permission of BPEX)....

Ingredients

• 4 Chunky traditional pork sausages
• 454g (1lb) Potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
• Splash of milk
• Knob of butter
• 1 x 5mlsp (1tsp) Vegetable oil
• 4 Chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 50g (2oz) Black pudding, cut into chunks
• 8 Cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 2 Eggs

Method

• Place potatoes in a pan of boiling water and cook until tender. Drain and roughly mash with milk and butter.
• Heat oil in a small (1 person) frying pan (either make 2 small or 1 large ’squeak’) add 2 sausages and half the mushrooms per person. Cook until sausages are starting to brown. Add half the black pudding and cook for 1-2 minutes.
• Add half the mash and lightly mix with the pan mixture. Add 4 cherry tomatoes. Place under a preheated grill and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until everything is golden brown. Repeat
• Meanwhile boil a small pan of water, once boiling turn off the heat, crack 2 eggs into the water and poach for about 5-6 minutes – for soft boil
• Serve each ‘brunch’ topped with a poached egg.

In the run-up to BSW I was contacted by the fragrant Matt Cockin, the Don of the Fruitpig Company, one of our very favourite sausage producers.  Fruitpig claimed the two top spots in our 2010 Sausage Of The Year contest, courtesy of their Rare-Breed-Sausage and Toulouse-Sausage so any novel addition to their arsenal is eagerly anticipated round these here parts.  Matt  despatched a pack of his new mazzafegati sausages across the Cambs/Norfolk border, and they could not have arrived at a more opportune moment.  They were delivered by one of Don Porceone’s capo di capos, Grant, in his Maserati van, on the same day that I was pairing sausage week recipes with sausages.   The obvious match-up with the Brunch Squeak dish was too good to be true, the deep, dark flavours seemed made for each other.  Did it turn out that way? 

Oh, si.

Si, si and thrice si!  Mama mia, your papa would kill for this feast to appear on his breakfast table.  Or at least pay one of the boys to kill on his behalf.  If you like intense and rustic tastes this is the one for you, and for me the chance to pair Fruitpig’s masterful mazzafegati with black pudding and flavoursome chestnut mushrooms  was irresistible.  What a combination.  The recipe itself is simplicity in a pan, pretty much a simple “chop ‘em and plop ‘em” job that even a parma ham-fisted “somaro” like me can’t spoil.  The only potential downfall is the poaching of the eggs, but it just so happens that I’m somewhat of an expert in this particular field, having exhaustively tested twelve different methods of egg poaching a few years ago.  The winning method used the swirl technique, lemon juice as the acid addition, and a poaching time of 225 seconds.  Give or take.

Back to today’s dish, it’s a simply sensational breakfast, filling and fabulously satisfying.  Tastier than Silvio’s personal assistant at a bunga-bunga party.  Yes, THAT good.  Please, per favore, if you decide to actually have a go at any of this week’s dishes in your own kitchen, make it this one.  Incredibilmente buono....

Having established that the recipe is a good one, let me tell you about le salcisse di signore Cockin.  They were very nearly perfect.

Meat-wise they’re a hunter-gatherer’s dream, firm and fabulous logs of prime piggosaurus.  Listed at 70% pork, but the outstanding provenance of the rare breed meat sings out sweet and strong.  In my notes, under Flavour I wrote “where do I start?”.  I decided on “incredible”.  Rich.  Gamey?  Sweet.  I didn’t cheat by reading the label prior to eating, and guessed the up-front sweetness may be honey, may be sweet onion, but decided it was there for all to see, yellow knobbles of capsicum.   I was wrong of course, the label tells of the presence of apricot.  When the sweet deep porkiness subsides you’re treated to an altogether more grown-up flavour following on and charming your tastebuds, liver maybe, something in the offal area?  Kidney!  No.....

It was liver after all.  I was right on that one.  Mazzafegati is traditionally a pork liver sausage from Umbria.  The flavours here are dynamic and decadent, and they’re not let down by the texture.  It’s perfect.  Slice one and marvel for yourself.  It falls apart with even the merest of encouragement, it’s surely the blueprint for how all sausages should be made.  The skins are the real deal too, and peel back provocatively then sliced.

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 85g

Average weight cooked - 80g

Shrinkage - 6%

Just when you thought they couldn’t get any better....six percent is exceptional.

Value For Money:

£5.72 for five sausages, weighing 426g - this works out as a price of £13.00 per kg, or £1.14p per snorker.  The highest priced banger ever reviewed here, but the best.

Through A Child’s Eyes:

Even if there was no alcohol at all, there is NO WAY Junior Sidekick was getting his gnashers on these....

Rate My Sausage Star Verdict (out of five):

Recipe:     * * * * *

Sausages:    * * * * * *   (yes, six)

As Jeff Stelling might say, they’ll be dancing in the streets of Mazzafegati tonight....

British Sausage Week - Sausage Mash-Up with Old English Sausages by Arthur Howell’s of Wells-next-the-sea

It's British Sausage Week 2012, and every day we're trying out one of Al Murray's official BSW recipes, using some fabulous sausages that we've chosen especially for the job.  It's Monday and we're kicking off our culinary crusade by trying out some Old English sausages from Howell's the butchers in Wells-next-the-sea as the star ingredient in Al's Sausage Mash-Up dish.

This is how the Rate My Sausage version looked.

And here’s how it “should” be done....(photo and recipe with kind permission of BPEX)....

Ingredients

• 454g (1lb) Pork and apple sausages
• 900g (2lb) Potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
• 1 x 15mlsp (1tbsp) Vegetable oil
• 2 Leeks, washed and cut into large chunks
• 2 Parsnips, peeled and cut into small cubes
• 1 x 15mlsp (1tbsp) Plain flour
• 300ml (½pt) Cider or apple juice
• 5 Fresh sage leaves, roughly torn
• Splash of milk
• Knob of butter
• 50g (2oz) Strong Cheddar style, hard cheese, grated

Method

• Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4, 180ºC, 350ºF.
• Place potatoes into a pan of boiling water and cook until tender.
• Heat oil in a large pan, add sausages and leeks. Cook until sausages are lightly browned.
• Add the parsnips and flour, mix well. Add the cider and stir until all the flour has mixed into the liquid and started to thicken slightly. Add sage leaves.
• Spoon into a shallow ovenproof dish.
• When tender drain potatoes, mash with a splash of milk and knob of butter. Add half of the cheese and stir through.
• Place in large spoonfuls onto the sausage mixture, but leaving some of the sausages and leeks to poke through (they will brown nicely if exposed). Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake in a preheated oven for about 30 minutes until the top is golden brown.
• Serve with additional seasonal green vegetables.

So how did I find the recipe?  I’ll say “ambiguous” to be polite, as following the method to the word produced very, very al dente vegetables.  I found that the leeks, if simply warmed in the pan with the sausages, were too hard, and the recipe also left the parsnips underdone.  Did I do it wrong?  Probably, as I’m not the world’s greatest cook.  When I revisit this recipe I’ll pre-cook the leeks and parsnips, and all should be just fine and dandy.  Oh, you may notice that I added baton carrots, which I DID pre-boil, and they were OK.

Mis-interpretation or not, how did it taste?  Rather good actually, even though I forgot to include the sage (bought it, chopped it, missed it out....it’s my age).   It’s a good dish for this time of year too, with the clocks going back and temperatures dropping mashed potato and winter veg are a great start.  There’s a sweet taste pervading this recipe thanks to the apple juice. Do you think that cider would give the same flavour?  Overall this is essentially halfway between sausage stew and bangers and mash, and that’s not such a bad thing....

What really saved this from disaster for me were the stars of the show, the Old English sausages from Arthur Howells butchers in Wells-next-the-sea.  Howells is a superb set-up, including a deli, wet fish shop and bakery in Wells itself, and other shops in nearby towns and villages – Rate My Sausage will be featuring Arthur’s empire in our forthcoming Fresh Friendly Fabulous Food series in the new year....but for now back to the bangers.

Straight away it’s worth mentioning that these sausages scored the highest total of any Old English we’ve ever tried.  Bravo!  They’re the second cheapest too, costing £7.20 per kg (47p per snorker), which makes them very good value for money.  The flavour is lower and deeper than most OE’s, very herby as you’d want, with a lot of nutmeg adding a hefty punch to the taste.  Gavin at the shop (Bilbo to his friends, although it’s unconfirmed whether he has hairy feet or not, or even a devastatingly powerful ring) told me that the recipe is a nod to the Lincolnshire sausage, full of arcane knowledge passed down through the ages. 

These are real bulldogs of sausages, which is appropriate for something with such traditional English pedigree, solid and lean and full of muscly menace.  They weighed just 11% less after cooking which is highly commendable and good for the budget.  The texture is excellent, tight-knit when encased inside the skin but scatters when the cutlery appears, like a gang of nine-year-olds does when borrowing apples from the vicar’s garden and the Reverend unexpectedly pops out of his greenhouse (especially the small kid in the red jumper with the white V-neck, who may or may not be me).

In summary, these are very good sausages to kick off British Sausage Week, let down a little by the recipe (obviously scrawny kids in red v-necks don’t grow up to be great chefs).

Rate My Sausage Star Verdict (out of five):

Recipe   * * *

Sausages   * * * * *