Hubbards - Bury St Edmunds - Satan's Pork Sausage

A third visit to this super family set-up from Bury St Edmunds, this time to try out a little number that was laid down a few months ago, on the advice of the proprietor David Hubbard, to mature.  “They improve with age,” was the unusual mantra, allegedly the chillies (sp?) that are included gain heat while the bangers are incarcerated in the freezer.  David should know what he’s talking about, as I described in the RMS review of Hubbards’ Old English bangers LINK he is passionate about sausage-making and loves the history of the product as much as he enjoys the creating and making of them. 

Spiced up sausages seem to be a particular passion, as David explained his annual routine for making them – the spicier sausages come to the fore in the warmer summer months when barbecue season (all two days of it!) is in full flow.  These Satans pork sausages are hot, but David says he does make hotter, including some devilish sounding Pepperami-inspired “Beer Sticks”.  Perfect for taking down the over-loud “I can eat anything, no matter how hot” boaster found at any family gathering a peg or two, these are, apparently, nuclear-hot.  I want to try them.....

Flavour:

Spicy?  Yes, obv.  Not as much as I had hoped/feared though, but plenty sizzling enough to confound many taste buds.  When you chew this sausage the initial flavour is of juicy porkiness with no hint of the warmth that is just around the corner.  Then the pizzazz begins, and just like on It’s A Knockout, “Here Come The Belgians!” With an unstoppable flavoursome gallop the heat clobbers the back of the throat and your tongue.  Hotter than Dawn French wearing a naughty vicar outfit and smothered in Marmite.  Don’t buy these if you’re a rugby union-loving namby-pamby, hardcore football fans only need apply.  The curious, but brilliant, thing is that the heat doesn’t linger and dominate the meal, so you can enjoy the sizzling tsunami over and over with each mouthful.

Meat Content:

85-90%.  The chillies are a big distraction here but take a peek behind the warmth and the pork is pluckily holding its own like Big Daddy in a Knobbly Knees contest.  This is good quality meat, good cuts of pork have been used and you can tell.  With this sausage fanatic in charge of the mincing machine I wouldn’t expect anything less!

Texture:

The cracky snap tells that the skins are natural, and they are taut and tasty.  The filling is the trademark Hubbards style, solidly firm with ne’er a cubic millimetre left unplugged.  It’s a good “solidly firm” but not Rate My Sausage’s ideal – but you know that already as I’ve mentioned it over and over again.  However, just because this sausage doesn’t meet our exact preferences doesn’t mean it’s no good, far from it, it’s rather decent.  You certainly have to cut to get through these well made and well-bound hot logs of hot pork.

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 58g

Average weight cooked - 50g

Shrinkage - 14%

Jolly good, well done chaps!  A good figure for the Satans, not quite as excellent as their Traditional Pork (11%), but better than the Old English (20%). 

Value For Money:

£1.76 for four sausages, weighing 233g - this works out as a price of £7.55 per kg, or 44p per snorker.  If you like spicy food, AND sausages, these represent fabulous value for money.  If not, steer clear.

The Bisto Factor:

As expected the aroma was zingy and appetising, and rather maddening.  Not only did they smell great, they also looked good too; as I noted (for some reason) at the time “naughty boys!”

Through A Child’s Eyes:

No comment, these sausages would cause Junior Sidekick’s internal organs to implode.  And I ain’t scraping THAT lot out of his undercrackers.

Opening Hours:

Monday: Closed

Tuesday: 0900 - 1700

Wednesday: 0900 - 1700

Thursday: 0900 - 1700

Friday: 0900 - 1700

Saturday: 0900 - 1500

Sunday: Closed

And Finally, Esther:

These are a spicy beast, challenging to the average sausage-lovers palate I would think.  Personally I’d like David Hubbard to cook up something even more mouth-melting and infernal!  I really enjoyed these sausages, and I commend them to you all.

Hubbards - Bury St Edmunds - Old English Sausage

So, on to our second part of the Bury St Edmunds series, a visit to a butcher we have reviewed before but have never stepped inside their shop.  It’s Hubbards Traditional Butchers of St Olaves Precinct, and we last met them at their mobile stall at beautiful down town Docking Market.  The label sticking into Hubbard’s Old English sausages when I visited them read “A sprinkle of herbs and lemon zest helps this one to be a favourite with bangers and mash.”  Does their strap-line bear out?  We’ll see later on.  First a little background information.

David Hubbard is a most interesting chap who will happily hold a meat-based conversation with you for as long as you have to spare.  He’s had a long apprenticeship in the art of butcherism and really knows his stuff.  He was a little disgruntled (in a nice, friendly way, I hasten to add) about our preference for a chunky-cut sausage filling, having been educated in a Germanic sausage style, thus leaning to finer fillings.  More recently he’s taken an interest in the Mennonite culture of North America, who took their style of sausage making with them from Friesland in the seventeenth century.  It’s thanks to this fascinating background, via Nossack Fine Meats in Alberta, that David Hubbard lives and breathes a passion for pork sausages, and may explain why you’re sure to get a good product if you put Hubbards’ bangers on your plate.

Their new shop is slightly out of Bury town centre but please, please, please do NOT let that deter you in the slightest.  A super-warm welcome is guaranteed, and I can assure you that you won’t be disappointed with any bangers you buy.  Trust me, I’m a doctor.  Did “a sprinkle of herbs and lemon zest” prove a winning combination?  Read on to find out....

Meat Content:

That’s more like it Bury!  Between 85% and 90% is the official figure and it tastes that way too.  Not just any old pork though, “good” quality pork, which makes a real difference to the sausage, from Dingley Dell pork near Woodbridge (as previously mentioned when we reviewed their  Hubbards Traditional Pork Sausage last year.  A great foundation for a (hopefully) great sausage.

Oh, on a complete tangent, on my perambulations around deepest, darkest, delightful Bury St Edmunds I happened upon the scene of some personal sporting highlights (see above).  It's been upgraded somewhat since that summer evening in 1987, and now boasts a snazzy tartan running track instead of the cinders track upon which I clocked personal best times for the 3000m and 400m.  The 3000m I finished in 8 minutes 51 seconds, which was bloody good let me tell you!  The 400m took place about half an hour later, hence the rather pedestrian 58.7 seconds.  And bugger me, I just realised that those two races happened 26 years ago.  Oh dear.

Still on Tangent Street, I imbibed the traditional post sausage-hunting beers in Bury town centre, opposite the corn exchange in The World's Smallest Public House".  It's called The Nutshell and is one of the quirkiest places it's possible to visit.  There's enough room for maybe a dozen people inside, including the barman, and the toilets are off a tiny hallway up some narrow rickety stairs.  In the picture above you may be able to make out the almost-as-famous-as-the-pub-itself mummified cat which hangs from the ceiling, in the company of many, many more strange and varied artefacts.  It's a fascinating little place which would make it worthwhile visiting Bury for in itself, and I commend it to you!

The brown-painted part of this facade is the entire frontage of The Nutshell.

Flavour:

First impression was a simple “meaty and tasty”.  Not a bad start.  The pork really shines through, backed up by delicate, well-judged seasoning and a hint of herbs, which become more noticeable after you’ve swallowed a couple of pieces (couldn’t make out any lemon zest though).  I don’t know about bangers and mash, but I do know that these sausages are perfect for a “naughty” Friday”let’s start the weekend” tea with eggs, chips and peas.

Texture:

Bearing in mind David’s background and Hubbard’s Traditional Pork sausages I was expecting a fairly smooth and fine texture.  The filling is indeed quite fine but grainy and bitty, and falls enjoyably apart when pushed.  So much so that it was not easy to take the six slices picture.  Push your fork flatly through and the filling falls apart but grips the tines brilliantly.  Dry-ish, which is good – no excessive sloppy plop going on – and the skins are good too (natural).

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked – 62g

Average weight cooked - 50g

Shrinkage - 20%

Average for the year so far.

Value For Money:

£1.73 for four sausages, weighing 248g - this works out as a price of £6.99 per kg, or 43p per snorker.

Hubbard’s Old English sausages are rated as very good value for money - you really should seek some out as soon as possible.

Opening Hours:

Monday: Closed

Tuesday: 0900 - 1700

Wednesday: 0900 - 1700

Thursday: 0900 - 1700

Friday: 0900 - 1700

Saturday: 0800 - 1500

Sunday: Closed

And Finally, Esther:

This sausage scored the highest of any so far in 2013, will any of the remaining three specimens from Bury match up?  I really enjoyed eating these, the others definitely have their work cut out....these Old English sausages are a substantial step up from Hubbard’s Traditional Pork variety and I can hardly wait to try their “Satan’s” sausages which are currently resting in the Sausage Storage Facility (freezer) gaining heat day by day.

Hubbards Traditional Butchers - Docking Market - Traditional Pork Sausage

As a result of my revelation that farmers markets might be a good source of sausages I wrote a series of six reviews about the bangers of Ely and the market there.  On a very much smaller scale I found myself at Docking market on a drizzly Wednesday morning in September.  It was a lovely visit, and a thriving little hive of activity (good cuppa too), which I will go into greater depth about as part of a later series of blogs.  It was in Docking that I discovered the mobile stall of Hubbard’s Pork Shop (since re-named Hubbard’s Traditional Butcher) and bought some of their Traditional Pork sausages.

This unusual outfit is the brainchild of David Hubbard, for years a member of various butcher teams but unable to raise sufficient funding to start his own business.  An organisation called Foundation East finally came up with the monetary leg-up required and the Hubbards haven’t looked back since.  On the van on the day I visited were David’s missus Caroline and her brother, Andy Bishop – who built the mobile stall with his own bare hands as described HERE  by the Bury St Edmunds tourism people.  In the photo you can see the lovely Caroline but Andy is hiding towards the back, sporting a rather handsome black eye, the source of which is much less scandalous than you’d hope!  As well as Docking you’ll also be able to track them down at Wymondham (Friday), Bury St Edmunds (Saturday) and Thetford (Tuesday), tell them that Rate My Sausage sent you for 20p a kilo off sausages (sorry Andy)!  What a delightful pair of interesting and warm people Andy and Caroline are, we spent a long time talking sausages, meat in general, and many more things, and it was a shame to finally bid a farewell and head to the market’s cafe.

While we were chatting I was also plied with tasters of their Cambridge sausage (very light seasoning, fresh, with good delicate porkiness, I noted) and their Pork & Black Pudding sausage (darkness, delicious combinations, grown-up sausages, must buy next time), but enough of the forward planning, let’s rate some sausage.  The label on the Traditional Pork sausages reads “Sausages how they used to taste before they became mass-produced (lightly seasoned)”....let’s see for ourselves....

Meat Content:

This is a good, meaty mouthful.  In this variety Hubbards have allowed the pork to do its own thing, so the excellence of the meat stands out very nicely – and that’s not a bad idea when you consider that this pork comes from Campsea Ashe in Suffolk. Hmmmm, Campsea Ashe?  That may ring bells with you – it’s the home of  DINGLEY-DELL Pork, who produce great tasting meat by using most excellent production standards.  They’re recommended by a whole host of renowned chefs working in some of the best quality eateries, and Hubbards use only Dingley Dell’s gilts (young female pigs that have never reared a litter) in their bangers.

Flavour:

What you get here is a decent unfussy sausage.  They aren’t too salty, there’s no excessive heat lurking in the background, and the excellent pork meat comes through to produce an enjoyable easy-going flavour that I enjoyed a lot.  A good choice if you want to feed the whole family, inexpensively, and meet everyone’s sausagey demands.  Porky, unpretentious and pleasant, just like the label promised. 

Texture:

Have a look at the sliced photos and you’ll see that these sausages appear very finely ground, which they are.  They taste finely ground too, which isn’t my own personal preference but will certainly find admirers in the younger generation of carnivores around your table.  When you push one apart there’s no avalanche of individual morsels, the filling huddles together almost as if scared to stand up on their own.  Not my favourite texture, but so many divisions above supermarket sludge, and as for juiciness....oh boy, go back to the sliced picture and just marvel at the oozey yummy juices flowing out....

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 67g

Average weight cooked - 60g

Shrinkage - 11%

Well done Hubbards, what a great figure!  And I’m not just talking about Caroline....

Value For Money:

£1.85 for four sausages, weighing 269g - this works out as a price of £6.88 per kg, or 46p per snorker.

Hunt Hubbards down and buy some of their sausages....try these Traditional Pork ones first and I guarantee that you won’t be disappointed with either the product or the price.  Good value for money!

The Imaginatively Titled Next Day Cold Sausage Test:

A good little sausage has somehow become a muscly caber of pork in the fridge overnight.  It’s grown and it’s bloomin’ lovely, maybe I should start measuring mass straight out of the refrigerator, or carrying out random drugs tests for doping offences?

And Finally, Esther:

This is a good starting point to try Hubbards sausages and I’m looking forward to exploring some of their more varied bangers.  Admittedly I like more to be going on when I eat a sausage, coarser cut, etc, but these are a fine example of a traditional pork snorker and would make a perfectly acceptable addition to any family’s weekly meal planner.