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.

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   * * * * *

J Phillips - Theydon Bois - Old English Sausage

Have you ever heard of a place called Theydon Bois (rhymes with “choice”)?  No, neither had Junior Sidekick and I until very recently.  It’s a village in Essex, just south of Epping, and it’s where we found ourselves parking to catch a train into the Olympic Games.  Our cunning plan had been to drive to Epping, park, and ride, but we hadn’t imagined that so many others would have the same idea, resulting in the large car park being full by quarter to eight, doh!  I’d made a Plan B, natch, which involved driving to each station successively closer to London, and we got lucky at the very next stop, Theydon Bois.  We parked on the edge of the enormous village green and had a thoroughly fabulous day at the Olympic park.

It was a happy accident that when we returned after the athletics we walked right past J Phillips the butcher, and just had to try their sausages – once again Rate My Sausage puts itself through tough times on behalf of its readers...we bought some of their regular Pork Sausages but first under the microscope and into the frying pan are J Phillips’ Old English Sausages.....

Meat Content:

I didn’t note the percentage dammit - once again it’s an EPIC FAIL!  Sorry.  But don’t worry, there’s an abundance of porkiness going on.  First impression was “OMG that is niiiiice!”, immediately followed by the notion that my cutlery may not be manly enough to deal with these chunky, loggy, meaty monsters.  Do I have a chainsaw lurking in the toolbox?  Of course I don’t, and that was somewhat an exaggeration, but if you’re looking for a muscular accompaniment for your mash then these would be perfect.

Flavour:

Woody, slightly spicy, super herby, all subtly mixed together resulting in a deliciously more-ish, very hearty sausage.  Seasoned just right, there is a battery of herbs taking turns to tickle your taste buds, sagey for sure, backed up with (I think) thyme, rosemary and....not 100% confident but I’ll go for marjoram?  If these sausages were a nineties garage group they’d be So Solid – and it takes Twenty One Seconds To Chew.

Texture:

Very, very solid, splendidly so.  Uncompromisingly dense and firm, the butcher seems to have squeezed more fantastic filling inside the snappy skins than seems possible.  You can see in the uncooked photo that they are packed with good-size chunks of ingredient, and in the sliced picture the variety and nicely random distribution of those ingredients.  All kept succulent by the melted fat.  Such a good texture to these sausages, and we like them, a lot.

Shrinkage: 

Average weight uncooked - 83g

Average weight cooked - 58g

Shrinkage - 31%

A bit disappointing, but this is the only negative aspect of an otherwise great banger.  It’s just this stat that has stopped them from barging into this year’s top four.

Value For Money:

£3.13 for five sausages, weighing 417g - this works out as a price of £7.48 per kg, or 63p per snorker.  That’s not cheap, but these have the feel of good quality.  Having pondered this one long and hard, we rate these sausages as Very Good value for money.  Good work dudes!

The Bisto Factor:

Oh Cruel Goddess of Frying Sausages, why do you torture me thus?  Phillips’ Old English sausages had my mouth watering long before they saw the plate.  The aroma matched the flavour – herby, meaty, delicious.

And Finally, Esther:

I doubt that Junior Sidekick and I will ever visit Theydon Bois again, but it was lovely to reach into a new area to try the local hand-crafted sausages.  Mr Phillips can be rightly proud of his Old English bangers, and the village inhabitants can consider themselves very fortunate to have brilliant sausages available on their doorsteps.  And it was all because of the Olympics....cosmic karma.

Guest Review - Beerandfoodandstuff - North London Taste-Off!

Where I live in North London, my two closest butchers are Meat N16 in Stoke Newington and Highbury Butchers on Blackstock Road. They are both good but very different – Meat N16 is new, trendy, well branded with a rare wine shop in the back, and Highbury is a more traditional, low key, butchers with a small deli counter. I decided a sausage taste off was in order to ascertain the best.

Highbury Butchers

·         Pork, Honey & Lemon – sweet with a nice soft texture, well-seasoned 8/10

·         Old English – sage and onion, good savoury & herby quality 7/10

·         Pheasant & pear – decent but indistinct flavours and dry texture 5/10

Meat N16

·         Cumberland – lovely seasoning and soft texture, nice flavour. 8/10

·         Game – very dry, over seasoned and no balance to the strong game flavour 4/10

·         Wild Boar & Apple – too sweet but nice flavours and good texture 6/10

 At £4.50 for 6 large sausages, Meat N16 was comfortably more expensive. The sausages were much larger though and did not shrink in the oven so it still felt like a good deal. I was expecting big things but overall they lacked strong, balanced flavours, thought they were well made and above average, especially the Cumberland.

Highbury Butchers came through as a clear winner despite being around £2 less for the 6 bangers (although they were smaller). They were less well made, splitting in the oven, but had bags of flavour and stayed soft and juicy for the most part.

This is only scratching the surface, so I will be back in both of these soon to try the latest creations.

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What a brill article, thanks Matt!  The idea of a head-to-head battle is something I hadn't thought of, but I will now.  Please, please do keep us informed about the sausages from London, I'm making you the Official London Rate My Sausage Correspondent, the first official franchise, ever.  You have a huge catchment area, can you tie in sausages and ale?

Guest Review - The Wartime Housewife - Waterloo Cottage Farm's Old English Sausage

Waterloo Cottage Farm produces several varieties of fantastic sausages.  But in order to really get a feel for what they’re about, I visited them at their farm in Great Oxenden, Northants.  They have a herd of Saddlebacks as well as several Petrans and Durocs and they all live in outside in the fresh air, snuffling about to their hearts’ content.  I met them all and by God they looked tasty, Sir!

Now to the sausages.  They looked very smooth and herby before they were cooked and were quite variable in size which gave them a home-produced feel and is ideal for a family as children often want a bit less.  As they cooked they had a rich herby aroma which really got the taste buds going and we ate them as part of a cooked breakfast.  They were very meaty in texture, but not coarse; mildly spicy but not peppery and the aftertaste builds as you eat them.  The skins were thin and were not discernible when cooked which was brilliant.  The nicest sausage in the world becomes repellent to me if I can separate the skins from the meat and I feel like I’ve inadvertently eaten a condom.  These skins served the purpose of holding the meat in a nice shape and then bow out gracefully.  The sausages worked beautifully with breakfast, but we felt they would be equally robust as a dinner time sausage with a fruity gravy and a heap of buttery mash.

Shrinkage:  3oz  / 90g uncooked  and 2.5oz / 75g cooked – 17% lost in the translation.

Price: I bought six which cost £4.00 which works out at 67p per snorker.

This may seem a lot, but I will happily pay that to support and encourage a local producer whose happy pigs eat the barley from the field next door and are only taken 9 miles to slaughter. 

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http://www.wartimehousewife.com/

Welcome to the home of the Wartime Housewife, a place where you will find old fashioned skills and values applied to our very modern lives.

For years my friends and family have shamelessly taken the mickey out of me for being frugal, never letting things go to waste and scavenging in skips and charity shops before I resort to buying things from real shops.

But now, gentle readers, they crave my skills and have exhorted me to take my message to the wider world.  My natural diffidence has always prevented me from doing this, but in these times of austerity and difficulty,  it seems only fair and right that I now begin the process of giving a little of this knowledge and hard won wisdom back to you.

Over time, I will be sharing recipes and meal planning; tips on budgeting, repairing things, mending, scavenging; ideas for the school holidays and outings; gardening and diy; sewing and craft; ranting and raving and anything else that I think may prove useful to you in your daily lives.

But life needn’t be all domestic drudgery you know!  Having fun is absolutely essential if one is to have a balanced life, and to this end I will also pop in all sorts of things that I find amusing and diverting – pictures, music, poems, links to other charming people who are like-minded - or even little stories about my own life that may help others to ‘put their best foot forward’ in the realisation that we are only human and sometimes need a bit of a boost.

I know only too well what it is like to manage on a tight budget and, by following the Way of the Wartime Housewife, you too can learn to make the very best of what you have.  And, after all, that is what life should be about; not only making the best of what you have but also seeing the best in what is around you and making the most of it.

John's Old English Sausage

You‘ll find John‘s - or “John‘s Quality Butchers“ to give them their full name - just off the market place in the pleasant market town of Downham Market in Norfolk. It’s an incredible shop. As well as quality meat products you can buy almost anything else you may be looking for! Preserves. Vegetables. High-end sports cars. Space hoppers. Russian brides. OK, maybe not a Russian bride, but pretty much ANYTHING else, it’s a wonderful place.


If you visit on a Saturday there‘s a little market on the go as well, and don‘t forget to wander up the hill, round the corner, and visit the other exceptional butcher shop, T&M‘s. John‘s are open from half seven in the morning to half five at night, Monday to Saturday (closed Sundays), give them a try.


John’s also sponsor a local ladies netball team - sadly our request to attend a match - for research purposes - was ignored.



Meat Content:
These sausages proved to be rough and ready, and delicious for it! Not a great deal of refinement here, these have a good meat content (a pre-asking-what-the-meat-content-is sample) which will satisfy your carnivorous instincts nicely. There were a couple of pieces of gristle here too….I don’t really mind that as at least it’s bits of chopped up pig….some people wouldn’t like it so much.

Flavour:The second “Old English” sausage we’ve tried, and another very tasty banger. I think there’s a hint of stuffing with Old English’s, the kind that you’d eat with a roast chicken, so that must mean there’s plenty of sage in here, plus a dash of onion? Don’t quote me of course, I am not an expert, but that’s the flavour that came to mind. I enjoyed eating these, they were quite light as bangers go, and not too filling (meaning you can eat more, of course!).

Texture:You can see from the six slices picture that these bangers have a superb texture. If you likes it rough, these are the boys for you! John’s Old English are definitely the Joan Rivers of the sausage world, coarse, dry, and crumbly. Delicious! (The sausages, not Joan). I heartily recommend them, and very much enjoyed them for Sunday breakfast. Good work John’s!

Shrinkage:
Average weight uncooked - 72g
Average weight cooked - 57g

Shrinkage - 21%

Value For Money:How embarrassing. I have lost the pricing info for these sausages. Sorry. Try these bangers today!

Giffen’s Old English Sausage

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