MOR - Moroccan
Spiced Pork, Cauliflower & Chickpea
We had an
email from Jim of Aylesbury earlier this
month alerting us to the MOR sausages that
Tesco have started to sell. He suggested we
try the Pork, Super Green Veg & Lentils
(green box wrapper). Sorry Jim but we
chose to start with the red wrapped Moroccan
Spiced Pork, and we'll try the others
shortly...
Now I will honestly admit that gluten free
pork, super green vegetables and lentils as
a concept does nothing for me, but Moroccan
spiced pork even if it is gluten free, well
there's something. Mind you I was a
bit concerned that with only 55% pork
onboard and the rest what amounts to veggy,
these may be an interesting texture when
cooked up...but on the upside, I suppose
you'll be getting some of your 5 a day!
Definitely not what you'd call a normal
sausage. They are very "unconventional" as
MOR say themselves. Agreed that being
different is key to sales and popularity but
are these too different? When Jim
contacted us we had already clocked the MOR
range appearing in Tesco, and I did call in
a couple of times over that particular week
to see if they were selling. The
packaging is bold and bright in colour and
are located on the shelves at that key
height where you would struggle to miss
them. They don't appear to be flying
off the shelves though, well not unless the
shelf stackers are filling up hourly any
way. Incidentally we have looked for the MOR
range elsewhere and from a quick online
search as of today it appears Tesco are the
only current retailer, but please let us
know if you find them elsewhere.
The ingredients loaded in to what appears to
be good quality natural pork skins list as,
British pork, cauliflower, chickpeas, red
pepper, onion and harissa marinade along
with honey, coriander and seasonings of
smoked paprika, cumin and cayenne pepper!
Rock and roll!
As we prepared to pan fry these as we do all
our samples, we note that MOR recommend oven
or grill cooking only. Your call on
this entirely if you do try yourselves but
we'll cook the way we want. Also we
noted that the sausages were all cut (ie.
they weren't linked) a bit close so as they
warmed up we got a slight eruption from the
ends as the skins tightened down and
squeezed the contents. Initially we
thought this would be an issue but the final
cooked up result was thankfully OK.
Weight loss and shrinkage were OK too in
comparison with other "conventional"
sausages.
The texture was quite open though as we
expected given the lower meat content
combined with the cauliflower, chickpeas and
other veggy. OK we're not saying this
is detrimental, but the sausage is pretty
soft as you cut it, and the bite and chew is
certainly not like you get with a
traditional 78-85% plain pork British
banger!
MOR say you'll get the flavours of "north
African street market" with these if you use
them in a fragrant sausage and bean
casserole. Well we'll take their word
for that but on their own the taste is very
good with noticeable cauliflower and a touch
of harissa on the edge. Not bad at all!
Mind you one of troops wasn't impressed as
she doesn't eat cauliflower! Ho hum...
It would be wrong to refer to these as JASS
(just another supermarket sausage). We
agree that these MOR sausages are
unconventional so can't be compared with
some of the JASS we do see. It'll be
interesting if any artisan producers follow
the idea themselves and do something
similar?
Eaten cold later, well, a very odd texture
and taste. Not my cup of tea when cold,
however would we buy again? Probably
yes to be honest, perhaps for family
barbeque time.
MOR - Moroccan Spiced Pork,
Cauliflower & Chickpea
(Apr
2017)
Here's the
sample details:
105x30mm before cooking, 90x32mm
after.
67g before cooking, 62g after.
That's a shrinkage of 8% & weight
loss of approx 7%.
6 in a 400g tray £3.00
(£7.50/kg approx)
www.morfood.co.uk