Sausage Review - we review sausages

We last sampled pork chipolatas from Simon Dennis of Sawbridgeworth in 2017, and before that 2012. We like these chipolatas, so we decided to review them again from what is our local butchery, and what we recognised as a proper no nonsense chipolata sausage...

Simon's butchers shop has been in Sawbridgeworth for as long as I can remember and he's been making sausages in all that time by the traditional tried and tested methods.  Yes he is amused that other producers are making wide varieties of flavours and what by some would be weird combinations of ingredients in his opinion, but we will say, Simon knows how to make proper sausages, and without doubt he knows what works best in them too!

We like chipolatas as you may have guessed by now and these minimum 75% meat within natural sheeps casings from Simon are no exception.  The pork is minced well, skins are good quality and it's obvious all is "filled and tied by hand" as the sausage lengths do vary some.  We picked up a bag full all nicely tied in that traditional sausage string way...nice!

Choosing a couple to cook up for sampling meant fiddling a bit with some scissors to select some average length ones from the string but hey I really don't mind, trust me...

Cooked up we saw nicely browned skins, with no splits and a smooth-medium texture and a good bite and chew. The flavour was very good once again.  Just enough seasoning and that nice lingering spice taste on the tongue afterwards.  Snappy skins?  Yes of course...we like these chipolatas!

Minimum shrinkage and weight loss which for a thin chipolata is essential.  OK price-wise they've seen a small rise in the last year, but an extra 50p/kg isn't bad really all things considered?

Would we buy again, yes of course. 


Simon Dennis (Sawbridgeworth) - Chipolata (Oct 2012 / Feb 2017 / Oct 2018)

Here's the sample details:
140x20mm before cooking, 135x20mm after.
47g before cooking, 41g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 3% & weight loss of approx 12%.
8 loose sausages (380g approx). £3.05 (£8.05/kg).


   




  2017    2017


2012 2012
 

Simon Dennis - Family Butchers
2 The Square,
Sawbridgeworth,
Hertfordshire,
CM21 9AE