SQUIG
- Clever Cumberland
The nice
people at Cottom Foods sent
us a few samples to ask what
we thought of the square
sausage...and immediately
caused a stir!
You know we've been sampling sausages in our journey
for some time now,
comparing, discussing, scoring, enjoying
and the like, but how do you
really compare these "Clever
Cumberland" square sausages
to other "regular" shape
ones? These square
ones are different we will
give you that, and quite
versatile as it happens!
Looks like the Scottish
press previously dished out
some stick along the lines
implying that Cottom Foods
were claiming to have
invented the square sausage
when the square Scottish
"Lorne" sausage has been
about for
centuries...really?...copyright
on square
sausage?...whatever...so
leaving that aside let's consider what you get meat-wise, compared with
regular shaped sausages.
From what we can see each square is roughly the
same weight as a regular
porker so an equivalent to
"4 to a pack". We are
talking GLUTEN FREE product
though, that's 65% pork so
that's pretty good we think
you'll agree, OK on the face
of it not a very high
percentage, but acceptable.
Now cooking...disaster
darling...our testing pan is
round so we can only get 2
squares at a time in it...so
we recommend using a square
grill pan for these so you
can get 4 in at a go!
Now remember each square
equates to one regular
sausage...don't know about
you but personally I eat two
bangers as my portion, so 4
squares in a pan will
probably only do 2 people!
Break out a second pan...
The claim is that this
product cooks faster than
regular sausages...well we
totally agree. The
packaging indicates when pan
frying, 4 minutes one side,
turn over and 3 minutes the
other. We did 4
minutes each side just to
make sure...and timed it on
a stop-watch! Piping
hot throughout and very
little, in fact next to
nothing, fat wise came out
of the sausage in to the pan
AND very little weight loss
in cooking. We would
expect grilling to also
produce a good result, and
the cooking time would no
doubt be reduced too.
We didn't consider measuring
each square to check
shrinkage as we normally
do...a square is a square!
Use straight out of the pan
in a sandwich, or on the
plate as you would regular
sausages. Mind you one
of the team insisted the
square sausage was cut in to
strips to resemble
chipolatas before she'd tuck
in! There's always one!
Successfully tried on a BBQ,
and they worked well, but
care is required, they will
be thin enough unlike the
porkers to slip through
between the grill bars!
Taste-wise the Clever
Cumberlands are wonderfully
"peppery". You get a
brilliant buzz on the
tongue, and although being
modestly thin, still holding
some succulence. The texture
is firm which courted
remarks like "this a rather
like a pork burger patty"
which I suppose is close to
the truth but if it wasn't I
suppose it would crumble in
the pan or break on the BBQ?
Nan & Granddad (We are 90
you know!) liked them too,
very much as it happens, so
you heard it here first.
They also suggested (as they
are very creative) using a
square with pastry wrapped
around as a sort of mini
sausage pie. They even
suggested using the Clever
Cumberland sausage as the
coating to make a Scotch Egg...I
suspect if we'd been nearer
Christmas, a square may have
found itself even inside the
turkey!
We also tried the PERFECT
PORK version of SQUIG
alongside the cumberland,
very nice plain pork,
similar cooking performance but we felt it was
just a tad under seasoned.
BUT, if it's only a shape we
are buying, then 2 regular
bangers sliced length-wise,
do fit perfectly in between
a couple of slices of bread.
The price for this product
is very fair, £2 for a 340g pack
from Morrisons...definitely
worth a try?
SQUIG - Clever Cumberland
(Sep
2018)
Here's the
sample details:
83g before cooking, 74g after.
That's a weight
loss of approx 10%.
£2 for a 340g pack
from Morrisons (£5.88/Kg
equiv)
www.lovesquig.com