Sausage Review - we review sausages

Churchgate (Old Harlow, Essex) - Venison & Sage

Ah! Venison sausages...we got the heads up to these from Churchgate's instagram feed and it's best to be quick and they are likely to sell out fast, so I phoned them straightaway to reserve a dozen... 

The Churchgate Sausage Company make some excellent sausages, and Jason always has something "different" to temp the palate! The pork & sloe gin, the pork & marmalade, and the pork & goats cheese to name just a few of the carefully crafted sausage flavoured delights they produce.

We are quite partial to venison but with sage as a main ingredient in a sausage, well, come on that's worth a try at least.  After all sage does compliment venison normally we agree so should be good?  I spoke to Dan at the shop about the mix and he said that the sage was under control so don't worry about it over-powering the venison but on this batch he felt that it may have needed just a touch more sage! Blige! He also added that the venison was supplied by Ben Rigby a well known and respected Essex game supplier. Any pork product used too is top quality and comes from a single Red Tractor approved Essex farm.

Venison is a lean meat, so the mix does have some pork belly added to help the resulting texture and succulence. In my haste to get on the road to my next call I did forget to ask just how much but I will update the review as soon as I get that information.  Needless to say there is a high percentage of venison in these, all loaded in to good quality natural cases.  We find the skins that Churchgate use are very consistent in quality and work well everytime. We pan fry our all samples regardless of supplier so we can be consistent ourselves with the cooking. Mind you we have had to buy a new "sausage pan" this year. As soon as we notice any sticking of the skins to the pan, it's a sure sign it's time to buy a new one. Three new pans in the 9 years we've been reviewing, that's not bad!

In the raw these sausages look stunning, with good colouring and well filled cases. Presentation of product at point of sale is important we think. We bought some everyday sausages recently (not Churchgate's I hasten to add) and even in the trays in the display they looked as if they'd had been in a serious accident!  All squished and squashed about!  Anyway moving on...

So we have here a combination of quality venison & pork belly, with sage, black pepper and parsley making up these beauties.  A dot of oil and in they went to the pan.

A very nice aroma greeted us as they cooked up. The skins browned well and although there was weight loss, the shrinkage was virtually nil.  Cooking up we did notice a slight increase of oil but that is likely the pork belly cooking up, so no panic. 

The texture of the cooked sausage was medium to firm as expected. Succulent with a very good bite and chew.

Flavour-wise, you know, Dan was right, a touch more sage and perhaps a bit more black pepper, but not withstanding, these are a very tasty sausage.

At approx £1.15 a sausage these are probably not for just whacking on the BBQ...

I wonder what a dollop of red current jelly in the mix would taste like?  Sorry Jason, just saying....

Churchgate (Old Harlow, Essex) - Venison & Sage      (Apr 2021)

Here's the sample details:
110x30mm before cooking, 110x30mm after.
86g before cooking, 71g after.
That's a shrinkage of 0% & weight loss of approx 4%.
12 loose sausages (approx 1.03kg) £13.90  (£13.50/kg)

     

Unit 5, Mayfield Farm,
Sheering Road,
Harlow,
Essex, CM17 0JP

Telephone: 01279 444812

Opening Times:
Monday: Closed
Tuesday: 9am – 4pm
Wednesday: 9am – 4pm
Thursday: 9am – 6pm
Friday: 9am – 4pm
Saturday: 9am – 4pm
Sunday: 10am – 1pm

www.churchgatesausage.co.uk