Sausage Review - we review sausages

Porky White's (Surrey) - Premium Farmhouse Herb

The kind people at Porky Whites sent us a range of their sausages so we could update our reviews and in this case sample a new variety. Chicken sausages, or what we call "other than pork" in our reviews, would be top of our list to buy, but, we'll give them a go...

The Porky Whites packaging has the recently been updated to a new style which we understand to be referred to as "dinner inspiration" and like their other packs it also carries a novel QR code on the back which links to some interesting recipes etc., on Porky Whites own web site. This packaging says that these are made from 82% of the finest cuts of pork. Rustic, hearty and bursting with flavour, bringing a touch of Old English charm to mealtimes. Well there's a statement...

Now the pork is described once again as from UK and non-UK sources, which isn't as specific as we would like to be honest given the amount of interest of such Sausage Review readers have said they would like. As we've said previously we'll continue to investigate this but we have read from the Porky Whites web site that "Almost all of the meat sourced for our products comes from within the UK with some additional supplies coming from trusted EU farms to make up any shortfall of UK supplies. We always ensure that animal welfare is a priority and over 90% of our suppliers are either RSPCA or Red Tractor accredited." (A figure of 100% should be the case really)

We would have preferred natural skins on these but it appears that quite a few manufacturers nowadays have switched to using casings that are the collagen type. I'm sure you've probably read previously our views on these and the difficulty we've had trying to cook such by pan frying and trying to avoid the skins splitting and in some cases going all "rubbery" and peeling off. OK yes it might not bother some, but it does bother us, and frankly others we have spoken to.

In the raw they looked OK weighing in around 67g a go and in a fairly standard size it seems at 105mm x 28mm uncooked. We note also "rusk" containing wheat in the ingredients, so these are unlikely to be gluten free.

We used the recommended guidelines on the packet regarding shallow frying (as we do all our sampling), however this time we cooked at a much lower temperature and for longer than the 15mins the packaging recommends. We utilised a catering thermometer to check the internal temperature and made sure that we exceeded a temperature of 71°C for 20 seconds to make sure they were cooked sufficiently. Food safety and all that...

They cooked up OK but even being very careful with the temperature the skins did split and peeled a bit unfortunately once again.  Look we agree that this fact isn't a show stopper but rubbery bits of skin burning in the pan and sticking to the other sausages do nothing for the overall look when dishing up. Perhaps we are being altogether too fussy, but come on things like this do matter. The cases need to retain the contents and keep the sausage succullent, having large gashes in the skins lets the juices/oils out. Yes we had splits this time but fortunately no burnt residues to contend with.

No shrinkage was found and a cooked weight loss of approx 12% was noted. Also just a touch more oil in the pan after cooking was observed but thankfully the succulence was very much ok.

The sausages did cut easily and the texture was the smooth side of medium.  The bite and chew was OK too with the "herbiness" and seasoning being abolutely spot on we are pleased to say. We ate these as part of a sausage and mash supper, which was lovely. The "herbiness" made these an excellent choice.

You may get better results with the skins if you were to oven bake or casserole these rather than pan frying or airfrying. Just saying.

The bottom line and we'll be up front, we'd buy these on our weekly supermarket shop, as they were very satisfying and tasty.

Come on Porky Whites, how about doing the Premium Farmhouse Herb sausages with NATURAL skins?

Look, this is our honest opinion and of course it may differ completely from your own. If you don't agree or have yourselves a comment or two about these, we'd be pleased to hear about it.


Porky White's (Surrey) - Premium Farmhouse Herb (May 2025)

Here's the sample details:
105x28mm before cooking, 105x28mm after.
67g before cooking, 59g after.
That's a shrinkage of approx 0% & weight loss of approx 12%.
6 sausages in a 400g pack retails online at Morrisons & Tesco etc £3.50 (£8.75/kg approx).

  

  

  

www.porkywhites.com