Saturday 15 November 2014

Snags, Tube Steaks, Sausages.



I was listening to some bloke on UK radio last night who was complaining that some recently bought sausages contained only 38% meat. He added that they should contain at least 85%.

Well, I wouldn't dream of buying sausages unless they contained 100% meat.

My regular purchase of a kilo or so comes in one piece, is made in front of me, and contains just coarsely ground pork shoulder, salt, and pepper. That's it... no bread, no rusk, no mechanically recovered horse meat, no sludge, no MSG, no preservative; and the casings are natural intestine!

Shouldn't ALL sausages be made that way?


27 comments:

  1. I was thinking lately about the things that we don't have here like snow, Cristmas, peace , and that's another thing that we don't have.

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    1. You are lucky not to have either Snow or Christmas, but peace and good sausages are essential.

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  2. 38% meat! Disgraceful! That is not a sausage, that is a travesty.(Or tragedy.)

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    1. I presume this is why those nasty pink things come in opaque cleverly designed packets.

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  3. I love pork sausages and here in NZ the meat content is very good about 90% depending on brand... but I was lucky enough to get a meat mincer for my birthday... (I have strange tastes in presents!) so I mince up my own meat to make sausages, it's great fun and I know what exactly goes in them and I can get natural casings from our local butcher. Just talking about it makes me want to make snags...

    Jo in Auckland, NZ

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    1. I have a 'serious' meat grinder which I use for my Paté making; I suppose I ought to use it for snags too.

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  4. You can't beat a good banger!

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  5. I slept for 8 hours. Thought you would like to know that. P won't eat bad sausages, goes mad if I buy them. With butchers disappearing like pubs over here it is getting more and more difficult to buy good sausages.

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    1. Make your own; they don't have to be in a skin, just rolled into shape.

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  6. Looks just like our traditional Cumberland sausage, still made by local butchers, not sure of the meat content, but I know it's high, each butcher adds his own selection of seasonings, s thy're all slightly different. Also bought by length and paid for by weight.

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    1. I quite expect that up in Cumbria a Cumberland Sausage is what it's supposed to be. But a Cumberland Sausage bought elsewhere would be just a name on a packet.

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    2. We always say that Cumberland sausage is only made in Cumberland (as it was before they amalgamated us with Westmorland to become Cumbria).
      You're quite right, a lot of "Cumberland" sausage is only a name on a packet, like Cornish pasty, Scotch egg, Yorkshire pudding, etc.

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  7. Nothing like a real sausage Cro. We get ours from a butcher out in the country. If an animals got to die for us, one may as well give it's death some proper taste. Being german, my dad used to feed us traditional bockwurst, again 100% meat. Now I'm hungry!

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  8. We live near Braughing who are famous for their sausages and, there are many farms near us that sell homemade sausages …… I love a good sausage, me !!!! XXXX

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  9. Your sausage looks as though it is 60% meat, and 40% fat to me. That's the trouble with sausages - they don't spend too much time trimming before they mince it up.

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    1. The fat is the important bit; all lean meat wouldn't be a sausage, it'd be a lump of meat.

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    2. There is an optimum amount, though, which many butchers exceed in my opinion. It's all to do with money, I believe.

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  10. Hey Cro, I like sausage but have no idea how much meat is in the sausage that I eat. It comes from the Walmart meat counter so I'm guessing it isn't the best. I'm just not a connoisseur of food. I probably should pay attention more to my food consumption but at least I try to stay away from fast food and eat mostly my own prepared food at home. That's a start, I suppose.

    Have a great sausage eating day.

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  11. Yum! There is a northern Italian sausage (Cudighi) we can get here in the UP which is quite tasty with clove and cinnamon and other the blended spices...now my yogurt isn't quite doing it for me this morning.....could go for some bangers and mash!

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  12. Yes they should......God only knows what's in that stuff in the grocery store.

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  13. Indeed they should Cro. But I was only reading the other day that English sausages are not like this. I always buy Heck sausages because they are locally made from Dales pork but they are only about .95% pork

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  14. Yes absolutely. (That barmy American women hater has just dropped a comment on my site - don't know whether he's landed on anyone else's?) His comment has just been processed through the sausage making machine.

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    1. I wonder how he managed to find us all? A lot of 'delete' buttons have been in service.

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  15. The U.S. had that controversy last year about the 'pink slime' meat. So I'd say you're definitely doing the right thing. 100% real is much better than mystery meat.

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  16. In France, the land of the good sausage at the moment. Have some in the fridge for breakfast as I speak. The French are good at their meat products. We English can drum up a good breakfast better than any nationality on the planet. I'm 100% sure of that - or is it 85%?

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