best sausages I've had in recent times have came from here -
Bradley Burn - Farm Shop - Holiday Cottages - Static and touring caravans
had some lamb and mint ones - and the use by date had a 5 day window between the start and finish...utterly wonderful taste data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
There's an award winning Local Butchers in East Boldon (between Sunderland and South Shields) that sells the most amazing suasages, but you have to go early in the morning as he's pretty much sold out by 11am
Archers butchers is on plumsted road, or top of ketts hill, in the parade of shop on the left opposite aldi/lidl can't remember which. It'll be the shop with the queue outside this time of year.
Can't beat it for carvery baguettes either.
All top staff as well.
I was surprised to find that some D & A sausages were unpleasantly tough and had to throw out what were left.
I agree, I've tried them the once and didn't like them for the same reasons. I've tried lots of butchers sausage and found them to be mostly pretty underwhelming as well.
It's all personal preference I guess but I generally go for a higher end supermarket sausage that contain about 85% meat. I think this allows sufficient room for the additional rusk content to give a better consistency and an interesting flavour and thus gives you a 'banger' rather than just a load of ground meat in a casing (skin).
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A big problem of course is that a lot of "posh" garden centres now have "traditional" butchers counters in them and then you get the same happening in the "posh" farm shops.
I was in Dobbies the other day and noticed that the queue for their butchers counter was almost out of the door yet the meat prices there are crazy.
Now just remember that Dobbies is owned by Tesco, do you honestly think the meat sold there is any different to that sold in the supermarket next door?
Unfortunately a lot of people are getting duped into paying top dollar at farm shops that are not actually linked to any farm and butchers counters that are just clever marketing. The clue is normally that they are more expensive than the supermarkets. Real farm shops and real butchers will always save you money.
So there are real independent butchers out there. Not in your local "farm shop" or garden centre but actually on your high street. They really are worth hunting down
Anything over 56% meat content, I'm no silver spoon lad!
Am surprised by that - I thought that brand recently won some Which magazine recommendations. We didn't have much luck cooking these - they kept coming out overly tough. Went back to the tescos finest - good range of flavours, plenty of meat content and easier to cook.
When I buy sausages they're always the Eight Thick Richmond's, but then I haven't tried that many different types.
I wouldn't mind some spice to the sausages, as I find myself spreading English Mustard onto the sausages.
Are Richmond's really that bad?
Got some Morrisons Merguez sausages in the oven right now. Smell so good!